YMMV / Mega Man X8

This page contains unmarked spoilers regarding the True Final Boss. You Have Been Warned.

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Zero Oblivious to Love in regards to Layer's blatant crush on him, or is he aware, but doesn't want to pursue a romantic relationship again considering how his last one went?
  • Regarding Sigma and his relationship to the New Generation Reploids: Were Lumine and the New Gen Reploids ultimately using him and intended to dispose of him, seeing as Sigma was an "inferior" old-gen Reploid? Or was Sigma in charge of them all along, due to his DNA inside of them exerting a controlling Hive Mind effect in them? (As a result, this heavily calls into question Lumine's claim that he and the New Generation Reploids can go Maverick "at will.") Alternatively, did Sigma intend for the New Gen Reploids to succeed him to further his stated goal of Reploid evolution?
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • It's revealed that the New Gen Reploids (and by extension, Axl himself) were built via the plans of Sigma, who considers them his children. This bothers Axl roughly a thousand times less than Zero's similar origin eats at him; in fact, he's the only one of the three heroes not driven into a Heroic BSoD by Lumine's attempt to Break Them by Talking done soon after. It helps that:
    • Sigma and Lumine don't press the point (when Axl outright asks Lumine whether Sigma's influence will affect his sanity, Lumine dismisses him), unlike what Sigma does with Zero.
    • Zero was having nightmare visions of a certain crazy, eyebrow-waggling old scientist even before Sigma started playing with his head.
    • Zero's history comes with a Superpowered Evil Side. Axl has no such problems.
• Ass Pull: Some may feel that the twist of Lumine being Evil All Along is boring and contrived, having little to no Foreshadowing besides the ham-fisted opening cutscene, and that it came out of nowhere for no reason other than to have a final boss that wasn't Sigma. It doesn't help that it creates a very confusing Ambiguous Situation where it's unclear whether Lumine was manipulating Sigma or Sigma was in charge all along because of "creating" Lumine (through his DNA embedded in the New Generation Reploids' Copy Chips).
• Awesome Music:
  • In the Japanese PlayStation 2 version and some releases of the 2004 PC version, the game's Anime Theme Song "WILD FANG" by Janne Da Arc undeniably puts the "rock" into "Rockman". The song's lyrics are just as badass as its name implies.
  • "Jakob", the stage music for the Jakob Orbital Elevator will have you rocking out while you turn Mavericks into scrap metal.
  • Booster Forest has two themes, including a particularly awesome one specifically for piloting a Ride Armor.
  • The default mid-boss theme is also pretty great.
• Broken Base: The game's new art style and character redesigns. In general, are the slimmer designs better, being more realistic and humanoid? Or are they too different from the older styles in the series? Notably, the very next game in the series, Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, went back to the designs first implemented in the PS1 era. (And while that could be excused by MHX being a Continuity Reboot, all future X series works, like Mega Man X DiVE, also returned to the pre-X8 style for everyone except the Navigators.)
• Catharsis Factor: Vile is infamous due the fact that in previous games, he uses a Ride Armor during his battles, giving him an unfair advantage against you. In Bamboo Pandamonium's level, you can carry a Ride Armor throughout the entire stage. If you have the Ride Armor inside the second mini-boss room and Vile appears, you can finally turn the tables against the bastard and make him pay for all the previous pain.
• Character Rerailment: X was criticized in X7 for being Demoted to Extra and for his constant complaining about violence. Here, not only is he playable from the start, but in the one scene he laments fighting, he agrees with Axl that in some situations, fighting is the only solution.
  X: "Axl's right. There's no time to be wishy-washy. Even as we speak, Mavericks are causing havoc."
• Common Knowledge: Lumine is commonly misinterpreted as The Man Behind the Man to Sigma, his master from the very start. It'd be more accurate to say Lumine's plan was Hijacking Cthulhu, taking advantage of Sigma's leadership and ambition to hasten the supremacy of the New Generation Reploids. Who better to lead a rebellion than him, right? Of course, then there's the fact that Lumine is technically one of Sigma's children, so he's basically just Overlord Jr. taking over for daddy.
