Street Fighter X Mega Man

 I always thought fan games were cool. I especially think it's cool when developers and publishers put their support behind those fan games. And I especially, especially when those fan games mix two of my favorite franchises in a way that makes sense.

Anyone that has been following my content for any length of time knows I am a huge fan of both Mega Man and Street Fighter. You know, I didn't even realize how much I like Capcom games in general. When I first tried to start blogging back in my college days, I did a list of my top 100 video games of all time. That list would look much different if I did it today, but I don't think my top games would change too much. Of my top five, four of them were Capcom games and I didn't notice until I looked at it many years later when I started GOTBP. In fact, both of these series found their way into my top five. So yeah, a crossover between the two would be right up my alley. Apparently, I wasn't the only one either, because someone liked the idea so much they decided to make that fantasy a reality. And hey, credit to Capcom too for throwing their support behind it. It's amazing how much the industry landscape has changed in the last ten years. If a fan created Street Fighter X Mega Man today, I'm not sure they would have received said support.

At any rate, SFXM sees you take control of the Mega Man and anyone that's played that series knows what to expect. The blue bomber battles against eight robot masters, each with their own unique weapon. Each enemy is weak to another's power, so while you can play the stages in any order you are heavily incentivized to follow the boss weakness order. Once you defeat all eight, the final levels open up and you have to complete another series of stages before inevitably encountering the nefarious Dr. Wily. Of course, this time around the robot masters have been replaced with Street Fighter characters and Dr. Wily with M. Bison. Defeating the first eight bosses will send you to Bison's castle, where you will do battle with the Shadaloo bosses before facing the dictator himself. Wow, I just realized that the Street Fighter II and Mega Man games have the exact same progression despite being totally different genres. You fight eight opponents, then three bosses, then the final boss. Crazy. Anyway, as I do with any other Mega Man game, I have to look at the bosses individually. Our eight here are:

-Ryu (You knew he would be here)

-Chun-Li (Her too)

-Blanka (Always popular and a good choice from SFII)

-Dhalsim (All the SFII characters are so iconic you can't go wrong with any of them)

-Rolento (Probably not who I would have picked from the Alpha series)

-Rose (A better pick than Rolento from Alpha, I guess there aren't that many unique characters from these game)

-Urien (I guess a solid pick from SFIII, others are more iconic but his abilities fit a game like this better)

-C. Viper (Did we really need a representative from the EX games?)  

It's a pretty solid group, I might have made a few changes but these guys all work. You do also have to consider how their abilities would translate to a game like this. In a vacuum, Urien is far from the first person I'd pick from SFIII. Elena, Ibuki, Yun, Yang and Dudley are all characters I might go to first. But their abilities just don't lend themselves to a Mega Man game like Urien's do. He is far and away the toughest boss here. I struggled with him even with his weakness weapon. Rolento was also pretty tough, but I found him to be a little fairer. On the flip side, Ryu and Chun-Li are very easy, which I think is okay to have in a Mega Man game. None of the boss fights are amazing, but they are all at least decent and I think it's really cool that they made their Street Fighter move sets into effective robot master patterns.

The bigger issue here is the stages. They don't always flow like typical Mega Man stages and tend to be either too short or too long. The difficulty is also very hit or miss. Only one of them hit the right spot here, most were either too easy or too hard. Chun-Li's stage is laughably easy, it's just a matter of choosing one of the several offered paths and shooting an enemy if it gets in your way. Urien's stage had some tough jumps, but it was also very short. Rolento and Dhalsim's stages were a bit disorganized, Roses was too although it starts with a pretty cool Rush Jet sequence. Viper and Blanka probably had the best stages, or at the very least the ones that felt the most Mega Man-like. I do have to give them credit for the visuals and sound though, all of the levels evoke their character's respective stages and the music features an interesting mashup of Street Fighter and Mega Man tunes. The Bison's fortress stages are okay, though they are more gimmicky than you would see in a typical Mega Man title. The first is an auto scroller where you have to run to the right before Balrog can catch you. If he gets close, it's a one hit kill. Vega's stage is just a brief climb up a tower, though the fight with the claw himself is an absolute beast. I never thought I'd find myself getting yo-balled to death in a Mega Man game, but here we are.

Powers were also a little bit of an issue for me, with Blanka's as the most egregious. You have a beast man that can roll himself into a ball and shoot electricity and his power is...a coconut? That you drop on the ground and kick? Rolento has a grenade, which is okay but very situational. I also always associated him more with his knives, so I was kind of expecting something along those lines. Dhalsim's power is at least a reference to his Yoga Fire and Urien's is his reflector shield, so these are at least on theme though they are both fairly situational. Ryu and Chun-Li both give you a Hadouken and Lightning Kick respectively, so those were probably my favorite. Overall, a lot of the abilities are a bit too situational and it does kind of feel like the stages, or even the bosses, aren't really designed with them in mind. Urien is weak to Rolento's weapon, but the difference is so negligible I didn't even notice the first time I fought him. We need not give all the bosses Spark Mandrill Syndrome, but using the weakness weapon should always have a noticeable effect.

That said, gameplay still has that perfectly tight Mega Man feel and physics to it. The controls are precise and consistent, when you die it feels like it's your own fault. Hit detection is good, jumping is good, movement feels normal, it feels like Mega Man. Much of the frustration comes from your abilities being so situational, but that is more a function of trying to adapt fighting game abilities to a platformer rather than an issue with the game itself. I think they were right to play it safe here, there's a time and a place for experimentation and a fan service title probably isn't it. The concept alone was unique enough and it's not like the Mega Man formula isn't tried and true. The graphics are great, the sound is great and I really can't too many issues with the moment-to-moment gameplay.

At the end of the day, Street Fighter X Mega Man was a fun little diversion that should appeal to fans of both series. It's way more Mega Man than Street Fighter, but I don't know how else they could have done this, especially since Mega Man is already in a bunch of fighting games (I still want my tournament fighter with all the robot masters though). I think the stages here were a little too simple and easy for it to really stand out as a viable alternative to the actual mainline series. I might even say it's a good place to get started if you are new to Mega Man. It may not have been the greatest, but Street Fighter X Mega Man was a fun fanservice title that is absolutely worth checking out.

7.75/10