With the transition to more advanced gaming hardware, series artist Keiji Inafune explained that the development of "Mega Man X" involved reinventing "Mega Man" through gameplay expansion and a more mature storyline while still maintaining the basic concepts on which the franchise was built. Much like the NES "Mega Man" games that came before it, "Mega Man X" is a standard action-platform game where the player takes control of the eponymous character and must complete a set of eight, initial stages in any order desired. Defeating the boss character at the end of each stage grants the player one new weapon that can then be toggled and used at will for the remainder of the game. However, "Mega Man X" adds a number of new features and makes radical changes to the original gameplay mechanics of previous releases in the series. These include allowing the player to dash along the ground, scale walls, and obtain armor attachments which grant special abilities.