• Contested Sequel: Is X8 a good game in its own right? Or does it only look good after coming off the Audience-Alienating Era that was Mega Man X7^*and arguably Mega Man X6? Pros include more solid level design, the return to 2D gameplay, vastly improved voice acting, having a Final Boss/Big Bad that isn't Sigma, and giving all the characters distinct playstyles without any of them feeling redundant. Cons include overuse of gimmick levels^*Which, depending on what you count as a gimmick, could mean there's only two levels that play like actual Mega Man X levels, an extremely frustrating 100% completion, Metal Grinding that drags the game to a crawl even with the Metal Discount chip^*(unless you're either content with the upgrades on-hand or use a glitch found only in the North American PlayStation 2 release to take grinding out the equation), a rather aimless and confusing plot, and the retry chip system^*(unlike in the previous installments where players are given Video-Game Lives, the Retry Chips function similarly to lives in Mega Man Zero where they act more like mid-mission continues, and not having any Retry Chips at all means you'll be forced to start over a stage every time you lose).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Navigators. Making them all Action Girls helped a little, but there are other things as well, such as Alia's redesign, Layer's secret crush on Zero, and Pallette being a Token Mini-Moe to the cast. Capcom seems to have anticipated this, as there were figures of the girls made alongside the guys, as well as an alternate title sequence when you unlock the Navigators for play. They were even prepared to bring all three back (along with a fourth) for Mega Man Online, and even offer a poster of the three in swimsuits as a reward for beating X Legacy Collection's X Challenge Mode on Normal difficulty.
• Epileptic Trees: After Lumine's defeat, Axl gets knocked out by a creepy tentacle that comes out of Lumine's chest. In the final shot of the game, it shows that a little fragment of it is still left in Axl's forehead gem. What exactly this means is still a mystery, but his absence from the Zero series has led to many fan theories about what happened to him. Did he simply die off-screen from the injury? Did he get better after a good night's sleep? An especially popular theory is that Lumine took over his body and turned him evil, necessitating his destruction; this theory is supported by the "White Axl" armor which mysteriously shares its color scheme with Lumine. Only a Mega Man X9 will give us the true answers.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Sigma's broken-down devil form has been christened "Belial Sigma"... despite it never once being referred to as such in official material. This is likely because someone put the name on the Sigma page on the Mega Man Knowledge Base wiki, and it stayed up there for years before anyone fact-checked it.
  • A similar situation occurred with Lumine's final form, who held the unofficial name "Seraph Lumine" for a while.
• Game-Breaker: See here.
• Goddamned Boss: The second fight against the Mini-Boss in Avalanche Yeti's level, which will take far longer than the first phase and it spends most of its time way out of range for most of your attacks.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In the North American PS2 version, it is possible to buy a Life Bottle for your Sub Tank while having less than 50 Metals, causing your Metal count to dip into negative values. Picking any Metal while in the negative will skyrocket your Metals to its maximum of 9,999,999, effectively axing Metal Grinding out of the game. This was fixed in the Japanese PS2 release, the original PC version, and in the X Legacy Collection 2 version.
  • Zero (and Layer) can use Rasetsusen to fly! Just use the attack, then hold Up and then Down simultaneously.^*Contrary to popular belief, this isn't limited to the PC version of the game, as the PS2 version uses both the D-Pad and the left stick for movement. The X Legacy Collection 2 version of X8 fixed this bug, however.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Dark Mantis is fought at the end of a stealth-based level, just like Psycho Mantis.
• It Was His Sled: Lumine is the Final Boss. His second form's battle theme tends to be the first thing new players think of nowadays when they think of X8.
• LGBT Fanbase: Lumine has a pretty sizable following among gay men, due to his androgynous, youthful appearance being rather evocative of twinks. Fan art often gives him a more slender appearance to match.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The little "ding" that plays whenever you finish a Multi-Mook Melee room. Even more satisfying if you had to fight Vile instead, and especially if it's for the final time.
• Narm:
  • The religious symbolism in this game is often regarded as being more hilarious for how heavy-handed it is than any serious attempt at being deep.
  • Lumine's infamous "We can go Maverick at will" line settled into this for a lot of fans. Mostly because, after the series spent multiple games jumping between Reploids willingly choosing to rebel and the various viruses driving them insane, Lumine makes this statement as a big part of The Reveal in the same breath as revealing this is possible because the New Generation Reploids have Sigma's DNA in them, turning what's supposed to be a surprising lategame twist into hilariously cheesy nonsense that poorly explains what it actually does.
