This is an okay collection. There's been plenty of care put towards spotlighting the games' concept art, lore and soundtracks, plus there's trophy support. There's not much else, though, and the emulation for the SNES games is kinda iffy. The PS4 version wasn't too bad, apart from a few hard jumps, but I hear on the Switch it is atrocious.
Anyway, most of the good games in the franchise are in this volume, so if you're only going to buy one, buy this one. Incidentally, some people will present the fact that this collection is split in two volumes as a minus, but I say that being able to have X4 on my console while not wasting a single byte with X6 is actually a plus, and Capcom should be commended for it.
Although, that's not exactly true, there is something from X6 still. In both volumes, you'll find this extra mode called the X Challenge, which is basically a series of battles where you, as a beefed up X with a limited selection of boss weapons, fight a combination of any two bosses from any of the 2D games at once.
It's a cute idea, and it's interesting to see all these bosses from different games together, but it's better on paper than in reality. For one, "any of the 2D games" unfortunately means that X6 bosses are here, so expect to fight garbage like Shield Sheldon, Infinity Mijinion and High Max during your futile attempts to have fun.
Whether the Mavericks come from the lesser games or not, these tag battles don't feel fair most of the time, as two enemies attacking at once tend to cancel each other's safe spots and lead to a lot of forced damage. That's especially true when fighting king picks like Iris + Double, or Magma Dragoon + Neon Tiger.
On the other hand, sometimes it doesn't feel fair for the bosses. Dunking on X bosses with the air dash and plasma shots is just too cruel: they're about as ready for that as X6 was ready to ship. Overall, balance feels extremely off, and boss duos seem to have been picked based on style rather than interesting interactions.
It would probably have been more interesting to have an X Challenge with X~X3 bosses and mechanics in one volume, then X4-X6 in another, as well as having single boss fights back to back or with handicaps instead of fighting two unrelated enemies at once. Too late now, though...
Anyway, most of the good games in the franchise are in this volume, so if you're only going to buy one, buy this one. Incidentally, some people will present the fact that this collection is split in two volumes as a minus, but I say that being able to have X4 on my console while not wasting a single byte with X6 is actually a plus, and Capcom should be commended for it.
Although, that's not exactly true, there is something from X6 still. In both volumes, you'll find this extra mode called the X Challenge, which is basically a series of battles where you, as a beefed up X with a limited selection of boss weapons, fight a combination of any two bosses from any of the 2D games at once.
It's a cute idea, and it's interesting to see all these bosses from different games together, but it's better on paper than in reality. For one, "any of the 2D games" unfortunately means that X6 bosses are here, so expect to fight garbage like Shield Sheldon, Infinity Mijinion and High Max during your futile attempts to have fun.
Whether the Mavericks come from the lesser games or not, these tag battles don't feel fair most of the time, as two enemies attacking at once tend to cancel each other's safe spots and lead to a lot of forced damage. That's especially true when fighting king picks like Iris + Double, or Magma Dragoon + Neon Tiger.
On the other hand, sometimes it doesn't feel fair for the bosses. Dunking on X bosses with the air dash and plasma shots is just too cruel: they're about as ready for that as X6 was ready to ship. Overall, balance feels extremely off, and boss duos seem to have been picked based on style rather than interesting interactions.
It would probably have been more interesting to have an X Challenge with X~X3 bosses and mechanics in one volume, then X4-X6 in another, as well as having single boss fights back to back or with handicaps instead of fighting two unrelated enemies at once. Too late now, though...