However, it’s not just Mega Man, it’s a particular game in the series, namely Mega Man X. Back in the days when I was a young lad, prancing about in my primary school uniform and unaware that men are capable of growing hair from their faces, I came across a game called Mega Man X. Having played the previous games when I was even younger, I nagged and screamed until my mum bought it for me, and thus I was a happy boy.
Joy was had from playing my Super Nintendo. It was Mega Man, but with an X in it, and he can UPGRADE HIS ARMOUR. This was too cool to be true and it made me happy. Plus the game had an awesome boss called “Boomer Kuwanger”. Amusement ahoy.
But this is Love to Hate dear readers, and while much love, praise and many lonely nights were had cuddling a cartridge, there was also much hate. The seething, furious kind which turns normal human beings into giant bulges of flesh that roar viciously and devour innocent puppies and kittens. Thankfully I’m already a little loose in the head so that didn’t happen to me, however, much anger was still had, along with a few small bouts of complete blinding insanity fuelled by the cataclysmic difficulty of the game.
So as I’ve already established, Mega Man X is difficult. Hell, all Mega Man titles were difficult, with challenging boss patterns and a progressive single player adventure that required some old school patience and consistency. But X grinded my gears the most out of all of them. Not because of the eight mavericks you fight initially or any of that, but because of the damn build up to the final boss.
Let’s set the scene. I’ve just beaten up the eight mavericks that Sigma has sent to kill me, learnt their patterns and received their powers, upgraded my entire suit, and I’m now at Sigma’s fortress ready to blow a hole through his head with my giant X-buster of the Robo-Gods. I battle through dozens upon dozens of enemies, plow through some minor bosses, and finally get to the end, ready to blast beams of energy up Sigma’s backside. As I reach the end, it’s a different boss. Some random Spider boss that crawls up walls extremely fast, with a weak point that opens up for about 0.5 seconds every 30 odd seconds and is the size of half the room. A couple of deaths, wasted ammo and expletives later, I take the eight legged robot spider down and proceed to the next section of the fortress. Okay, so Sigma’s after this, cool. I keep going.
Once more, I delve deeper into Sigma’s fortress, blowing apart robots, eating children, punching walls and headbutting stuff. I reach the end, screaming out Sigma’s name and telling him his mother’s a horrible cook, only to find the ground has turned into instant kill spikes, and a giant face with laser eyes, pulse rifle nostrils and plasma cannon lips pops out from the back wall, firing at me rapidly.
Now at this point, I was fuming. This boss in particular was obscenely difficult, as falling is pretty much instant death, and when you’re being hit by about a billion lasers while you’re clinging onto a wall by spamming a button...yeah it’s kinda difficult to keep up. Oh and let’s not forget while you do this, you need to shoot this guys face. All individual parts too, so you have to shift down and position yourself on the SIDE OF A WALL WITH SPIKES UNDER YOU correctly to actually hit him.
So after about 10 replays trying to burn through this, I finally take down arse face the decimator and proceed. “FINALLY” I think, it’s time to destroy Sigma and never play this game again. I happily proceed to the next stage, with a few lives to spare and no more spare energy supplies, then I realised it’s another level I have to go through. Holy sh-----.
Because of the completionist within me, I kept going and didn’t stop, hoping that by the end of this damn level, I can fight Sigma and unleash my unrelenting fury on his face. So I’m trudging along, angry and blowing hernias, and reach a mini boss. The lights turn out and a familiar entrance for this boss occurs. My face hits my palm as I realise it’s one of the mavericks from the beginning of the freaking game. I kill him with ease and continue on to another room, frustrated and chewing on my own lip, only to encounter another maverick from the beginning. Then it hit me. The next six rooms after this dude were the rest of the mavericks. What the hell?!
I’m going to stop here to be polite and not turn into a raging pirate of mass destruction. But you pretty much get the idea. In order to get to the final boss of this game, you have to kill eight mavericks, two ridiculously hard bosses, eight mavericks again, then to complete this, kill some random dinosaur robo-tank that eats you (I’m not kidding), face Sigma’s dog who is unfathomably difficult, then FINALLY face Sigma himself, who is surprisingly easy. But the twist of this? After his death, his head magically floats upwards, connects onto a gigantic robot with spikes for hands and then you have to fight that, which is a whole lot harder than just Sigma. Sounds hard? You bet. Infuriating? You have no idea. I love you Mega Man, but holy crap, next time just nuke Sigma, it saves me from having an aneurysm.
Until next time fellow angry readers, hate makes you powerful, unlimited power!
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