The added voice acting and animated cutscenes are really cool, as is the Day of Sigma OVA. This was the same era that Capcom made not one, but TWO Street Fighter OVAs to promote the release of IV. This and those make me wish Capcom would do something like that again.
I like the graphical visual style of the game and changes to the UI. There's a little bar in the top left that shows you the order of your weapons you've collected so you can swap weapons faster knowing exactly how many button presses you need with the shoulder buttons until you fast swap to the weapon you want.
A negative aspect of the visuals are that, unless I configured something wrong, I don't like that the entire screen is shifted up for some reason? I know it's a PSP game so it's a smaller device, but the screen is SUPER zoomed in to the point where things I could see on the ceiling in the original game are impossible to see now. The crushers in Burnin' Noumander's stage are harder to see, as are the Batton Bone's in the ceilings of stages like Icy Penguigo. This leads to decreased visual clarity in being able to see what's coming ahead or above you. Surely the game could've made the characters smaller so more of the playable screen could be seen?
The Armor Part upgrades are all rearranged for some reason, as well. I've heard that some people like to do No Upgrade runs, and it's impossible to skip the Leg Parts in the SNES version. So I think it's a good change to have placed them in a way that you can skip them if you'd like, but now the Leg Parts are where the Arm Parts were in the original and you don't need the Head Parts for them. The Body Parts in the SNES version you get from fighting the Sting Chameleao secret miniboss is now the Arm Parts. The Body Parts are where the Head Parts in the original were. And there's a completely new area in Icy Penguigo's stage for the Head Parts.
The cool thing about the placement of the X-Buster upgrade in the original was that it was pretty difficult to get. It required both the Leg Parts and the Head Parts on a pixel-perfect dash and then you had to break through the blocks vertically and keep wall jumping to find the upgrade before you fight Vava. Now it's placed in an area against a boss that's been made significantly easier to fight than the original, so you very easily gain access to an upgrade that makes your weapon considerably stronger. Not only that, but the Leg Upgrades, which I believe are vital to making the game feel satisfying to play for beginners, are a little TOO out of the way now. Surely, they could have just raised the ceiling on the Icy Penguigo level so people could jump over it if they wanted to, right? It didn't necessitate moving ALL the upgrades around in a way that kinda makes the progression worse.
Not that it would really matter anyway, because you can quit out of a level and keep your upgrades at any time, allowing you to have a fully upgraded X before you even fight a single boss. There's a reason the original game had it so you couldn't use your Escape Unit before you completed a stage in full, and it was to prevent this exact scenario. You can argue that "balance" in a single player game is kind of pointless, why NOT have it so you can be busted and overpowered as much as you want. But it removes a lot of the challenge and difficulty curve the designers of the original game intended. It's still a cool alternate way to play X1 with lots of additions and cool features that make this version worth playing, but it's not a replacement for the original whatsoever.
I like the graphical visual style of the game and changes to the UI. There's a little bar in the top left that shows you the order of your weapons you've collected so you can swap weapons faster knowing exactly how many button presses you need with the shoulder buttons until you fast swap to the weapon you want.
A negative aspect of the visuals are that, unless I configured something wrong, I don't like that the entire screen is shifted up for some reason? I know it's a PSP game so it's a smaller device, but the screen is SUPER zoomed in to the point where things I could see on the ceiling in the original game are impossible to see now. The crushers in Burnin' Noumander's stage are harder to see, as are the Batton Bone's in the ceilings of stages like Icy Penguigo. This leads to decreased visual clarity in being able to see what's coming ahead or above you. Surely the game could've made the characters smaller so more of the playable screen could be seen?
The Armor Part upgrades are all rearranged for some reason, as well. I've heard that some people like to do No Upgrade runs, and it's impossible to skip the Leg Parts in the SNES version. So I think it's a good change to have placed them in a way that you can skip them if you'd like, but now the Leg Parts are where the Arm Parts were in the original and you don't need the Head Parts for them. The Body Parts in the SNES version you get from fighting the Sting Chameleao secret miniboss is now the Arm Parts. The Body Parts are where the Head Parts in the original were. And there's a completely new area in Icy Penguigo's stage for the Head Parts.
The cool thing about the placement of the X-Buster upgrade in the original was that it was pretty difficult to get. It required both the Leg Parts and the Head Parts on a pixel-perfect dash and then you had to break through the blocks vertically and keep wall jumping to find the upgrade before you fight Vava. Now it's placed in an area against a boss that's been made significantly easier to fight than the original, so you very easily gain access to an upgrade that makes your weapon considerably stronger. Not only that, but the Leg Upgrades, which I believe are vital to making the game feel satisfying to play for beginners, are a little TOO out of the way now. Surely, they could have just raised the ceiling on the Icy Penguigo level so people could jump over it if they wanted to, right? It didn't necessitate moving ALL the upgrades around in a way that kinda makes the progression worse.
Not that it would really matter anyway, because you can quit out of a level and keep your upgrades at any time, allowing you to have a fully upgraded X before you even fight a single boss. There's a reason the original game had it so you couldn't use your Escape Unit before you completed a stage in full, and it was to prevent this exact scenario. You can argue that "balance" in a single player game is kind of pointless, why NOT have it so you can be busted and overpowered as much as you want. But it removes a lot of the challenge and difficulty curve the designers of the original game intended. It's still a cool alternate way to play X1 with lots of additions and cool features that make this version worth playing, but it's not a replacement for the original whatsoever.