easily one of the most overhated games i've ever played, and it's mostly unjustified. that part I'll get to. otherwise a lot of the scorn this game gets feels so forced and that people are just straight up not using the tools the game gives you. you get (a slightly nerfed) falcon armour x from the start and zero as early as your first maverick stage (coming with a double jump and air dash by default). every single rescuable reploid gives you a small health restore regardless of whether they grant anything after exiting a stage, and losing ones that do give something genuinely doesn't mean much considering the amount that of stuff that is still unmissable. nightmare effects are a nuisance at worst and should only really effect level replays since they're forced on once the stage boss is dead, and a lot of the "bs level design" is just like, a spike or platform out of range of the camera that you get past by damage boosting (which doesn't at all justify the game being rushed and not being play-tested but it's not egregious or anything). people talk about the donuts in blaze heatnix's stage a lot and how they're annoying and take too long to kill but you literally have a screen nuke on both x and zero that you can use practically infinite times per stage that takes care of them in around 2 uses.

look. i don't think this game is better designed than x4 or x5, but i will say I enjoy this one more than the latter because it doesn't interrupt you every 5 seconds and what's on offer here is still also fun.

shit REALLY hits the fan once you get to the gate stages. I honestly didn't struggle with them too much but I can absolutely see how badly designed they are compared to the rest of the game, which isn't designed that well to begin with. being unbeatable as x without parts, gate 2 being loooooooong and having two bossfights (gate himself being *atrocious). they might be the absolute utter worst in the series. otherwise the music bangs and zero is gimped but good. honestly has better presentation than x5 thanks to the abundance of artwork during cutscenes and the bad translation is at least something to laugh at.