• Polished Port:
  • Unlike X7's disastrous Korean-only PC port, the 2004 X8 PC port was developed in-house and programmed far better. On top of being playable on modern operating systems, it supports higher resolutions than the PlayStation 2 version (up to 1600×1200, although DirectX wrappers can make it render in higher resolutions) with most of the visuals intact, has support for 3D positional audio, mouse support for the menus, gamepad support, and rebindable keys. It also changes the mouse cursor to look like X from the SNES games.
  • The version of the game included in X Legacy Collection 2 cleans the game's visuals up to HD standards, giving the game much crisper and sharper look than ever before (although the 2D assets haven't been updated but they are scaled properly unlike the original PlayStation 2 version), and drastically cuts down on the loading times as well.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Axl was the Replacement Scrappy for X in X7, with a whiny voice and his story consuming the entire plot. In X8, his role is still important — what with his status as the prototype to the rogue New Generation Reploids — but not all-encompassing. He also manages to interrupt the Big Bad's Breaking Speech with a well-placed bullet to the chest. He plays similarly to Bass from Mega Man & Bass instead of a literal Poor Man's Substitute for X, letting him have his own playstyle. Finally, he matured a bit in-between games, resulting in Axl being given a youthful but more mature voice in the dub, having his Trigger-Happy tendencies toned down to something more reasonable, and serving as the Hunter Power Trio's emotional core (leading to the aforementioned Shut Up, Hannibal! moment).
  • Alia also got better in X8. She went from being an interrupting nuisance in X5 to a playable bonus character (as a female counterpart of X) who's capable of taking on Sigma and Lumine.
  • X in this game doesn't complain about violence anywhere near as often as he did in X7, having a brief moment of frustration at the beginning before quickly accepting the new war and his part in it, much to the delight of players. It helps that X's main focus is still saving innocent lives and bringing the latest conflict to as swift a conclusion as possible, preserving his core characterization as a Martial Pacifist but making him not come across as Unintentionally Unsympathetic like he was in X7.
• Strawman Has a Point: Burn Rooster's Rage Against the Legal System is actually well-founded, as he has watched hundreds of his Reploid brethren be incinerated at the Inferno plant. The casual disregard for the life of Mavericks really is a bit disturbing — no attempts to rehabilitate or reprogram them, just throw them in the junk heap to be immolated with the rest.
• Superlative Dubbing: After three disastrous attempts, this game, along with Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X and Mega Man Powered Up (and Mega Man X: Command Mission to a lesser extent), is often held up as having some of the best voice acting in the series. Lucas Gilbertson in particular has been considered the definitive Zero voice.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The poor aftertaste of X7 meant fans weren't expecting much of X8. The game was praised for bringing Mega Man X to 3D well, and having tight gameplay on its own.
• That One Attack:
  • Bamboo Pandemonium's Desperation Attack, Youdantotsu, is a long-reaching lunge that deals massive damage and destroys any Ride Armor. Also, he'll keep the lunge in place until you move out of the way, so it may deal additional damage if you don't escape with the Mercy Invincibility.
  • Earthrock Trilobyte's Desperation Attack, Wave Wall, erects crystal walls and turns the arena into a Death Course/Advancing Wall of Doom. Unfortunately, it is easily navigated, killing the tension and wasting a lot of time, making it the bane of speedrunners. And worse, the Final-Exam Boss has this as a regular attack, i.e. one he uses very frequently.
  • Optic Sunflower's Desperation Attack, Earth Crush, involves Death from Above via Kill Sat requiring extremely precise timing to avoid, especially for Zero due to his short dash distance. It's even worse if Optic Sunflower initiates the attack when he gives you little room to move around in without dashing into him.
  • Lumine's first form uses the Desperation Attacks of the eight Mavericks, including the ones mentioned above. However, there are two attacks he's modified. The first is Avalanche Yeti's, which causes gigantic snowflakes that freeze you on contact to rain down and lasts a lot longer than the original version, and Lumine still uses other Desperation Attacks while it's in effect. The second is Burn Rooster's, which covers the walls in flames and never wears off; once it hits the field, you can no longer wall-jump.
