Rockman Xover First Impressions – Yeah, It Sucks
Well, here we are. The most infamous Mega Man game ever made is now out in Japan. The level of hatred this title has accrued is practically viscous. And yet, even now with the released game in my hands, I can’t bring myself to hate it, or hate Capcom for making it. I mean come on, it’s a game. Maybe it’s just me, but even as huge of a Mega Man fan as I am, I just feel like, if I’m gonna take the energy to hate something, it’s gonna be something more important than this.
But I’m also going to tell you like it is. And Rockman Xover is really nothing special. But you knew that already. We all expected as much. In honesty, the game’s gameplay and design is passably amusing. What really bogs it down, however, are the glitches and other oddities I’ve ran into. And moreover than that, dealing with switching my iPad between two regions has been seven times more frustrating than anything this game has thrown at me.
The top video is my first 20 minutes with the game. I do apologize about the sound quality; the recording device was actually recording from the iPad’s mic and not the game’s direct audio. Fortunately I more or less kept quiet (though see if you find the one spot where I react to the game’s “variety” in stages, hehehe).
Once you’ve watched that, you can press on to see my additional details and gripes about the game. We’re going down the rabbit hole, and there’s no coming back.
So as you know, the game is free to play, meaning that you can always try it out without any risk if you have a corresponding iOS device (and I won’t mince words here: if you buy an iOS device to play this game, you are an idiot). So what does cost money? As it turns out, Rockman Xover has two currency systems. The first is zenny, which is earned from every enemy you beat. But there is also a currency called “crest” (kuresuto… yeah I dunno), which you can only gain by purchasing in real money. Crest can be bought in quantities ranging from ¥85 to ¥5,700.
Crest is used to buy premium Battle Memory cards, as well as assist items such as E-Tanks, P-Tanks and Rescue Calls. Zenny, meanwhile, can be used to buy standard Battle Memory, or items that you can gift to friends. These items will also be gifted to you the more days you play the game.
The gameplay itself is largely the same as the small bit we showed you before. Funnily enough, they even threw in a tutorial, just in case the concepts of jumping and shooting are mystifying to you. Curiously, the progress meter that was on the bottom of the screen is now gone. Enemies will drop Battle Memory cards and usually one map piece per stage. Annoyingly, the game gets paused every time you pick one of these it up so it can show it to you. As easy as the gameplay is, it can throw you off if you grab a card while trying to jump. Enemies also drop items to refill your EP and PP.
EP and PP themselves are another kind of currency, in a sense. You spend EP to play quests and PP to play team battles. EP and PP refill over time, but enemies tend to drop refill items enough that running out never became an issue. Furthermore, when you level up you can points you can spend to increase your EP, as well as the cost allotment for carrying Battle Memory cards.
The stages themselves have been pretty underwhelming so far. In fact, they’ve all been the same stage! Every stage in World 1 is the same city background, with the same music and same two enemies (Raybit and Batton Bone from MMX). No matter what boss you pick in the world, it’s always the same stage. The bosses themselves are pretty uninteresting; even elementally themed characters like Flame Mammoth and Spark Mandrill just jump on you or punch you every turn. Of course, the bosses so far are all Lv. 1; they may gain new attacks as they become stronger. Bosses also have their own Battle Memory cards, though I have yet to see them put to use. Beating a boss wins you an armor piece on top of the XP and zenny and such.
The “auto” button is also gone, it appears. However, before boss battles, the game will ask if you want the battle to play automatically or not. Since boss battles are basically back and forth slap fights, I’m guessing this feature is here to speed along what is otherwise an inevitable outcome, depending on your stats.
You can also have the game automatically chose the most optimal Battle Memory cards to put in your deck, which I personally find preferable. Looking over the sea of cards you’ll quickly accumulate and comparing their various stats can be time consuming. I’m also not sure if there’s any way to sell or otherwise discard cards you don’t want. You can also spend zenny to power up your cards.
In spite of everything, there are some things I like about the game. It definitely, even if just a little, has a certain sort of… “charm” to it. Despite being a very simplistic game with little effort put into presentation, you do get the feeling that the creators had some interesting ideas. I really do like the idea of a Mega Man card game with cards based on all the enemies and support characters from all the series. Also, I can’t help myself, I really do like OVER-1′s design. It’s a clean, balanced design that combines attributes from various series. I even like his silly furry boa.
It also is mildly fun to play through and see what kinds of cards you get. Even when I’m tired of jumping and shooting, I still want to press forward a little and see what else I can get. After all, that is the appeal to these kinds of games. Capcom is really banking that you’ll cash in on some crest to get nice cards. I might, considering that I was forced to buy an iTunes card to even register a Japanese account in the first place. *muffled curses*
But, let’s get to the bad. And oh yeah, all the social RPG and death of Mega Man stuff aside, there is quite a bit of bad. Primarily, the game is pretty glitchy and has major issues with its account system.
