A very fun game that, sadly, is WAY too easy and short. Worth playing, though.
The gameplay is your basic Mega Man style of game with new powers that you can acquire after defeating bosses and all the rest of it. What X brings to the table, though, is the dash ability, the wall-jump ability, and the head-smashing ability (to access a few secret areas, but in general it is a waste of the special helmet). The dash and wall-jumping is definitely a great addition to the Mega Man formula, and although the head-smashing ability is alright, it isn't the worst idea ever (in later games the special helmet upgrade lets you fire boss powers for no energy cost as a replacement of this). You get these 3 new abilities (not counting the advanced charge beam that's more powerful and lets you charge up your boss powers) from Dr. Light stations hidden in each level, and they are all very easy to find. They also visually change the look of your character which is a very nice touch. The first two abilities affect gameplay the most and definitely are improvements. Sadly, the game is way too easy as the stages are not very complex or challenging at all (including the bosses with the exception of Sigma). All of the stages are enjoyable and every boss is fun to fight, though, regardless of how easy they are (although Sigma is actually very hard in comparison to all of the other bosses).
The graphics are fantastic for an SNES game that was made 15 years ago. They are very clean and inspired, and Mega Man's new look is well done. The boss select stage is an especially cool thing to look at. Each boss, though having silly names, makes sense for their various stages and are interesting in their own right. The actual monsters in each level also have distinct looks that match what their attacks well, and there are no bad enemies in the game. The stages themselves all look very nice, but aren't quite as good as, say, Super Metroid's environments were. They get the job done even if they aren't eye-popping beautiful or even challenging.
The music is slightly below the quality of the Classic Mega Man 2 and 3 soundtracks, and it is obvious that a lot of effort went into them. There's a hard rock theme going on here and each song is energetic, memorable, catchy and fits the mood perfectly. The sound effects are also particularly catchy - you'll instantly recognize the majority of effects in the game like the sound it plays while you're gun is charged and the noise he makes when you jump off walls. Overall it's a very nice presentation.
The story is very basic involving essentially a replacement of Dr. Wily with Sigma. It is now in the future and Dr. Light is dead, and reploids are in full force on planet Earth coexisting with humans. Mavericks are the enemy robots that maverick hunters like Mega Man and newcomer Zero must defeat to restore peace to the world (Sigma sent them). It's a cool spin on the timeline of the series, but it isn't necessarily groundbreaking or exciting. It's just a good reason to kick some robot ass.
All in all, if you love Mega Man then you won't be disappointed with Mega Man X, its not a masterpiece like any of the first 3 NES Mega Man games, nor is it quite *as* cool as Mega Man X4 (whose presentation and anime cutscenes really took the series to another level), but it's a very satisfying experience and one in which the fun factor adds a lot to increase its value. It's on par with Mega Man 4-6 only because of how incredibly easy and short it is (plus there are no alternative endings or secrets of note really). Regardless, I would definitely recommend it for Mega Man fans.