Mega Man X is a fantastic game. One with issues of course, but that doesn’t detract from its greatness and its legacy as one of the greatest titles in the Super Nintendo library. With that reputation in mind, how does its PSP remake hold up? Well, I’ll start off with what I view as the positives of the title.
The art style of Maverick Hunter is fantastic. As a 2.5D remake of a SNES title, the developers did an amazing job of translating those sprites into 3D models. Unlike so many other remakes, this game still ‘feels’ like its source material. That 2.5D style has always been something that I find to be quite charming, and seeing it executed in Maverick Hunter as well as it has been is delightful.
Gameplay wise, there are mostly nothing but positives. I do really appreciate how, for the most part, Maverick Hunter plays exactly the same. One new appreciated addition was the inclusion of button mapping, allowing for more unique controls than what was offered in the original title. I myself found issue with how dashing worked in the original, and strongly appreciated being able to map the controls to function similarly to how dashing worked in the Mega Man Zero titles instead.
If you’re a veteran of the original title, there’s still a lot of new content to be discovered here as well. The armor upgrades have been swapped around for example, affecting how one may tackle the boss order. The bosses themselves have new attacks, making them a significant challenge if you are used to defeating them in one way or another. A mode to play as Vile has also been added, though I can’t say too much on that as I have only currently beaten the game with X.
There’s a lot of charm in how Maverick Hunter presents itself. New animated cutscenes have been added, and voice acting is now present in the game where it wasn’t before.
Now for the negatives.
Being a PSP remake, a lot of things had to suffer in order to get it to properly function. In some ways, the presentation of the title is worse than the original. For example, the screen is a tad zoomed in, causing one to take damage in areas they didn’t necessarily mean to, or die in ways that they likely wouldn’t have done so in the original.
Some of the cool moments in the original opening mission are gone, or altered in a way that is inferior to how the original title presented them. For example, the Vile fight in that mission now has a health bar, where in the original title he did not. This may not seem like a major difference, but in a lot of aspects this diminishes the wordless story telling that moment had. Where as X was fighting an enemy who seemed so impossibly strong only to lose the battle, it is now obvious how much health Vile has. This served to showcase X’s development in the original, and served to further showcase just how stronger he was by the end of the title, where Vile’s last boss fight has a health bar. That signified that Vile was no longer the hopelessly powerful titan he was at the start, but just another enemy who could be defeated, all because of the growth X went throughout the game. That subtle bit of storytelling is no present in Maverick Hunter.
The voice acting is…okay, to say the least. I don’t hate it, and it’s not as bad as other X titles in the series, but I can’t say it’s amazing or anything. It does get annoying to have X constantly scream an attack name when fighting a boss though.
The music is just not as good as the original title. It feels a bit too light in comparison, and basically has no punch or power on its own. Mega Man X’s original soundtrack felt energetic and powerful, and these new compositions just don’t convey that same feeling, leaving certain stages (such as storm eagle) to feel deeply underwhelming.
Overall though, I’d say this isn’t a terrible version of Mega Man X. While I’d still recommend the original title over this, there is definitely a lot of fun to be had here, and there is value to be found here. I’d say that in terms of the PSP’s library, this is a very solid game.
The art style of Maverick Hunter is fantastic. As a 2.5D remake of a SNES title, the developers did an amazing job of translating those sprites into 3D models. Unlike so many other remakes, this game still ‘feels’ like its source material. That 2.5D style has always been something that I find to be quite charming, and seeing it executed in Maverick Hunter as well as it has been is delightful.
Gameplay wise, there are mostly nothing but positives. I do really appreciate how, for the most part, Maverick Hunter plays exactly the same. One new appreciated addition was the inclusion of button mapping, allowing for more unique controls than what was offered in the original title. I myself found issue with how dashing worked in the original, and strongly appreciated being able to map the controls to function similarly to how dashing worked in the Mega Man Zero titles instead.
If you’re a veteran of the original title, there’s still a lot of new content to be discovered here as well. The armor upgrades have been swapped around for example, affecting how one may tackle the boss order. The bosses themselves have new attacks, making them a significant challenge if you are used to defeating them in one way or another. A mode to play as Vile has also been added, though I can’t say too much on that as I have only currently beaten the game with X.
There’s a lot of charm in how Maverick Hunter presents itself. New animated cutscenes have been added, and voice acting is now present in the game where it wasn’t before.
Now for the negatives.
Being a PSP remake, a lot of things had to suffer in order to get it to properly function. In some ways, the presentation of the title is worse than the original. For example, the screen is a tad zoomed in, causing one to take damage in areas they didn’t necessarily mean to, or die in ways that they likely wouldn’t have done so in the original.
Some of the cool moments in the original opening mission are gone, or altered in a way that is inferior to how the original title presented them. For example, the Vile fight in that mission now has a health bar, where in the original title he did not. This may not seem like a major difference, but in a lot of aspects this diminishes the wordless story telling that moment had. Where as X was fighting an enemy who seemed so impossibly strong only to lose the battle, it is now obvious how much health Vile has. This served to showcase X’s development in the original, and served to further showcase just how stronger he was by the end of the title, where Vile’s last boss fight has a health bar. That signified that Vile was no longer the hopelessly powerful titan he was at the start, but just another enemy who could be defeated, all because of the growth X went throughout the game. That subtle bit of storytelling is no present in Maverick Hunter.
The voice acting is…okay, to say the least. I don’t hate it, and it’s not as bad as other X titles in the series, but I can’t say it’s amazing or anything. It does get annoying to have X constantly scream an attack name when fighting a boss though.
The music is just not as good as the original title. It feels a bit too light in comparison, and basically has no punch or power on its own. Mega Man X’s original soundtrack felt energetic and powerful, and these new compositions just don’t convey that same feeling, leaving certain stages (such as storm eagle) to feel deeply underwhelming.
Overall though, I’d say this isn’t a terrible version of Mega Man X. While I’d still recommend the original title over this, there is definitely a lot of fun to be had here, and there is value to be found here. I’d say that in terms of the PSP’s library, this is a very solid game.