So, in the first bit I played (video above), I didn’t run into any problems. However, after hassling with getting the video footage off of my iPad, when I tried to run the game again it just didn’t want to work. The screen would blink for a moment, as if trying to load the program, then it went right back to the home screen. I have no idea if this was an error that occurred from switching my iPad account between regions or what, but in the end I had to delete and re-download the game to make it work.
And that’s where problem number two comes in. There is, so far as I can tell, no way to recover a game account. In fact, when I made my original account I didn’t even make a password for it. There is the option to link your account with Twitter or FaceBook, but I didn’t since, honestly, I don’t care. So after reinstalling, I was forced to make a new account, with my original just floating out somewhere in the void. I’m thankful that I didn’t use any special item cards from magazines, because those would have certainly been burned. My new account is now linked to Twitter (which, so far as I know, does nothing). I guess if I ever have to reinstall the game again, I’ll see if that helps in recovering the account.
Additionally, I’ve run into some crashes and such while playing the game, which is pretty unusual for something running on iOS. I don’t know if my WiFi connection is bad, or maybe the servers for the game are just overactive right now, but there have been a number of instances where the game just stops loading, or pulls up a 500 error internet page. Other times the game just shuts down randomly in mid-play. I really can’t find any trigger to it, though I suspect it’s due to a weak connection. Thankfully, your quest progress is saved (each quest is composed of four to five stage segements), otherwise every crash would mean wasted EP.
I’ve yet to try out any of the other features, such as the team battles and Master Boss. I kind of want to get the ropes better before venturing into the social stuff, although I have had a few random people send me friend requests (between each stage you are shown three random players whose profiles you can browse).
And that’s pretty much it. Long story short, a mildly charming time waster that doesn’t even come close to satisfying a core Mega Man fan. And although you might say that the game is intended for other audiences, the content is inserted with Mega Man fans in mind, for sure. For people who don’t like or don’t know about Mega Man, I’m not sure what appeal this game would have next to the 300 other games that are the same thing.
And I’ve written more about this game than anyone has any right to. Interesting idea, Capcom, but please give me a real Mega Man game to review next time! 
Tags: iOS, review, Rockman Xover, RPG, social, video
Filed under: Reviews
@Heatman
Yeah thanks for the review guy you didn’t have to ,but you did.
OVER-1′s rockin’ those 3 frames of animation! I’m curious why they would release this game. Who did they think was going to like it? Not to mention the game has two songs in it. Where’s the ingenuity of Mega Man? Was Legends 3 really not better than this? What have you done, Capcom…? It’s quite a feat, but I think they cared about Mega Man on this one less than Sega did in Sonic 06.
@Matt
Well, I (and just about every other gamer) can tell you who won’t like this:
Megaman fans: hey, say what you want about us being whiny, entitled, spoiled, brats, but at least most (MOST) of us have some (SOME) standards when it comes to what games bear the Megaman/Rockman moniker.
Hardcore gamers: iOS platform? Virtually no challenge whatsoever (check out those nonexisting platforming sections!) and no real sense of accomplishment (pushover boss “fights”).
LEGENDS followers: Come on, do I really need to reiterate why this particular group (of which I am not actually a member of) feels like they’ve been shafted by CAPCOM the most?
So…….. do we have any ideas when we’ll get sale figures?
Considering the game is free to play, I’m guessing sales will total exactly $0.0000.
Unless you mean sales for the DLC “Crests”.
Or if you meant download numbers, which also won’t be for a while, seeing as how the game literally JUST came out this week..
A youtube user by the name Zackthesomething uploaded footage of the second “world”.
The four bosses of that set are the other four MMX1. Surprise surprise.
Same as me, the only things i liked about this game is the OVER-1 design and the card system…man i hoped Capcom can put both of those things in a much better game.
@Bob
I think watching that “gameplay” just pushed me a little further off the edge.
I take it this game is aimed at a particular gamer known as the OCD collector (all those battle memory chips!).
@Heatman: Why would you replay ANY of those stages to replay a boring boss? Even if it is harder, that doesn’t make it any less dull. :3
I don’t think even i’ll be able to die in this game. And I suck at Megaman games.
It’s a shame this game is so awful. It had a great concept. Too bad everything else wasn’t so great. :\
Maybe someone should make a fangame with that concept?
You guys are being too harsh. Obviously this game is amazing since it passed Capcom’s incredibly high standards of quality when, you know, Mega Man Legends 3 did not. /endsarcasm
You wanna know why this sucks?
