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myOtaku.com: kidotaku

Sunday, September 5, 2004

Rockman X: Command Mission
Rockman X: Command Mission a couple of days following the game's Japanese release. Now that Capcom has started sharing screens and details from the game's American version, we've decided to bring you more details and media from about ten hours into the Japanese version.

Capcom may label this game as an RPG, but we'd be more comfortable labeling it with an all-new genre, the LRPG (Light Role Playing Game). Don't expect the giant maps or epic quests of the big boys of the genre. Command Mission features a small hub area, from which X and other party members warp to various stages of play. Stages take the form of multi-level dungeons, and although there are a few twists here and there involving traps and tricks that need to be cleared, these dungeons are pretty much straight forward marches from one area to the next.

There's still a lot to the game, though, including a unique battle system that feels different from other RPGs. We're actually having lots of fun with this area of the game. We detailed the basics in our initial write up. Since then we've managed to build up a large party that includes seven members. Only three characters are lined up for battle at any given time, but you can swap out characters at will during battle with no turn loss. Some characters are better suited to fighting certain enemies, meaning you can expect to use this feature quite a bit.

Once you get three members in your party, a new element called "Final Attack" is added to the battle system. Each time you strike an enemy, a meter shows how much of the enemy's remaining energy you've managed to drain with the attack. Take out more than seventy-five percent of the enemy's remaining energy in any one move (without killing the enemy), and your three characters team up for a destructive team attack. We've found ourselves aiming to take off just enough energy to get the Final Attack, even if this means limiting our attacks.

Outside of this team attack, each character has her own special attack that can be used once the character has charged up at least fifty percent weapon energy. The attack begins by tapping the right shoulder button. This leads to an input screen that's personalized by the character. X's special cannon attack involves holding down the A button and charging up the weapon; the more you charge it, the more weapon energy the attack takes up. Axl's attack has a you input a lengthy string of button presses as displayed on a chart. Get to the end of the input string and Axl transforms into one of the bosses that you've defeated. Spider's attack has you play a quick hand of poker, with the strength of the attack determined by the hand that you get. The overall strength of the attack increases as weapon energy rises.

And if team attacks and special attacks aren't enough for you, the game lets you transform your party members into "hyper mode" for a brief period, which makes them into a weapon all their own. While in hyper mode, your character's standard attacks become more powerful. However, each character can only stay in hyper mode for a few turns before switching back to normal form. It's possible to replenish the character's stock of hyper mode turns with the use of items.

You can modify your characters, both on the offensive and defensive side of things, with the use of Force Metals. A Force Metal is a stone that can be equipped to characters to modify parameters, adding attack power or HP, for instance, or making a character invulnerable to water-based attacks. Each character has a fixed set of slots for Force Metals, with X, Axl and Spider having the greatest number at four a piece. That doesn't mean that these three can necessarily equip four Force Metals. Force Metals have an energy value associated with them, with stronger Force Metals having greater values. Each character has a set value that the sum of all equipped Force Metals cannot cross. If this value is crossed, the character has a greater chance of incurring a penalty in battle, which could possibly end up handicapping life or weapon energy. Actually taking the risk of a penalty and equipping a powerful Force Metal is itself a strategy for winning some of the tougher battles.

There are other things to do in Command Mission when you're not fighting battles and playing around with Force Metals. Once you progress a few stages into the game, you gain access to a side game where you can dispatch droids to completed stages in search of items. Droids can be found in the main levels of play, where they appear as malfunctioned robots laying about. Different droids have different abilities, with some more adept at searching while others are better in battle. Once you've sent a droid out on mission, you come back a bit later to see the results of the dispatch. If successful, a droid will grow in level and carry back items, including videos and images to view in a gallery section of the hub area.

Using droids to seek out items is a cool addition to Command Mission's main RPG mode. But GameCube owners have another option for seeking out items. At a certain point in the game, players gain an item that lets them hook up their Game Boy Advance to the GameCube and use it as a radar device for seeking out items. This helps while searching through dungeons, although you'll still want to make use of droids to do the dirty work of searching dungeons that you've already cleared. The PS2 version, of course, lacks this feature (it was replaced, apparently, by a demo of Mega Man X8).

The PS2 and GameCube versions of Command Mission have a few differences beyond the connectivity support. From a presentation standpoint, we'd side quite favorably with the GameCube version, while the PS2 version could use some work. The GameCube version looks better -- very nice, actually -- compared to the PS2 version, which is middle to low ground as far as other games for Sony's system are concerned. The PS2 version runs at a lower frame rate and has lower image quality, which takes away some from the clean look of the GameCube version. Gameplay is also takes a hit on the PS2, with irritating pauses during battle due to load times.

We're not sure if Capcom will improve some of the deficiencies with the PS2 version for stateside release, but regardless of that, owners of both platforms will want to keep an eye on this game. It's by no means a full-fledged RPG, but as fans of both RPGs and Mega Man, we're enjoying Mega Man X: Command Mission.

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