"Megaman: Maverick Hunter X Review"

Summary:

Pros: The game is extremely polished and the production values are very good. The new features give X whole new lease in life.

Cons: The game is a bit on the short side. The fact that its easy doesn't help it much either. Sounds could have been better.

Full Review:

Megaman: Maverick Hunter X sets the bar high for all remakes. Not only does it bring the Megaman X experience to new gamers, it brings a slew of great new features that makes it a viable buy for older gamers like me.

At first, I was kind of sceptical since well, games cost a lot of money and this is a remake of a game I know very well. I was very worried that while I might enjoy it, there might not be enough of it to enjoy it for a long enough time as to make it worth the buy. In the end (and after watching a number of gameplay videos), I decided to shell out the dough and give it a try.

The first thing that hit me was how the graphics has been improved. The new style really brings an old game to the present! X even fires from his left arm always irregardless of where he is facing (in the old days, to minimize the amount of memory a game takes up, developers just mirrored a sprite horizontally when a character moves to the opposite direction). Defeating your first boss is even more fun since you actually see them crumple up and die before exploding instead of just flashing and disappearing without a trace. There are some significant slowdowns though when you encounter a large amount of enemies and that detracts to the game a bit.

Sounds remain mostly the same (though the tunes are remixed to current console standards). Characters are voiced pretty well (except for some of the bosses like FLAME MAMMOTH who seems devoid of emotion). Gameplay sounds do get a bit irritating though (hearing Vile say "Take This" while trying to fill your SUB TANKS can get annoying). Nothing special in this regard though it could be a lot better in my opinion.

Gameplay is basically the same one we've known and loved all these years. It is still extremely addictive. It is a bit easy though and average gamers should finish the game in a week tops. Don't flame me. I just have to say that games nowadays tend to be on the easy side. I'd hoped that the developers put in some masochistic hard mode in somewhere for us older gamers but alas, its not meant to be. That's really too bad since this is a very nice game and I'd hoped there were more to it. That said, X and Vile controls very well (I can go further into saying that controls are noticably better than the original).

Overall, I can say that the game has been successfully introduced to a new generation of gamers and adds a sufficient amount of content to give older players like me more than enough reason to revisit a franchise that we have grown with all these years. I'm just a bit disappointed that the game was made way to easy now and the fact is that it is just a bit too short.

Now, let's hope that Megaman Powered Up! is even better than this.

Graphics: 8 Sound: 6 Gameplay: 10 Lifespan: 6 Tilt: 10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/06