Mega Man X DiVE Offline
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Introduction
==========
For several years, Mega Man X DiVE was available on mobile devices and here on Steam. But it eventually met it's end. Instead of letting it die completely, Capcom surprised fans by announcing an Offline version. Shockingly, it fixed every single issue fans had with the game --- which were the predatory practices seen in many Gacha games. You could buy "Metals" with real life money and spend it for a chance to get the character you wanted, with character availability rotating out every so often. To make it worse, they also did this for your weapons. While you could earn some characters and weapons through normal gameplay without spending money, they were nowhere near as powerful as the ones you could get through the Gacha system, so you were compelled to spend if you wanted to get anywhere near the higher end of the game without extensive grinding. All of that is gone in this release. Instead of gambling your money at the chance to get what you want, you can pay the price for this version of the game and have the ability to unlock everything through normal gameplay.

Gameplay
==========
If you're a fan of Mega Man...you really don't need me to tell you how this plays. It's much the same as literally every Mega Man title. Run to the right (sometimes left, oh my!!!), jump and shoot to destroy enemies in your path, with some light to medium platforming. Every so often you'll encounter a boss, who is much more of a challenge than the fodder up to that point. However, this is laid out like a mobile game, with several bite-sized stages in each area that culminate with a boss stage at the end. Clear each stage while meeting certain criteria nets you bonus rewards, but these are very easy to complete if you keep up with powering up your chosen character.

You'll be spending a lot of time in menus powering up your characters and weapons. There are also skills and cards to collect and powerup as well, which all add to your character's overall power rating. This is a very rough gauge to tell how ready you are to face stages, as each stage has a recommended power rating. This can *mostly* be ignored, as even if you are a bit underpowered a skilled player could cleanup the stage nicely despite being "lower level". But it's so easy to powerup and be over-prepared for each stage, you may as well take it unless you want to challenge yourself a bit more.

Graphics
==========
I'd say the overall graphics are fine. Nothing groundbreaking or to write home about, but you can tell this was a mobile game. On the bigger screens, backgrounds on the loading screens can look a little pixelated, but that's about the only complaint I have. Character art is gorgeous, and I found myself just scrolling through all the characters I hadn't unlocked yet just to look at their art and their "beam in" animations. Super detailed, somewhat anime-esque in style, but keeping that signature Mega Man design philosophy with all the different Reploids you can recruit.

Sound and Music
==========
This title uses portions of other Mega Man titles' soundtracks, which makes sense because it also uses different stages from other games. So suffice it to say, the combined soundtrack is awesome. Mega Man has never been a slouch when it came to the music, often having some very iconic tracks coming from many entries in the series.

Performance
==========
I didn't run into any issues on my rig (AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT + AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core), but I wouldn't expect many players to run into any glaring issues if they have a PC built within the last few years. The game ran fine, didn't see any screen-tearing, FPS drops, no random crashes, no lag, and my controller worked perfectly.

Final Thoughts
==========
Overall I'd say this is very much worth getting, but I also think $29.99 is a tad steep. Grab it if you're a fan, or wait for a sale if you're on the fence or never played a Mega Man game before! With how Steam is...that shouldn't be hard to do :)

Verdict:
==========
Recommended

[b]Mega Man X DiVE Offline[/b] [b]Developer:[/b] Capcom [b]Publisher:[/b] Capcom [b]Introduction[/b] ========== For several years, Mega Man X DiVE was available on mobile devices and here on Steam. But it eventually met it's end. Instead of letting it die completely, Capcom surprised fans by announcing an Offline version. Shockingly, it fixed every single issue fans had with the game --- which were the predatory practices seen in many Gacha games. You could buy "Metals" with real life money and spend it for a chance to get the character you wanted, with character availability rotating out every so often. To make it worse, they also did this for your weapons. While you could earn some characters and weapons through normal gameplay without spending money, they were nowhere near as powerful as the ones you could get through the Gacha system, so you were compelled to spend if you wanted to get anywhere near the higher end of the game without extensive grinding. All of that is gone in this release. Instead of gambling your money at the chance to get what you want, you can pay the price for this version of the game and have the ability to unlock everything through normal gameplay. [b]Gameplay[/b] ========== If you're a fan of Mega Man...you really don't need me to tell you how this plays. It's much the same as literally every Mega Man title. Run to the right (sometimes left, oh my!!!), jump and shoot to destroy enemies in your path, with some light to medium platforming. Every so often you'll encounter a boss, who is much more of a challenge than the fodder up to that point. However, this is laid out like a mobile game, with several bite-sized stages in each area that culminate with a boss stage at the end. Clear each stage while meeting certain criteria nets you bonus rewards, but these are very easy to complete if you keep up with powering up your chosen character. You'll be spending a lot of time in menus powering up your characters and weapons. There are also skills and cards to collect and powerup as well, which all add to your character's overall power rating. This is a very rough gauge to tell how ready you are to face stages, as each stage has a recommended power rating. This can *mostly* be ignored, as even if you are a bit underpowered a skilled player could cleanup the stage nicely despite being "lower level". But it's so easy to powerup and be over-prepared for each stage, you may as well take it unless you want to challenge yourself a bit more. [b]Graphics[/b] ========== I'd say the overall graphics are fine. Nothing groundbreaking or to write home about, but you can tell this was a mobile game. On the bigger screens, backgrounds on the loading screens can look a little pixelated, but that's about the only complaint I have. Character art is gorgeous, and I found myself just scrolling through all the characters I hadn't unlocked yet just to look at their art and their "beam in" animations. Super detailed, somewhat anime-esque in style, but keeping that signature Mega Man design philosophy with all the different Reploids you can recruit. [b]Sound and Music[/b] ========== This title uses portions of other Mega Man titles' soundtracks, which makes sense because it also uses different stages from other games. So suffice it to say, the combined soundtrack is awesome. Mega Man has never been a slouch when it came to the music, often having some very iconic tracks coming from many entries in the series. [b]Performance[/b] ========== I didn't run into any issues on my rig (AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT + AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core), but I wouldn't expect many players to run into any glaring issues if they have a PC built within the last few years. The game ran fine, didn't see any screen-tearing, FPS drops, no random crashes, no lag, and my controller worked perfectly. [b]Final Thoughts[/b] ========== Overall I'd say this is very much worth getting, but I also think $29.99 is a tad steep. Grab it if you're a fan, or wait for a sale if you're on the fence or never played a Mega Man game before! With how Steam is...that shouldn't be hard to do :) [b]Verdict:[/b] ========== Recommended