Mega Man X DiVE (PC) Offline Review

Originally released on March 24, 2020, as a mobile gacha game, Mega Man X DiVE has gone through quite a twisted journey. It was announced earlier this year that the game would be shutting down but Mega Man fans were told that the game would receive an Offline version that they can continue playing after the service sunsets. Well… the service was supposed to end on September 27, 2023, and here we are, 26 days earlier and we get the Offline version. How does it stack up vs. the original mobile game?

Title: Mega Man X DiVE Offline
Platform: PC (Reviewed), iOS, Android
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: September 1, 2023
Price: $29.99

Mega Man X DiVE Offline is a 2 1/2D side-scrolling jump-and-shoot game just as you would expect from the Mega Man X series. You can dash, air dash, double jump, wall climb, and shoot (or slash with a melee weapon) through a staggering NINE HUNDRED stages. You’ll level up, receive a bunch of consumables, and eventually get told you’re too weak by the game’s exponential power recommendations… just like in the original mobile version.

Of course, if NINE HUNDRED stages isn’t enough for you, as you level up you will unlock additional modes such as the Jakob Elevator where you can challenge yourself on multiple floors for additional rewards, a race mode if you want to test your reflexes, events that you can run for more experience, Zenny, armor enhancement consumables, or DIVE Trigger enhancements.

Another nice touch is that all of the holiday events that were seasonal in the mobile game are unlocked and can be played at any time. So, if you missed it the first time around, all of the stages and content are there and unlocked from the first time you boot up the game.

There is still a TON of leveling up and unlocking to do. There are hundreds of characters from the entire Mega Man franchise to collect, some unique versions of them exclusive to DiVE, weapons, chips, armor, cards, and skills… and all of them need to be leveled up so I hope you save your Zenny and consumables because you’re going to need a LOT of them.

A new feature that wasn’t in the original game was a music player. You have a great selection of tracks across multiple categories and you can even listen to the plot voice lines if you choose! I hope you brushed up on your Japanese because that’s the only language those tracks are in. Being an avid anime fan for many many years, I assure you that I understood about 30% of what was said! (I don’t know whether to be happy or sad over that fact).

There is also an achievement system which will reward you with consumables and our old friend, the Elemental Metal.

Elemental Metals used to be your gacha currency. The game, just like any other mobile game that follows the cookie-cutter formula, would toss these to you in abundance at the start and then starve you, tempting you to whip out that credit card and take out a second mortgage just so you can get your shiny new S-Tier character up to 5 stars. Now, you can put the wallet away because the Elemental Metals just rain from the sky. It only takes 800 to unlock the character of your choice but most of them are locked behind stage requirements. So, you can’t just grab Super Bass and start melting everything from level 1. You have to progress far enough to earn him.

The same is true for cards and weapons. A lot of them only cost Zenny now and from my screenshot, Zenny comes really quickly. I had 578,000 in that screenshot… and that was about 10 minutes after spending around 300,000. So, don’t worry. You’re not going to run out of money so spend until your heart is content!

And you’re pretty much expected to do that due to the aforementioned exponential power requirement. I swear, the last stage only wanted me to have a 7000 power rating and now I need to be 22500!? WHAT GIVES!?

That’s kind of what it feels like but unlocking new characters, leveling weapons, leveling cards, etc., etc. all count toward your power rating… especially the gallery. Since this game ditched its money-making ways and just throws a lot of stuff at you, feel free to level up as much as you want to get that rating as high as possible. Of course, you can still do the stages if you’re below the recommended power level but the deeper you go and ignore it, the worse time you’re going to have… especially when things just start 1-shotting you.

One thing that is a bit of a letdown is that there was little time spent on the controls. Again, this is made for mobile so on iOS or Android, my complaints are moot but I’m playing on PC for the controller support, and while the controls themselves are fine, having to switch between using the controller and the mouse to click around menus when they could have spent a little extra time to map those commands to the controller’s buttons is annoying. Yes, I know it was all meant for a touch screen… I get it, stop skewering me but if you’re going to have controller support on the PC, then put a little more effort into it.

Overall, this game is what it is. If you played the original, then you’re going to be missing out on things such as leaderboards, PvP, Guilds, and every other online feature that required a server. For some people, PvP was the only reason to play the game and with that gone, it was like a sucker punch to the gut for the DiVE community but then again, you can’t really call it an offline game and still have online features.

While, yes, Mega Man X DiVE Offline is a shell of its former self, it’s still a pretty decent game if you haven’t played it before. You can experience almost everything that other players have in terms of story and solo-player modes but it is going to be one of those games that you’re not going to sink copious amounts of hours into. It’ll be a nice time killer to work on in between other games and that’s about all it will be… filler entertainment.

Still, if you’re a Mega Man fan like I am, you’ve probably already bought the game and might just be playing it right now. Again, it’s decent but it’s not going to blow your mind or do anything innovative outside of actually making the game available offline after the online service shut down. To Capcom’s credit, how many other mobile gacha games have done that?

Review Disclosure Statement: Mega Man X DiVE Offline was provided to us by Capcom for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.