Ok completed the first situation of Exit (10 stages of tutorial) and it opened up all the stages of situations 2-7. The game seems completely free-scenario as in you can play any stage in any order once you clear the requires to open the next set. I guess you need to clear all of situations 2-7 to unlock 8-10. But now I have 60 stages to play that are non-tutorial! YAY!

The tutorials were really simple and basic, and filled with help pop-ups, being a tutorial hater it was kinda annoying, but the game is very slick. Loading is lightning fast and the gameplay is great for 2D sidescrolling adventure fans. The AI is really good and the game actually makes use of the entire "you must use yourself as well as the people you are saving to get everyone out safely" concept really well. The stages are just short enough to make this a very good portable game.

I cleared Situation 2 (Burning Inferno) in Exit and started on Situation 3 (Subway Under Water)... I really like the pacing of the game so far. Each Situation is a completely different type of disaster that you're saving people out of, and each stage is a unique puzzle (or combination of puzzles to a larger puzzle) involving that theme. 10 stages per situation is just right imo. Each stage is averaging about 3-4 minutes now on my best time, and usually it requires a few retries before you "get" it. The game is really suited for travel in that sense, as the stages themselves are bite-sized but complex enough to tease your brain and be fun.

I'm officially declaring Exit to be Flashback x Lemmings.

Day One impression: A-

Exit is very import-friendly. The story scenes that "introduce" each Situation is a bunch of stills + Japanese text, but they're not really important to the experience at all. They're kinda funny though, it usually starts with Mr ESC saying it's his day off, and he goes hit on some chicks and have coffee with an old friend or something when a building catches fire or the floor collapses or some random shit like that. Then he goes "I WILL SAVE THE DAY!", etc. The game itself is 100% puzzle with the "story" being a background thing.

Ok here's how it goes. The game itself has 100 stages (10 stages per Situation) and now they're going to start FREE downloadable Situations (10 stages each) every Thursday, every week from next week till 23rd Feb 2006. That's 10 weeks, but the article claims 110 downloadable stages, so maybe there's something extra down the line. The plan is that by the end of Feb the game will have 210 stages total.

Damn talk about value for money. ^_^

You gotta understand, each stage is REALLY SMALL (for very valid reasons), so it's not much of an issue. The animations that ARE slow are done so to give more tension to the situation (climbing ladders in particular) while animations of you going up and down stairs and going down ropes is fast enough really. Movement speed is fine, and there's running (and tripping, but whatever ). You really have to play the game and see the animation to "feel" that it's just right. I know many people are turned off by the "slow" comments but it really isn't much of an issue at all.

Update time for Irregular Hunter X. I completed the X mode on Normal with all upgrades/subtanks/tanks/etc, watched the entire Day of Sigma animated episode and started on VAVA mode on Normal. So these are impressions anymore but more of a mini-review:

Irregular Hunter X is one of the best 2.5D gaming experiences you can have on the go now and I seriously don't know what the FUCK Famitsu was thinking giving it 27/40. This is at the very very least a 8/10 game. The MMX game itself is perfectly remade into 3D with sharp visuals, great modeling and animation and AMAZING backgrounds. The backgrounds and large-scale bosses are really what make the difference here because they look like what a current-gen sidescroller in 3D *should* look like.

Aside from slowdown in a few (very few) crowded scenes in the game, the framerate is otherwise awesome and the controls are flawless but if you feel the controls need any tweaking there's always the completely customizable key config menu. Besides turning the game into really beautiful 3D without compromising the gameplay or art design, they've also added high-quality animation FMVs by Xebec and fully voiced dialogue sequences to enhance the story and bring it closer (well in reality, it surpasses) to the style of the PS/SS versions of MMX3-4. There's a pre-title screen FMV intro with J-rock song, an different intro FMV for X and VAVA modes and different ending FMVs for X and VAVA modes.

Now if that's not enough (and Capcom in their divine benovelant love for all Mega Man fans feel it's not enough) there's a full TWENTY-FIVE MINUTE animated video that unlocks when you complete the X mode. It feels a lot in execution to FFVII Last Order in that it's a prequel story that most people are sort of familiar with but an excellent excuse to show the characters we know and love in an action-packed 2D animated episode without compromising the storyline or continuity.

Now somehow Capcom felt all that fucking awesome crap wasn't enough. No, it wasn't. So enter: VAVA MODE (probably VILE MODE in the US version). This isn't some cheap Castlevania style "play as the other character" deal. It's more like Dawn of Sorrow's extra character mode. VAVA has his own alternate-story plot with intro/ending FMVs, different voiced pre-boss dialogues, completely remixed enemy placements on the same stages, and best of all..... a completely DIFFERENT gameplay scheme. Before I explain more, I'll say this. VAVA mode is HARD! If you try to play it like you're playing as X it's even HARDER! Now the explaination of why...

VAVA comes with 3 body armaments, head, arm and feet. Each of these armaments corresponds to a button (square, triangle, circle) with X being jump. Before each stage you must equip your choice of weapons on each armament for different effects and once in a stage unlike X you cannot change weapons. VAVA's weapons all take up his energy bar but unlike X his bar recharges automatically when not in use. VAVA also has a tiny-ass lifebar to start with. VAVA gets additional weapon armaments to play with each time he beats a boss, and his subtanks and energy tanks are all in DIFFERENT places in the various stages. Replay value = AAAAA+. Oh and when you play as VAVA, when you usually fight VAVA in the X mode, in the VAVA mode you fight X.


Now let me take a moment to just say:

THANK YOU CAPCOM JAPAN FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING BACK FOR MY YEARS OF LOYAL SUPPORT OF MEGA MAN EVEN THOUGH I STOPPED BUYING THEM WHEN THEY ALL WENT TO SHIT! I STILL BELIEVED IN A DREAM THAT ONE DAY IT'LL ALL COME BACK AND IT HAS! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!