Sanae Toumaden X

Hours played at review time, across 36 reviews with recorded playtime.

TL;Dr - Feels like a fan game I would have downloaded back in the late 2000s to the early 2010s. Many level design and character tweaks could have been done better. You aren't missing anything if you don't pick this up. I'm pretty conflicted on this game. I've heard imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but several things feel like they're lifted or traced from whatever franchise they wanted to parody. I'm a huge fan of Mega Man games and games similar to it. Very clear what this game is trying to be and it's unashamed of it. Even by it's own description, it's a "A Mega X Touhou fangame with no X." Mega Man X4 is my favorite Mega Man game, with Sanae herself playing a lot like Zero from that game. I wish that was where the inspirations ended but we have a LOT of things going on here. Off the top of my head: - the Intro stage boss is clearly traced from the Sigma boss from the intro stage of Mega Man X5. - The final boss is a trace of Sigma from Mega Man X1 - Sanae's slash doesn't just feel like Zero's Saber, the animation itself looks like a recolor of the original sprite To put aside the questionable use of references and inspiration, the game's quality and polish are pretty lacking as well. The stages range from basic "Run to the right and fight the boss" to the more frustrating "if you didn't beat a specific boss for their ability, this stage is damn near impossible" levels of quality. While Sanae is very clearly supposed to be Zero, her triple slash feels weaker than the original. I find myself jump slashing to deal with damage over literally anything else. All enemies seem to take more damage from it and bosses don't get invulnerability frames compared to the triple slash or even using the bosses weaknesses. In the end, this feels like a fangame doing what other fan games before it did. Sanae's dash doesn't quite feel as instant or as fast as the original source. I don't dislike the game and I even enjoyed it. But considering I managed to beat the game with every upgrade my first try in under an hour, I'm glad this was gifted and not something I purchased at full price. I think you're better off getting your Mega Man fix somewhere else. I do believe the developer has potential to make something great if they learn from the mistakes of this game. The ingredients and recipe are right there, they just to fine tune it and maybe have a little more originality.