This is completely on me, but i don't like revisiting levels for upgrades. I never went out of my way to collect every coin or letter in Donkey/Kong Mario, or the chaos emeralds in sonic. I'm more a " straight from start to end and done with it" kind of platformer player. This is a big issue with Mega Man X, because actual performance stuff like health on your life bar and armor is locked behind exactly those shenanigans. Sigma's fortress seems even balanced around you not going through there with just the dash upgrade (which i unfortunately pretty much did and it was hell). I quite prefer the old Mega Man where you get your whole health bar upfront. It's not better or worse in general, just personally don't like it.

I also didn't find most of the stages that memorable design wise. A lot of repetition, and a bit of waiting here and there, like the marble zone in the original Sonic. I don't know if i feel that way because i played the games in order without any nostalgia or i'm starting to get a slight Mega Man burnout. Might also be because i didn't go out of my way to explore for goodies.The bosses however were challenging but in a fun way.

What the game obviously does very right is the setting and design. The animal like theme of the bosses, the stages are beautiful, the intro stage was unique in both gameplay and looks. Zero's design is the stuff of legends, as is the OST.

The setting at it's core isn't that much different from normal Mega Man, just a little bit edgier and even more futuristic. Zero is just a better looking Protoman with his role in the story. It does a great job mixing the franchise up in a way which was desperately needed at the time.

Certainly a classic. It spawned a whole subseries, and by proxy countless Zero and other titles of the franchise.