Post by Pitch on Dec 18, 2012 19:52:50 GMT -5
Well, I beat it. Last night after breezing through the 8 main stages (again :15:), running for my life from SPOILER;Balrog, getting my ass handed to me a dozen times by SPOILER;Vega, and then spending an eternity trying to get past the rematch Boss Rush stage*, I managed to beat SPOILER;Bison on only my third try. :39: Honestly, SPOILER;Vega was a bigger challenge..
Oh, but before I move on (and since no one's going to read this post for much longer), here's this:
The ending was ... nothing special. SPOILER;Nothing at all in fact. It was SPOILER; just Ryu and MegaMan walking toward the sunset with the camera at their backs and SPOILER;not a single line of dialog or narrative. I mean, sure it was SPOILER;reminiscent of Ryu's ending at Street Fighter 2, but even that had more to it.
And then I heard that there's aSPOILER;t least one secret final boss, and to get to him/herSPOILER;(Hah. Yeah right— him. ), you have to SPOILER;get 3 Perfects (finish boss with full life meter) on the way to the final boss SPOILER;and you can't use any Continues (i.e., play on your original quarter, so to speak). So I set out to do that..
I played most of the game with just the buster the first time, so learning the bosses' weaknesses was a bit tricky at the rematch stages, but it made the game so much easier to play the second time around. Not only are the bosses easier when you know which order is correct, but the stages are all mostly designed so that the weapon in question is an effective tool for getting through the stage. (Again, it's almost like this was a MegaMan game or something.) Really, the weapons in the game are pretty great once you get the hang of them. I had no idea you could aim Yoga Inferno the first time around, for example; or that Tropical Hazzard[sic] doubles as a Rush Coil; and Soul Satellite allows you to fire its own projectiles too, and it allows you to use other weapons while it's active**.. Effective use of your weapons in this game is pretty key, and it makes things so much easier.
It actually didn't take me very long to get to the SPOILER;secret final boss. I ran through the eight main stages as practice once or twice, not worrying about SPOILER;Perfects or SPOILER;Continues, then just gave it a shot. Failed once, and had to start over, but that was it. After blasting my way past the 8 World Warriors (SPOILER;Perfects on Ryu, Chun Li and Dhalsim-- really easy stuff), narrowly escaping from SPOILER;Balrog, and only letting SPOILER;Vega tear me to shreds*** a couple times before going back and beating all 8 World Warriors again, I SPOILER; made my way back to Bison and SPOILER;whittled his health down until SPOILER;AKUMA appeared (surprising no one who knows anything about Street Fighter :35: :22:).
(The rest of this is pretty much one big spoiler, so there's no real sense in being silly with the spoiler tags. Also I'm just tired of doing that..)
SPOILER;Akuma interrupts the battle with Bison when Bison's at maybe like ¼ health. This threw me off a bit because I figured he'd interrupt right up front. I almost thought I'd missed him. :37: It was pretty funny, when “HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER” flashes on the screen when he appears , and then you get teleported out to his stage, which seems familiar, though I'm not sure what game it's from. Akuma's basically just Ryu on steroids with a Super combo that can kill you in a single hit (which is what he opened with the first time I faced him :06:). He teleports around, throws multiple Hadoukens at once (midair if he wants to), does an even more vicious hurricane kick, and sometimes drops from above you and causes an explosive shockwave that has a really large blast radius.. :18: He's fast, he hits hard and he takes hits pretty well himself. It was a real challenge to face him, and it must've taken me 2 to 3 dozen tries. (Thankfully you're free to use as many Continues as you need to face Akuma. :11:)
SPOILER;The extra boss fight is pretty much all there is to this Easter Egg. It doesn't affect the ending in any way. Although I did get the Easter Egg code above, which was so nifty. I was going to post a joke about how they should've included a code like that in the game, but it turned out they were two steps ahead of me.
I've heard there might actually be SPOILER;another secret boss, but no one's confirmed it as far as I can tell, and even if there is one it's probably even harder to get to than this one was. I doubt I could pull it off. Alas.
Anyway, that's about all I've got for Street Fighter X MegaMan. I have to say it was pretty fun. Not without its faults****, but it was a nifty little game and a good way to kick off the anniversary celebrations.
* - I found out after I beat the game that the Boss Rush stage has energy refills you can use between bosses. That would've made the whole process so much easier. (And it did in fact, when I went for SPOILER;the secret boss.)
** - The original barrier weapon in MegaMan (Leaf Shield) wouldn't even let you move without squandering it.
*** - It's kind of cool actually: just like in the game, SPOILER;Vega can drop both his SPOILER;mask and his SPOILER;claw in the course of battle. When I beat him the last time, he'd dropped both at opposite sides of the arena.
