Thoughts & Impressions on Mega Man X DiVE Offline for Steam

So, the day has finally arrived, and Mega Man X DiVE Offline is available to one and all on iOS, Google Play, and Steam for the low, low price of $29.99 USD. Some may balk at the price tag, as the original online version was free, but this is much more direct and to the point. Whereas you could play for free and hope to get lucky enough to get what you wanted out of it, or play the odds by sinking money into it to better your chances slightly, everything (almost) is right here for the purchase price.

And that is probably the biggest difference between the previous version that goes away forever at the end of this month, and this new version that’s here to stay. Players who hate the mobile landscape of gacha, pay-to-win mechanics, and all the other stuff that goes with it and wanted Capcom to release a “normal” game that they could buy? Here you go.

It’s not a flawless transition, though. When they say “offline,” they mean it. That means that even the multiplayer elements that were present in the original are now gone, though it would also seem that contrary to what rumors had suggested, you don’t have to be online to check in as a DRM measure, either.

Everybody’s here (except for the ones who aren’t)!

There are gains and losses, and while I think the gains outweigh the losses, your opinion may differ.

This isn’t quite a full review — that is, the amount of content that’s here is pretty meaty, and with review codes going out after the game’s release, there was no way I was going to finish everything and provide a timely review. Still, having played both versions a bit and consulted with others, I have a pretty good feeling for what’s changed, even if I might not be able to detail everything down to the last pixel. I’m giving my thoughts on it as the game currently stands, and if I find there’s something that changes, I’ll be sure to post an update.

In my previous article about the games, one highlight I mentioned was the joy of having a new reason to log on to a Mega Man game daily. Well, that’s no longer here. I imagine they could have just set it to your computer’s clock or something, but since the game is no longer online and doing check-ins, you don’t get check-in rewards. It’s a sad, but understandable change.

Still, ripping the gacha guts out of DiVE has been a freeing experience… mostly. I talked before about how the progression was hamstrung by your progression in the Story mode being blocked at points until you went back to an earlier world and redid those stages on Hard. Well, that’s a thing of the past! There are still Hard versions of stages, now referred to as “Challenge,” but they aren’t mandatory, though you can’t play them until you beat the regular versions, either. Some things have been changed up within them as well, like item placements, and the fact you can actually get Life Energy capsules now.

That said, you’re likely going to only get so far before you’re going to have to step back and tinker with your characters and weapons. While arguably more balanced, the game still has some annoying enemies seem to be designed to get you at least once before you get them, no matter what. The damage can be minimal, but it’s still annoying when they attack you with projectiles that just can’t be dodged without hitting something else, or running waaaaay back to escape.

But yeah, about that tinkering. While you no longer have to worry about elements that limit how long you can play different modes for, there’s still a lot of stats and stuff to deal with. Cards, chips, weapons, skills, armor, all kinds of stuff. It is probably the most granular Mega Man game ever, save for maybe Mega Man X: Command Mission, and I’m still pretty sure it has that beat. Now, you don’t have to mess with every little thing to get The Most Optimum Build Ever, but in all likelihood, you’re going to have to tinker with it at least a little.

On the upside? At least they’ve reduced all the various little things you have to get to perform various upgrades. On the downside? Well, this is only a downside if you’re not intimately familiar with the online version of the game, as we’ve gone from “very handhold-y” to “figure it out yourself.” As a result, newcomers might have a little bit of a more difficult time figuring out what they need to do in order to build themselves up and progress.

And progression is key here. Not just for seeing the story, but for… well, enjoying most of the game. In a way, it’s surprisingly linear for a Mega Man sidescroller. Levels come in a certain order, and you’ll unlock some characters by beating certain levels; in other cases, you’ll unlock the ability to purchase them from the in-game store by beating or reaching certain levels and milestones. All the Events are here, and you can toggle them on and off as you like… but you won’t be playing them until you reach a certain level, which means you won’t be unlocking certain characters associated with those events until you reach those levels.

I don’t think I’ve made it any secret that MegaMan Volnutt Alt., based on the “bad” form of MegaMan from the Mega Man Legends games, is my main in the online version. I was lucky enough to draw him during his event, and I never looked back. Now, though? I still have a ways to go before I can play as him. (I think I’m about halfway, as of this writing.) Gains and losses. At least you level up early on pretty frequently.

