Maverick Hunter X

I guess Capcom wasn't quite satisfied with the direction Mega Man X was heading so instead of working on X9 they decided to remake Mega Man X for the PSP. While PSP owners might have been satisfied with a straight port, Inafune wanted to completely rebuild the series. Maverick Hunter X would feature rewritten scripts, new graphics, animated cutscenes and a whole host of extras to whet the appetites of Mega Man X fans. If the game did well, X2-X6 would soon follow in succession. So how did it do?

Story
The story is essentially the same as Mega Man X with a few changes here and there, most of which aren't worth mentioning like how and when X fights Vile and the like. The game comes with a totally new and original prequel animated story called "Day of Sigma" which details some of the events of X's origin and what lead up to Sigma's rebellion and the start of the Maverick wars, even detailing where Sigma got those scars. A lot of effort went in to this and the animated cutscenes in game and I for one am glad to see it.

As a bonus, you can play as Vile after you beat the game and he has his own story and animated cutscenes. Basically Sigma breaks Vile out of Maverick... um... jail? He tells Vile that he needs him to combat X who is the future of the Reploids. Vile takes offense to this comment and decides to show Sigma that he's much better than X and goes around fucking up the mavericks working his way to Sigma himself.

I'll admit his reasoning is strange but Vile's voice actor pulls it off and you just get a sense that Vile is just fucking insane. On his way to Sigma Vile runs into X and Zero in the best fucking boss fight of the entire X series as you take on X and Zero at the same time. Despite winning the fight, Zero goes through the sacrifice to stop Vile and X blasts him to keep with the continuity of the main game.

Sigma finds Vile lying in a broken scrap heap and says "Just what the hell would you have done if you made it to me anyway Vile?" Vile just laughs and says, "You know, I hadn't thought that far into it really." Sigma kinda rolls his eyes and walks off as Vile takes solace in the fact that he beat X as his body shuts down. This little bonus is worth the game alone, trust me.

Aesthetics
Imagine the original X levels with X8 graphics and you have the aesthetics for this game. The levels are virtually unchanged in appearance except for the graphical upgrade so I don't feel the need to go to much into it.

Otherwise you've got the animated cutscenes which look pretty good and the hand drawn stills that X8 also had. It looks good but doesn't distinguish itself from the original X game which was probably intentional as this is a remake.

Sound
All your favorite Mega Man X songs are back and arranged to meet new quality standards in sound. Mega Man X boasts some of the best video game music of all time and hearing your favorite themes with actual instruments only makes them so much better. The soundtrack for this game just went on sale in Japan as well and is certainly good enough to add to your collection if you have the resources.

The sound effects are much better than the original as well, but that shouldn't be surprising from a PSP game. The voice acting is once again the Ocean Group and Mark Gatha and Lucas Gilbertson reprise their roles as X and Zero and it's clear why Capcom had them come back. For those who think Gilbertson's Zero sounds too much like a surfer, need I remind you what it took to get here for Zero's voice?

Design
What can I say? Most of the levels are lifted straight out of Mega Man X which for the most part is one of the best Mega Man games of all time. There are a few changes to slip up the experienced X player such as swapping around some of the armor upgrades and changing how you get some of the heart containers but the main game is the same.

We'll talk about Vile mode a bit. Vile goes through the same levels but has three sets of weapons. A forward firing machine gun/rocket launcher, an arc firing mortar weapon, and a grenade firing mechanism that comes out of his knee. As you defeat mavericks they drop a whole shit load of weapons for you to pick and choose from, but you must do it before going into the level and you must take into account the energy cost of the weapons so you don't go over your limit. Not knowing what the weapons do or how they operate can kind of screw you over your first time through but it's unlikely you'll bring 3 shitty weapons to any particular level. The bosses are generally weak against weapons dropped from the boss that originally had their weakness for the X playthrough but not all of them. Vile doesn't gain anything in the way of armor upgrades though and even though Vile mode isn't quite as fun as say, playing Zero or something, seeing his angle of the story is quite enjoyable and unique.

Playability
Did you ever play Mega Man X? If so, you'll have no problem. If not... we'll you'll still have no problem because the game is very easy to play. I recommend you set your Dash to one of the trigger buttons though.

I will say, this game is much easier than the original, especially Sigma. That's saying quite a bit though as the original game wasn't especially tough either.

Extras

• Boss Order: Start with Flame Mammoth as this is where the Dash is no located. After that, Chill Penguin, Storm Eagle, Spark Mandrill, Armored Armadillo, Launch Octopus, Boomer Kuwanger and finally Sting Chameleon. For Vile, I started with Chill Penguin and stuck to the standard X route and it seemed to work ok since Chill Penguin gives an armor upgrade and a decent square button attack.
• Zero gives you his arm cannon just like in the original game if you didn't pick up the upgrade, however, this time it's better than the capsule upgrade. Unfortunately you have to wait till the second to last level to get it this time. It's worth the wait.
• The Hadouken is back in this game as well, but you'll need to try a different technique to obtaining it. Get all the upgrades and heart tanks for X, you can either have Zero's arm cannon or your own, and then make it to the end of Armored Armadillo's stage without taking any damage. It helps to used charged Rolling Shield and Chameleon Sting shots.

The quality of this game is pretty high, but unfortunately the sales were not. I have some mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I really want to see X9 come to fruition, and moving forward with the remakes might have taken away from that. On the other hand it would have been really nice seeing X4-X6 remade, and for that, I am a bit sad that Capcom doesn't have any plans to continue with this series as of yet. This month however Capcom is releasing Maverick Hunter X on the Playstation Network, and it is well worth your investment. If it does really well here the series could get a second wind, but I wouldn't count on it.

Playthroughs
Speed Run by Chris 'Satoryu' Kirk