Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X (PSP)
First time?: Yes, but I've played the original Mega Man X before.
Immediately after beating X2, I decided to revisit the first game again, but this time in the form of the remake on PSP called Maverick Hunter X. Being fairly familiar with the first game, I thought it would be interesting to see what stayed the same and what changed.
Gameplay wise, it feels very faithful to the original. It feels just as much fun to dash around and maneuver the levels as it does in the SNES original, which is probably the most important thing to have gotten right. The PSP's screen is fairly small with a widescreen form factor, so the real estate of the screen is cut down a bit vertically. The level design tries to accomodate for this change where it can, but since it also has to follow the original levels fairly closely, this still inevitably results in the occassional blind spot and leap of faith.
One interesting change is that, while all the armor upgrades are in the same locations, the contents of the upgrades have all changed. For instance, while you originally got the boot upgrade in Chill Penguin's stage in the SNES version, this version has you get them in Flame Mammoth's stage. Chill Penguin's capsule instead has the helmet upgrade. Since all the other collectibles are in the same places as their SNES counterparts, this change just seems strange.
The music is a point of contention for some. While the SNES version has a very rock-inspired soundtrack with a very distinctive set of samples, Maverick Hunter X opts for more techno-rock style arrangements. I personally think the arrangements are quite good; no replacements for the originals, but very solid tracks I don't mind jamming out to.
The Sigma stages are also completely reworked, bearing very little in common with the original level designs, as well as changing the order you refight the Mavericks. Since I don't often revisit the Sigma stages in the original, I don't have much of an opinion on these changes, but I thought it was worth mentioning that they were still noticably different regardless.
I guess I should also talk about the cutscenes and voice acting. The FMV cutscenes are professionally animated and look great; I'd like to see them in a resolution higher than what the PSP natively outputs, but still enjoyable. The voice acting is mostly OK, X's voice actor does a good job, and while I think Vile doesn't really sound how I imagined, I do think it's funny whenever he tells X "I hate you!"
Overall, Maverick Hunter X was a good remake. Worth playing over the original? Probably not, but it's an enjoyable experience if you wanna revisit the SNES game while still getting something new out of it.
There's also an unlockable mode where you play as Vile but I tried it for like 5 minutes and found him hard and confusing to use. Maybe some day I'll invest more time to that campaign, but not now.
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Scan of the Day but not Scan of the Day since I'm still technically on hiatus...
I still haven't had the patience to clean up the very speckled and dotted X settei, so I did the next best thing for today. Instead, have 3 cleaned up Day of Sigma pieces, featuring X, Zero, Sigma and Vile. All in nice high quality.
Happy 30th Anniversary to the X Series, and 36th to Mega Man!
Scanned from: My Production Art Stash
HQ Scans:
X and Zero - https://imgbox.com/297Cn2o4
Sigma - https://imgbox.com/FPQl4Lma
Vile - https://imgbox.com/0YH0T1JP
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Maverick Hunter Drille
I don't have a lot of commentary about this one! I just really needed this to be drawn :3
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Vile
My piece for the @mechanicalheartzine ! I joined the zine late as the merchandise mod and co-shipping coordinator thanks to my convention background. It was quite the experience working on a zine for the first time-- and formatting other people's art and turning it into a reality was super rewarding!
Although I joined several months late, I had the opportunity to add a banner to the digital merch bundles, thus Vile <3!
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