September 14, 2004 - It's been a rough couple of years for Mega Man X fans, as the last three installments of the series have been somewhat disappointing when compared to previous installments from the SNES and the early PlayStation One days. Yet amazingly, while less "mature" iterations like Mega Man Anniversary Collection and the GBA EXE titles prove that the Blue Bomber still has some staying power left in him, the grittier version of Mega Man continues his downward spiral at a Volvo's pace -- with what seems to be fewer and fewer interested parties coming along for the ride. And though Capcom has yet another action/platformer in the X series headed for the PS2 later this year (Mega Man X8, which will officially catch it up to the regular Mega Man franchise in terms of sequential numbering), it's hoping that its latest interpretation of the universe's most prolific Maverick Hunter can turn a bad luck streak in the opposite direction.
But to expect Command Mission to be as epic or sweeping as something like Xenosaga or Final Fantasy X, however, would be a sizeable mistake; as the storyline is really more along the lines of the side-scrolling action titles from whence it came. For the most part in fact, the plotline rarely gets any grander than one main objective: use X to save Giga City from the insidious Rebellion force and uncover the parties responsible for helping it rise to power. To its credit, though, the production team has done a commendable job towards encouraging players to care about such a minor task, and have somehow taken what would be a brief sidequest in other RPGs and transformed it into an interesting and involving narrative backdrop.
The most surprising aspect of Mega Man X, however, is the fact that it isn't an action/RPG at all. As instead of going the real-time combat route that most franchise veterans would expect it to (ala Kingdom Hearts, or even something like .hack), Command Mission borrows its battle system from Namco's heavy hitter Xenosaga. Known as the "X Order System", the combat engine uses an initiative tree just as Shion's adventure did with a graph that represents each character in the melee. Depending on whether or not the party earns the element of surprise, is in possession of higher speed attributes than their enemies, or has some kind of item that increases their placement in the rotation, their position on the grid is prioritized. One turn at a time, the grid cycles through the combatants (both enemies and allies alike), and provides a visual cue as to when a character's turn is and how much health they have left. It's a great planning tool, and adds a nice touch of strategy to the combat despite the fact that we've seen this kind of approach before.