It’s an example of a game doing NOTHING to engage it’s fans.
I mean, it’s basically rehashes of old game material. And guess what. That gameplay? It’s the worst gameplay IMAGINABLE.
I dunno, ever since I watched that episode on Sequelitis about Mega Man, I’ve been more judging on games. For example:
The way that the controls in XOver is made seems fairly straightforward, but Capcom assumes that you are a stupid player by teaching you how to play. Ok, I may not be making sense. Just watch the Sequelitis episode and I assure you, you’ll understand what I’m getting at. You’ll just how suckish this game is, and you’ll hate Capcom for it, for how they chose to pass this game out and not even think about reinstating Legends 3, which is a better game than this crap.
You wanna know why this sucks?
It’s an example of a game doing NOTHING to engage it’s fans.
I mean, it’s basically rehashes of old game material. And guess what. That gameplay? It’s the worst gameplay IMAGINABLE.
I dunno, ever since I watched that episode on Sequelitis about Mega Man, I’ve been more judging on games. For example:
The way that the controls in XOver is made seems fairly straightforward, but Capcom assumes that you are a stupid player by teaching you how to play. Ok, I may not be making sense. Just watch the Sequelitis episode and I assure you, you’ll understand what I’m getting at. You’ll just how suckish this game is, and you’ll hate Capcom for it, for how they chose to pass this game out and not even think about reinstating Legends 3, which is a better game than this crap.
Oh and sorry for the double post but here’s just one last lament:
I really don’t want Over-1 to die having only starred in an abysmal game. If only someone talented with game design could make a new game based on the story (?) of XOver and use Over-1. It’s a shame; he looks awesome with that fur thing.
I can’t believe I watched that whole video…
All of my apathy. Well, Over-1 and Kalinka do look nice, but that’s all…
Also, to people wondering about Beat. That’s Beat’s Battle Network design. I’ve seen that art elsewhere, even though it is rather rare.
Okay, I’m serious about the fangame thing here. I like Over-1 and I like this new Kalinka… I think if someone made a game using Over-1 (with Kalinka as a navigator) that plays like the Mega Man X games, but has a HUGE roster of bosses from throughout the entire Mega Man franchise… it could be pretty epic. Since Capcom screwed the concept up so badly, I really do think it would be cool if the fans took the concept and made it into a game that’s actually fun to play!
So many issues……..
This is what Mega Man has become?
3 cancelled games…. for this?
There isn’t even much to the game play…. it’s all bats and bunny-roids. The stages are short….. and game play is interrupted every 5-10 seconds for that item you pick up…. as if they have to stop the game play just to tell you what you got.
This is embarrassing.
The level up system seems meaningless… the cards have little impact on anything…. there doesn’t seem to be any visual changes from stage to stage.
Thank God for fan games!
You know, after playing it (and not running into too many bugs) I have to say my over all “view” of this App has changed. From what I have seen, we fans sure have a HIGH standard on this even when knowing it was coming out of the iOS from the start. What were we to expect? A new MegaMan with a totally new storyline with bosses, stages and all of that? No. However that seems to be the core drive behind the hate for this APP. Most of the hate is over-reacting because they were expecting a game that would appeal to the other MegaMan games as a side-scroller plat-former that everyone expect it to be but deep down after hearing that it was coming to the iOS system, it is easy to see that wouldn’t have happened. Is Xover bad? Yes but that is because it doesn’t have the appeal of the other MegaMan games but is it 100% down-right trash, no. My ratings for this would have to be like this:
MegaMan game: 4/10
fun-app on the phone: 8/10
Thanks for the review, Heat. Much appreciated.
Sigh. I long for when Capcom takes Mega Man seriously again…
… The concept of this game….
It could’ve been so much more than this.
I hope they use this idea again in the future, and put forth the effort to make it into an actual Mega Man game we know Capcom is capable of creating.
Thanks for the review, Heat Man! Honestly, no one would’ve minded if you didn’t want to review it, and never did, lol. But you went the extra mile, anyway, so that’s cool.
All i see is recicled music, enemies, and mostly everything from the x series.. This sucks potato’s.
All i see is recicled music, enemies, and mostly everything from the x series.. This sucks potato’s.
You know what actually bugs me about this game? we basically played a homebrew copy of this a while back (of which i am sure capcom knew) and we didnt like it… so they release it anyway with absolutely no change, surprisingly for free and all it’s left us with is bittersweet feelings of a time we thought we’d have with Universe, Online and Legends 3… how distasteful… they would rather waste money on a flop of a game (RE operation raccon city) than continue on the three original projects they were working on… sad
@Xover-isnt-THAT-bad
I have to disagree with your sentiments. I think most of the hate for this game is because the game itself is not one of quality, be it a Megaman game or not.
