Going to get it out of the way, localization is dog water. I’m not going to comment on the plot as the English script is riddled with mistranslations and the hilariously bad voicing, so maybe it’s better in Japan, but legitimately some of the funniest bad acting in America. Beyond that? Excellent gameplay in both routes. Zero’s so satisfying moveset wise, you can do his story without backtracks, and X is possibly at his best here, owing to one of the most fun armor sets in the series. Graphically, it’s some damn gorgeous, vibrant 32-bit spriting that uses the backgrounds really nicely. This game’s X and Zero sprites are likely synonymous with your childhood if you played Flash games, and rightfully so. They’re animated very well, hitboxes are good, and it feels precise, if a tad heavier than on SNES, which is averted if you dash jump more. X’s weapon game is great here, but Zero is everyone’s main attraction. There’s nothing that walls him off like X5, and he’s there right from the start. The boss rush is even fun as Zero just because they let you use those techniques you’ve learned on them. Though poorly dubbed, the animated cutscenes still look very good and add to the charm. Easily one of my favorite games of all time, and probably my favorite in the X series, even if I’ve not rerun it as much as I have X1. This game is just Him.