**** - Mainly just the lack of a Save feature, but a button to fire buster shots regardless of which weapon you're currently using would've been nice. Switching back to the buster after depleting the energy from your weapon of choice can be fatal against these fast-paced bosses.. :07:
Oh, but before I move on (and since no one's going to read this post for much longer), here's this:
The BEST Easter-Egg in the game:So that was that. Honestly, I'd played most of the actual game by the time I made it to SPOILER;Vega. The Boss Rush stage SPOILER;was nothing but a short jog past 5 stage baddies and into the teleporter room and the final stage SPOILER; is just one empty screen of ominous looking grass, followed by the fight with Bison. It's pretty much all bosses after SPOILER;Vega. Which is OK, because the boss battles were pretty fantastic. (The boss battle theme kind of grinds on your nerves after hearing it so many times back to back, though.. :24:) The only new boss after that point is SPOILER;Bison, because unfortunately for some reason or another SPOILER;Sagat is nowhere to be found. :16: Still, SPOILER;Bison was a pretty cool boss. His sprite was nifty-- one of the few Street Fighter MegaMan sprites I hadn't seen already. And his attacks were... well, his attacks were exactly like in the Street Fighter games, like the other bosses, which is what makes them so fantastic.
SPOILER;From the Pause menu, hold Jump and press ↑ ↓ ↓ ↓
You will thank me.
The ending was ... nothing special. SPOILER;Nothing at all in fact. It was SPOILER; just Ryu and MegaMan walking toward the sunset with the camera at their backs and SPOILER;not a single line of dialog or narrative. I mean, sure it was SPOILER;reminiscent of Ryu's ending at Street Fighter 2, but even that had more to it.
And then I heard that there's aSPOILER;t least one secret final boss, and to get to him/herSPOILER;(Hah. Yeah right— him. ), you have to SPOILER;get 3 Perfects (finish boss with full life meter) on the way to the final boss SPOILER;and you can't use any Continues (i.e., play on your original quarter, so to speak). So I set out to do that..
I played most of the game with just the buster the first time, so learning the bosses' weaknesses was a bit tricky at the rematch stages, but it made the game so much easier to play the second time around. Not only are the bosses easier when you know which order is correct, but the stages are all mostly designed so that the weapon in question is an effective tool for getting through the stage. (Again, it's almost like this was a MegaMan game or something.) Really, the weapons in the game are pretty great once you get the hang of them. I had no idea you could aim Yoga Inferno the first time around, for example; or that Tropical Hazzard[sic] doubles as a Rush Coil; and Soul Satellite allows you to fire its own projectiles too, and it allows you to use other weapons while it's active**.. Effective use of your weapons in this game is pretty key, and it makes things so much easier.
It actually didn't take me very long to get to the SPOILER;secret final boss. I ran through the eight main stages as practice once or twice, not worrying about SPOILER;Perfects or SPOILER;Continues, then just gave it a shot. Failed once, and had to start over, but that was it. After blasting my way past the 8 World Warriors (SPOILER;Perfects on Ryu, Chun Li and Dhalsim-- really easy stuff), narrowly escaping from SPOILER;Balrog, and only letting SPOILER;Vega tear me to shreds*** a couple times before going back and beating all 8 World Warriors again, I SPOILER; made my way back to Bison and SPOILER;whittled his health down until SPOILER;AKUMA appeared (surprising no one who knows anything about Street Fighter :35: :22:).
(The rest of this is pretty much one big spoiler, so there's no real sense in being silly with the spoiler tags. Also I'm just tired of doing that..)
SPOILER;Akuma interrupts the battle with Bison when Bison's at maybe like ¼ health. This threw me off a bit because I figured he'd interrupt right up front. I almost thought I'd missed him. :37: It was pretty funny, when “HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER” flashes on the screen when he appears , and then you get teleported out to his stage, which seems familiar, though I'm not sure what game it's from. Akuma's basically just Ryu on steroids with a Super combo that can kill you in a single hit (which is what he opened with the first time I faced him :06:). He teleports around, throws multiple Hadoukens at once (midair if he wants to), does an even more vicious hurricane kick, and sometimes drops from above you and causes an explosive shockwave that has a really large blast radius.. :18: He's fast, he hits hard and he takes hits pretty well himself. It was a real challenge to face him, and it must've taken me 2 to 3 dozen tries. (Thankfully you're free to use as many Continues as you need to face Akuma. :11:)
SPOILER;The extra boss fight is pretty much all there is to this Easter Egg. It doesn't affect the ending in any way. Although I did get the Easter Egg code above, which was so nifty. I was going to post a joke about how they should've included a code like that in the game, but it turned out they were two steps ahead of me.
I've heard there might actually be SPOILER;another secret boss, but no one's confirmed it as far as I can tell, and even if there is one it's probably even harder to get to than this one was. I doubt I could pull it off. Alas.
Anyway, that's about all I've got for Street Fighter X MegaMan. I have to say it was pretty fun. Not without its faults****, but it was a nifty little game and a good way to kick off the anniversary celebrations.
* - I found out after I beat the game that the Boss Rush stage has energy refills you can use between bosses. That would've made the whole process so much easier. (And it did in fact, when I went for SPOILER;the secret boss.)
** - The original barrier weapon in MegaMan (Leaf Shield) wouldn't even let you move without squandering it.
*** - It's kind of cool actually: just like in the game, SPOILER;Vega can drop both his SPOILER;mask and his SPOILER;claw in the course of battle. When I beat him the last time, he'd dropped both at opposite sides of the arena.
**** - Mainly just the lack of a Save feature, but a button to fire buster shots regardless of which weapon you're currently using would've been nice. Switching back to the buster after depleting the energy from your weapon of choice can be fatal against these fast-paced bosses.. :07: