ScrewAttack’s “Terrible Thursday” Presents Mega Man X7

Recently, we received an interesting e-mail* which posed a question: “X7 seems to be universally panned as an awful game. I certainly don’t think it’s bad, at worst okay. I thought X6 deserved that title the most due to obvious complications in its design. But that’s all a thing of personal opinion. Why is X7 seen as the absolute low point of the series? I know that the idea of 3D was disarming, but I didn’t feel as though it made things more difficult than they needed.”
While we were pondering a response to this, even considering an article which might examine the game a little more in-depth, Thursday rolled around and ScrewAttack had their weekly “Terrible Thursday” edition of their daily program “Screwin’ Around.” And, in a rather amazing coincidence, they decided to play Mega Man X7 to see why it was so reviled:

Incidentally, one good reason is the obnoxious sound; as it starts, it’s rather difficult to hear them over the game’s noise pollution (the Scooby-Doo posts arguably being the worst offenders), but they get that straightened out before long.

Truth be told, Mega Man X7 isn’t quite the worst game out there, and it even does some things right… pretty well, even. The graphics are quite good, with a nice blend of CG modeling and cel-shading, and the soundtrack’s not bad. But it does so much else wrong, or just poorly, that while it may not be the worst game ever, it falls well short of the mark that Capcom had established with the Mega Man series.

* Name omitted to protect the innocent, though if they wish, we’ll edit it in later.

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