I grew up playing Megaman games, primarily the Megaman X series.

I missed out on the franchise's beginnings with classic Megaman and the later Zero series and Battle Network. I did get to play Megaman Starforce for the Nintendo DS which I enjoyed.

I went back to play Megaman X in high school and I remembered all the cool things I enjoyed about the game, specifically in its design and mechanics which I highly recommend you play.

It's a fond memory for the franchise in its better days before Capcom fumbled the ball. Now I return to the X series with a new look and quite an interesting game that I've never heard of before until I watched the Super Best Friends YouTube channel begin their playthrough of it: Megaman X: Command Mission for the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2.

Megaman as a turn-based RPG sounds weird but once I actually started playing the game, the mechanics and ideas became clear and they actually really work out well. The battle control scheme has each party member equipped with either a melee or firearm and they have sub-weapons that can either do special actions such as stealing items from the enemy or stat boosting and all of these weapons can be used in a single turn provided that the character has enough weapon energy to do so. Weapon energy is the driving force behind all of your special attacks. It builds up over the course of the battle and maxes out at 100%.

Also instead of using your sub weapons, each character in the party has an Action Trigger that allows them to do a more powerful move. Think of them as Final Fantasy style Limit Breaks. For X, it allows him to charge up his Mega Buster and deal massive damage to the enemy. Cinnamon's allows her to heal the party in battle.

Everyone also has a Hyper Mode in which they enter a powered up state with higher HP and increased stats or totally change their attacks. They all look really cool and can help turn the tide of battles. The only confusing thing about it is that there are a limited number of times a character can activate Hyper Mode and the game doesn't tell you that in a straightforward way. There are items to restore them and increase them however.

Overall, the rest of the battle system is simple and easy to learn.

Command Mission takes place 100 years after the events of the Megaman X series. A new substance called Force Metal has been discovered and technology advances as a result. Giga City, an artificial island, is built in the middle of the ocean for the purpose of refining Force Metal. A group of Reploids led by Epsilon forcefully takeover the island and he is branded a Maverick by the government.

Maverick Hunters X, Zero and Shadow are dispatched to take him out. Shadow betrays the team and Zero is blown away from the top of a building and X has no choice but to escape and gather allies to combat Epsilon's Rebellion.

The plot is chopped up into different chapters and in each one you gain new party members so you get learn every new character pretty quickly. You also go to new dungeons every time and they have sometimes confusing but interesting layouts but simple puzzles to solve.

Once you do complete the chapters, you unlock that dungeon for deployment missions in which you can sometimes collect deactivated enemies and send them out to previously completed dungeons to find secret items and weapons.

I'm having a fun time trying to collect them all like they're Pokemon.

All in all, Megaman X: Command Mission is a really fun and well made Megaman RPG. It's an interesting turn on the head of what you normally expect from the Megaman franchise.

If Capcom ever decides to revisit Megaman, I'd be excited for another Megaman RPG.