Well, they finally ran out of ideas for new ones...so heres a remake of an old one! But one of the best ones...
Now...lets get my bias involving this particular Megaman game out of the way. The original MegaMan X for the SNES stands today as my favorite MegaMan game ever...Period. So imagine my geeko excitment when this remake was announced. I was so excited in fact that I snapped it up days after release at my local GameStop.
After booting up my PSP and watching the rather impressive animated opening, my excitment only grew. Then after another remarkably well voiced sequence...the infamous opening highway stage. The music I remember so well hit and I nearly went into shock.
Visually the game is just plain stunning. The visual style remains pretty faithful to the original game. But they really look fantastic on the PSP. Everything is bright and colorful all without using Cel shading just because like a lot of games nowadays. The backgrounds and scenery around you are all very complex and full of life. It really draws you into X's futuristic world much more then the other games did. They even put it some neat little touches like animations for X when he's exhausted and has low energy.
The sound as I mentioned above is loaded with fantastic voice overs, and most of the voices sound approprate for their characters. The music on the highway was a fantastic enhancement of the orignal track. Its just too bad that not all of the songs share its fate. While they are all good remixes of the old tunes...some don't pop the same way they did before. (Most notably one of my other favs, Armored Armadillo's stage music, I couldn't really hear it so I decreased the sound effect volume to compensate.) The sound effects are mostly pretty good, except for a few recycled straight from the SNES. (You really gotta have a keen ear to catch em though)
Fantastic graphics are nice, good sound is well...good. But as all of us smart gamers know, without decent gameplay this all pretty much means squat. Am I right? Thankfully Maverick Hunter X holds up quite nicely in this department. It generally plays it pretty safe with no major changes to the game, but just when I thought everything was the same....they went and shuffled the X power ups around! Thats right purists, remember where the leg parts are...well not anymore smarty pants! BWAHHHH HAAA HAA! (ahem) Sorry.
But since it is a remake, the big question remains. Why the hell should I buy a game I already played years ago for the brand new price. Well that answer depends on you, to put it simply. If you are a Megaman geek who cares about the story...you should absolutley buy it. If not for the story driven begining and and ending animated sequences. Maybe for the fully animated prequel story title "The day of Sigma" which you unlock upon finishing the game.
If you just want more game for your buck, upon finishing the game you'll unlock Vile Mode where you play as (obviously) Vile. Uh...you know the guy who kicks the crap out of you at the end of the first stage?
If you didn't know who that was you probably don't need this game, but as a big fan of the old game I came away very satisfied. Take note developers, if you want to make remakes of your old games just to cash in, this is a pretty good blueprint on how to do it correctly.