Recordkeeping: Mega Man X COMPLETE

[xyzzysqrl]

Another day, another classic game of my youth DEFEATED. Young Marketable Child Sqrl would play this often, and would usually get up to about the first stage of Sigma's Fortress (the post-eight-robots boss fort... y'all know how Mega Man games work, right?) before getting kicked over and made to cry by the precise platforming involved.
Older Sqrl buckled down and tromped through this. At least two hours alone were spent on the last boss fight. Still, with a game this old... what can I say about it? I guess I'll bring my unique perspective around to focus and give it a


FURRY GRADE-DOWN

The evil reploids are all one part special weapon and one part animal theming! How do they stack up? LET'S FIND OUT. In the order I fought them:

CHILL PENGUIN
Special Power Ranking: 2/5. Makes it snow. Makes snow penguins. Jumps around and slides a lot. Not impressive.
Furry Power Ranking: 3/5. Penguins are not usually what one goes to for cuddling, but... Netflix & Chill Penguin? I think he'd make a good pillow.

SPARK MANDRILL
Special Power Ranking: 4/5. Electrical shots that crawl up and down the wall. Very handy. Charged, they work well on the next-to-last boss.
Furry Power Ranking: 2/5. Monkeys and mandrills and such are just too close to humanlike for most furry types. Still, nice facial patterns, and it's clear he lifts. Surely he draws SOME attention.

FLAME MAMMOTH
Special Power Ranking: 5/5. It's a fricking FLAMETHROWER. Flamethrowers are always awesome.
Furry Power Ranking: 5/5. Mammoths are hot. This one is particularly hot. Because of puns. And having a flamethrower. Flame Mammoth gets all the dates. He's burning up the charts.

ARMORED ARMADILLO
Special Power Ranking: 3/5. He has great armor, and his rolling shot is powerful, but he's weak to electric attacks. That's totally against being a ground-type. C'mon, Armadillo, get with the Pokemon typing.
Furry Power Ranking: 3/5. Thanks to the game "Dillon's Rolling Western", armadillos are sort of in right now. But I've yet to see anyone really go all-in for them.

STORM EAGLE
Special Power Ranking: 1/5. He blows on you and is irritating to hit. C'mon, man. For the longest time, this was the first boss I beat because he's easier than the damn penguin is. If you show up WITH the dash boots, he's effortless. What a joke.
Furry Power Ranking: 4/5. Really good design, popular species, and he has that "noble knight on the wrong side" allure going on. Notably he and the Armadillo are the only bosses from this game I've actually seen fan art of.

LAUNCH OCTOPUS
Special Power Ranking: 5/5. HOMING MISSILES HOMING MISSILES HOMING MISSILES they made the last level bearable.
Furry Power Ranking: 2/5. ...uh... tentacles? ... I ... got nothing here. Who's big on octopi? Not me.

BOOMER KUWANGER
Special Power Ranking: 4/5. His boomerangs can pick stuff up and bring it back to you. Great for lazy people.
Furry Power Ranking: 0/5. Nobody has ever put the wang in Kuwanger.

STING CHAMELEON
Special Power Ranking: 5/5. Three-way laser that makes you briefly invincible if you charge it long enough. There's never enough chance to use it, but it's great in THEORY.
Furry Power Ranking: 4/5. Maybe not FURRY exactly. Scaley. But that tongue! That tail! Yeah I'm a sucker for this.

SIGMA.
Special Power Ranking: 2/5. Owns a dog and a lightsaber he probably bought on eBay.
Furry Power Ranking: 0/5. Bald guys are not furry.

Feel free to debate these ratings in the comments. I will laugh nervously and run away.

Comments

[silveradept]

That looks like a pretty good set of rankings to me.

After doing it the hard way ,i find that being able to hadouken my way through the first two final Sigma battles made it much less annoying.

[swordianmaster.livejournal.com]

Fun fact: "Boomer Kuwanger" is a weird Japanese mashup of "boomerang" (duh) and "kuwagata", the Japanese name for a stag beetle. I assume the fully localized version of his name would've been something like Boomerstang except nobody would get that.

You're right, though, very few people want to fuck a beetle not named Ringo.

Also the Boba Fett wannabe is called "Vava" in Japan, which is the least badass name ever.

[xyzzysqrl]

I thought about explaining that he was something along the lines of a cockroach and then going for the obvious joke there except I did a quick cursory scan of furry art archives and no, plenty of people want to put the obvious joke in cockroach.

Vava. God, I want to push him over and take his mecha even more now.

[kjorteo]

*nervous cough*

[kjorteo]

"Thanks to the game "Dillon's Rolling Western", armadillos are sort of in right now. But I've yet to see anyone really go all-in for them."

... You're not familiar with Dracovar's work, I take it.

Anyway, Armored Armadillo and Sting Chameleon have always been my furry boyfriend favorites from this game, so yeah, good choices!

Also, I played this on the SNES and never tried the Maverick Hunter X version, got the boss dialogue makes this setting even more depressing than it already is. It's like they always came so close to telling what would have been an amazingly profound and poignant story about the morality of the Maverick Hunters and then "oops nevermind Sigma really does just want to kill all humans" EVERY TIME.

[xyzzysqrl]

"You're not familiar with Dracovar's work, I take it."
Notably he and the Armadillo are the only bosses from this game I've actually seen fan art of.
SHHHHHH.

I'm going to pick up MHX some day. After my brain has rested from this one.

[soulshrapnel.livejournal.com]

Salie said penguins are TOTALLY cuddly. Then we Googled Chill Penguin and she was like eh, that's all right I guess, but it would be hard to cuddle him when he's wearing pauldrons.

This is totally not what you meant by Netflix & Chill Penguin, I know.

[xyzzysqrl]

I think I am the one person on the internet who really DOES mean "flop around and be cuddly while watching stuff".