Mega Man X: Command Mission

Command Mission is a turn-based role-playing video game. The player progresses through the game's stages in order. The action is split between a field screen and a battle screen, with the player-character always in the center of the field of view. A map of the surrounding area is located in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

The player spends their time primarily controlling the hero X who is joined by several characters when being attacked. The initial is linked to Central Tower where the group can rest. From here, the player transfers to the different Adventure Stages that follow the game's narrative. Previously completed Adventure Stages can be revisited, as well as ones vital to progressing through the story.

Mega Man X: Command Mission takes place during an unspecified year in the 23rd century, where mechanical beings known as Reploids coexist with humans. A substance known as Force Metal is extracted from the debris of a small meteorite, which revolutionizes the field of Reploid Engineering thanks to technology derived from it. An artificial island in the middle of an ocean built for the mining and smelting of Force Metal called Giga City is assaulted by a band of Reploids. Its leader, Epsilon, is branded a criminal Maverick by the government, and a Maverick Hunter team is dispatched by Colonel Redips to Giga City in order to liberate it from the grasp of Epsilon's Rebellion.

X, Zero, and a Hunter named Shadow travel to the ruins. However, Shadow betrays the team, and Epsilon's cadre appears and knocks Zero away.

Mega Man X: Command Mission was announced and presented by producer Koji Nakajima at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2003. Nakajima promised that action fans would still like Mega Man's new direction due to how they would handle the returning characters X and Zero. It was developed by Capcom Production Studio 3 and many of the team members that worked on Mega Man X7 and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Long-time producer and artist Keiji Inafune had always viewed the Mega Man X series in the action genre.

He flatly refused when it was requested that he make it into a role-playing game. When asked why the team chose to make Mega Man X into one, producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi explained, "Mega Man X is respected as an action game, but also has a good story. So we've decided to focus on the story, which is why I'm creating an RPG based on Mega Man X." Kitabayashi considered Command Mission a sequel rather than a side story or the beginning of a new series because the plot is complete at the end of the game.

Command Mission received mixed reviews from critics. The PS2 version holds a 69 out of 100 on Metacritic, while the GameCube version holds a 67 out of 100, respectively. Official Nintendo Magazine claimed Command Mission was a decent RPG with an "interesting" universe; however, the staff found its genre too different from other entries in the Mega Man X series, which were platformers that required quick reflexes, and thus fans of the series used to the platform style would not enjoy it. The battle system was generally praised, with the concept of pressing combinations of buttons to pull off techniques or improve a technique's power said to be one of the game's highlights.

A common complaint has been the short length and linearity of the game. com felt the game still lacked the depths that made Final Fantasy X stand out. RPGamer had no problems with the gameplay system due to the customization of Metal Forces, balancing of healing items, and offensive attacks he compared with Shadow Hearts, but said the story would be better appreciated by returning gamers than casual gamers. RPGFan had mixed opinions in regards to the gameplay, praising the handling of the Hyper Mode and Metals as they can be appropriately used but criticizing the few healing items that are accessible, especially early in the game.