  • Lumine's second form has his infamous Paradise Lost, which opens up a rift in space. If you don't kill him within 30 seconds, you die and it's an immediate game over, no matter how many continues you have.
• That One Level:
  • Burn Rooster's stage begins with a slow descent down tricky platforms (where if you fall too quickly it's instant death), then a descent down a shaft of Spikes of Doom, then another slow descent down tricky platforms, then the boss, and then the level keeps going as you need to flee back up the platforms while being chased by rising lava. Thankfully, the last part isn't repeated on subsequent visits if Burn Rooster has been defeated.
  • Avalanche Yeti's Ride Chaser level has multitudes of enemies and traditional Auto-Scrolling Level obstacles (walls and Bottomless Pits), culminating with a Mini-Boss fight in two parts, the second of which can easily become a Goddamned Boss due to how long it takes to destroy it, especially if you didn't bring X for his Charge Shots.
  • Gigavolt Man-o-War's stage is easily the most reviled in the game, due to the Unexpected Gameplay Change to a 3D Rail Shooter where you need to give chase after the boss in a Ride Chaser and shoot them down before you get killed by some arbitrary timer. It doesn't help that it's deceptively hard to actually hit the boss on any difficulty level above Easy unless you've managed to Nitro Boost until you're five feet away from them, forcing you to collect Weapon Energy pick-ups strewn throughout the stage along the way just to keep up (as opposed to Avalanche Yeti's Ride Chaser level where you can use a Nitro Boost as many times as you want), especially if you haven't been upgrading your characters' maximum Weapon Energy and developed the Super Recover Chip. And throughout all this frustration, the boss is yammering non-stop in an annoying voice. With X8 being a return to form and even Avalance Yeti's Ride Chaser level being divisive at worst, Gigavolt Man-o-War's stage feels like a backslide into everything fans hated about X7. And icing the cake is that, despite a far better-received dub track this time around, Gigavolt Man-o-War's voice is considered REALLY grating and he'll keep yapping throughout the whole stage, which may tempt players to scramble for the Mute button on their monitor.
• That One Puzzle: In an otherwise easy level, Gravity Antonion's stage has one room that involves avoiding being crushed to death by spiked cubes that keep going up and down several times, and there's no indication when it will even stop. Many players would actually prefer a Vile encounter in the same room than go through this obstacle.
• That One Sidequest: Getting a particular Rare Metal in Bamboo Pandamonium's level. It requires you to keep your Ride Armor intact for the entire level, something that is way easier said than done and will result in a lot of trial-and-error on your part, assuming that you know what to do in the first place.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While Lumine is appreciated for at least breaking the trend of having Sigma constantly behind the plot, many would also agree that he ended up being a rather undercooked villain. This is because his role as the "true" villain is poorly foreshadowed, he ends up having very little screentime throughout the game, and The Reveal of him being behind everything happens at the very end of the game. His relationship with Sigma, who states that the Jakob Project was "[his] doing", is also poorly explained, resulting in it being unclear whether Sigma was in control of Lumine and the New Gen Reploids all along, Lumine somehow forced Sigma to bend to his will, or the two were working initially as equals with Lumine intending to dispose of Sigma later on.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The New Generation Reploids are allegedly unique because of their Copy Chips. However, none of the eight Maverick bosses actually seem to use their Copy Chips to control their DNA in battle, and thus they fight like regular old Mavericks. It would've been impressive to see bosses morph their bodies to attack or copy moves from previous enemies, but this is completely squandered.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Though it's not an unanimous opinion, many fans weren't fond of the redesigns most of the cast received in X8. Alia's redesign has been criticized specifically, seen as an unnecessary attempt to make her a Ms. Fanservice despite already being attractive. Ironically, hers is the only X8 redesign that stuck for future material such as X DiVE.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Many a fan has mistaken Lumine for female upon first inspection due to his feminine appearance and voice.
• Win Back the Crowd: This game was a welcome return to form after the incredibly divisive X6 and near-universally despised X7. Unfortunately, low sales rendered it the final X game as of this writing.^*Not counting Mega Man X: Command Mission (which released prior to X8), remakes, compilations, and Mega Man X DiVE.

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