On my first time playing through this i gave 4 stars, replaying after 1 year and some months it's now a 3.5. With this hack this is not as messed up as the original X3, but it's still kinda of a mess. Well what is really good here is that you can get all armor upgrades without knowing about the secret passage in the first Doppler Stage, and it's fun collecting them from the armor capsules, well, most of the time at least, and it's obviously really good having Zero as a playable character, even though i think he kinda loses most of his utilities after you get all armor upgrades for X, but until then it's cool swapping between them. It's also really nice that you can get the first body upgrade without needing the charged gravity beetle weapon.

As for the bad, well, it's how X3 design in a lot of moments drags, and the bosses are really bad, i mean, most of them are dash on the wall and then shoot, some are very annoying if you don't have their weakness, and the second form of Sigma is really really bad. These are things that can't be changed unless the entire game is remade, which obviously we will never get it, unfortunately. I still have fun playing this because the gameplay core here is really good and the level design still has most good moments than frustrating moments, at least for the first stages, the last ones i find to be very whatever, and since i already have knowledge of the game i know when to pick the upgrades earlier, but i guess it can be very frustrating for first timers.

I find the OST to be the most forgettable from the first 6 X, there are some good tunes but some are kinda annoying for me at least, like the boss theme and toxic seahorse, and most of them are kinda ok i think, i'm one of the 2 people that like the PS1 version OST better. Story-wise it was the first to drag with this of Sigma coming back, and everything here feels very pointless for the series in that aspect