Mega Man fans have had a lot to enjoy over the past decade between official things like Mega Man 11 and various collections and Mega Man-likes with 30XX and Mighty Gunvolt Burst, but one game that got slept on was Mega Man X Dive. It was a free-to-play Mega Man X game with a lot of gacha mechanics, but also rock-solid core gameplay that allowed you to have a lot of “what if” scenarios due to its diverse roster of playable characters and many different stages from various Mega Man X games over the decades.
It’s interesting to go through stages in ways that you couldn’t before – whether it’s due to a new path in a stage, a remixed version or using a character that wasn’t in the original release being playable in a classic stage. The core gameplay is right at home for classic MMX fans and that fanbase has been starved for anything official outside of collections and this release. Having completely new ways to play classic content helps freshen things up and provides hope that we’ll see a full-on new game in the series that continues the story, as DIVE is more of an elseworld/what if tale.
Still, the core gameplay feels a lot like the regular games – just with a polygonal look to the world. It very much looks like an HD PSP or GC game in terms of the visuals and I love that because the PSP remakes for both regular Mega Man and Mega Man X had fantastic graphics within that art style and this just bumps the resolution and the detail up tremendously when compared to what the PSP could do on its own. It’s a fascinating example of taking an existing franchise and giving it a new coat of paint and Mega Man X Dive Offline shows that there’s a future for once-mobile or otherwise free-to-play games to have a shelf life beyond a free-to-play existence.
That whole style of game does have a limited reach at times due to gating so much content off, and having content gated off by in-game progress instead of pure money should help it in the long run. Time will tell that tale, but for now, Mega Man X Dive Offline is now available onSteamfor $29.99, as well as Android devices via the Google PlayStoreand AppleiOSdevices.