Incidentally, two of the last characters released in the online version, the S-Rank Hunter versions of X and Zero, come at you pretty early in the story — X by the end of the first world. I immediately switched over to him and sunk some resources into him to help steamroll some of the earlier levels… and then came to find out that X’s skins, like the Command Mission design, don’t work for him. If you’ve ever seen Command Mission X, you can imagine my disappointment.

Interestingly, I think this version may run a little better than its online counterpart. It wasn’t bad before, but things just feel a little tighter than before, in my opinion. The game is known for using the Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X engine at its core, and that was a very good game, and this just feels closer to what I remember on my PlayStation Portable than before. The controls seem a little tighter, and the graphics maybe a little bit crisper.

You can remap most of the controls as desired, though to my dissatisfaction, you cannot remap the manual aim (the game uses automatic targeting for ranged weapons, which works pretty well most of the time). It’s placed on the right analog stick for controllers, and while the default for controller movement is the left analog stick, you can move that to the Dpad easily enough. Unfortunately, though, I have a tough time moving the manual aim on the right stick and pressing the fire button just above it with the same finger. Seems like a bit of a design oversight to me.

Also worth noting is that on the Steam version, all the menu stuff is selected via mouse cursor. You can move it with the controller, but you still have to move the mouse cursor around to select anything either way. Same deal for selecting whatever you’ve highlighted, or backing out. It’s mildly annoying, but not the end of the world.

Some other thoughts on content and other things of interest: You’ve got 22 worlds here, most of which are divided up into six stages apiece, up until some of the last few. As a rule, I’d say most are shorter than your typical Mega Man X stage, but the world as a whole is probably a little longer than the average. And of course, that’s not counting the many Event stages, the Challenge versions, the Jakob Orbital Elevator stuff, and anything else I’m forgetting. And of course, there’s a whole ton of weapons and characters to mix and match to your heart’s content, helping to keep things fresh.

Unfortunately, any crossover stuff with Street Fighter (save for Dr. Light the Martial Artist, if you want to count him), Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter, and whatever else isn’t here. If Capcom has any plans to offer it as some sort of new events or DLC or what, they haven’t said. We can cross our fingers and hope they’ll find a way back in to make this package more complete, but until then, you’ll just have to be content with a pure Mega Man experience, featuring characters from Mega Man Classic, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man ZX, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Battle Network, and Mega Man Star Force, as well as some new and specifically made for this title!

If you were hoping for a more polished translation, then brace yourself. The voices are still in Japanese, including those featured in the new sound menu (and with no helpful names to figure out what they’re saying, either). And while the game’s text is in English… well, I’m going to say it isn’t always as bad as people say it is. Some bits of dialogue are good enough, I think, while other parts really want to make you say, “They thought this was good enough?” But at least these parts seem to be divided up; I’m guessing different people handled different scenes, and some just didn’t do as good a job as others. But for the most part, even if it’s clunky in a “who talks like that?” sort of way, it’s not usually confusing.

That said, I should probably also note that this is not a part of the “core” Mega Man X series. Here, you’re basically playing as yourself, using the “Hunter Data” of other characters to fix irregularities throughout the Deep Log, which is a sort of metatextual place where all of your “memories” of playing Mega Man games are kept, and are in danger of corruption and possibly even deletion. In other words, if Capcom announces Mega Man X9, you’re probably not going to have to play this to keep up with what’s going on; it’s its own thing.

Another thing new to this version is the addition of save slots. In the online version, you pretty much had the one save file that always updated whenever you clicked on just about anything, but here, you do have auto-save, as well as a number of save slots. I’m not sure how necessary that all is, but hey, it’s nicer to have the option than not.

Oh, and if you played the online version? No, your data will not carry over. Gotta start fresh.

On the whole, I am enjoying Mega Man X DiVE Offline, and if you held off of the online version because of the gacha mechanics and such, then now’s your chance to enjoy a more “normal” version of the game. For $30 USD, less than half the price of a triple-A title, I think there’s a pretty good value here. If you think that’s a bit much, though, it seems like Mega Man games on Steam go on sale often enough that you’ll probably be able to get it at a more desirable price in due time.

And if you would like another look at the game, ShadowRockZX’s latest Mega News has got you covered! Or if you’re not down with everyone featured in the game as a playable character, MegaQuint has a handy video here that not only takes you through them all (including the Crossover characters exclusive to the online version), but shows where a lot of their animations and poses originated!

Steam review code provided by Capcom.

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