That’s subjective of course and you’re free to disagree, but the biggest issue is the gameplay not because it isn’t what most people think of when they think of a Megaman game, but because the gameplay is so repetitive, simple, and dull.
From my perspective there is no real driving force to play the game. After you play it one stage and fight one boss you’ve essentially done all there is to do.
Yes there are cards to change your stats, but what does that really matter? The boss fights are predetermined and it doesn’t look like the cards play into the running stages at all, so that idea is sort of a wash.
Because the gameplay is so simple and doesn’t evolve or change really at all from what we have seen as the game progresses, there is little to no reason to play.
Again, if you think it’s a fun time waster of an app or something that’s fine, but for most people it doesn’t even hit that standard.
well i have to correct myself because not only is capcom not working on “online” (it’s neowiz) but it hasnt’ been cancelled yet.
here’s hoping we got something awesome to deal with in the coming spring.
@Xover-isnt-THAT-bad: Please tell me you’re being sarcastic.
Xover is not just a bad Megaman game, it’s a bad game PERIOD. It’s not engaging in any way, it’s repetitive as hell, and it was clearly made with minimum effort AT BEST. Better iOS games can and have been made; Xover has no excuse to be such tripe.
For reference, MMX: Command Mission was rather removed from the typical MMX gameplay, but was still a good game in its own right.
Actually If you clear this game with 100% completion you get Xover Plus unlocked. This is where the real game starts. They f*ucking hidden the real deal just to troll us.
………
At least Kalinka’s cute.
“…I won’t mince words here: if you buy an iOS device to play this game, you are an idiot”
And that’s the *optimistic* Mega Man fan’s review…
game of the year
Would Legends 3 have outsold this steaming pile of crap? I think we all know the answer. Doesn’t matter how cheaply you can produce a game if the reviews tell people not to buy it. A polished, good-looking original game with a bit of a price tag will outsell bargain bin garbage any day.
It’s as if Nintendo threw Mario into the dustbin and pretended nothing was wrong.
I am a Legends fan to the death, and yes, I’m still mad.
R.I.P. Mega Man Legends 3
Sept. 29, 2010 – July 18, 2011
There is no Capcom without you.
I watched a whole 2 minutes of this and actually nodded off to sleep. Could not keep me interested. The whole picking when to jump and attack and which attack to use gimmick seems kinda fun, if maybe it was a little more fast paced so it feels like a real game, and maybe if the characters actually honking looked animated.
Bottom line: This is jiveier than a bad MegaMan X fan game. Over-1′s design is the only good thing about this game. The rest was better off not even existing…
Not everything it’s bad in the game, customization is fun and collecting chips is fun too. It’s a bad game?, yes, it’s a bad Mega Man?, yes, I don’t think that can be argued.
Whats up with you guys and gals in assuming this game has a price tag? Its free ,but the DLC’s not that you would buy them will cost you. So I suppose its free at start ,but if you want to puchased the other features and extra things there you go thats how the money will be made. This a common with other apps as well so I suspect thats the case with this one as well.
This game is an insult.
@NovaManXP
all years
This is what happens when we tempt fate with a Rockman video game, the game gets more uninteresting the more we poked it.
They absolutely did not try to revive MegaMan with this game. Capcom, you’re really putting me over the edge…
God Please tell me the city isn’t the ONLY stage!!!
I saw another “world” where its the city at night. =/
Maybe this would have done better in the early days of iPhone where it wasn’t too much of a sin to have your game look like a mid-development high school programming student’s project, but in this day and age? A lot more effort should have gone into it as a game. iOS has a lot of power under the hood and you can see that reflected in projects from other professional devs.
Look at Rayman Jungle Run from Ubisoft just oozing charm and offering similar gameplay to this, if not infinitely more entertaining. While that one costs money, I’d absolutely recommended putting down for it rather than this pile of feces wasting memory on your iOS devices.
Swing and a miss yet again, Capcom. Maybe it’s time to step out from the big leagues and go back to the playground.
And Capcom wonders why no one is interested in Megaman anymore…. Maybe they should actually put some effort into their games, y’know just an idea.
this game sucks
I think its a better idea to just buy a 3DS and buy the first megaman game on the eshop there just to show we DO like megaman but we wont buy games of megaman that are merely just to cash in. i do like that megaman design if i could see it better. and roll looks nice. but really, they need to try hard and i dont want them to think we dont want megaman, we do. we just dont like how theyre butchering him. he deserves better. as in not be a freaking phone game.