Game remakes are kind of a funny thing. If polled, the vast majority of
people would probably say they prefer new game experiences to
dressed-up versions of old games, but remakes certainly seem to have
their place in the lexicon of gaming. After all, not everyone had the
opportunity to play many of these games back in their heyday, and
remakes like Resident Evil on the GameCube, Conker: Live &
Reloaded, and Double Dragon Advance have shown that with the right
amount of effort, even old games can feel new again. Mega Man Maverick
Hunter X is the latest example of a publisher taking an old title--in
this case, Mega Man X for the SNES--and revamping it for a modern
platform--the PSP, in this case. If you've played the original Mega Man
X, the setups, scenarios, and battles will seem largely familiar to
you. Visually, however, this is completely new, with crisp 3D graphics
to modernize the experience and some new anime vignettes to help tell
the story. Toss in some cool bonus content and the same great gameplay
as the original, and you've got a remake well worth playing.
As any card-carrying Mega Man aficionado will tell you, the Mega Man
X series was something of a departure for its time. Sure, it was still
a side-scrolling action platformer starring everyone's favorite blue
robot boy, Mega Man, but the game took place several years after the
events of the original Mega Man titles, and took on a slightly edgier
tone. The story revolved around Mega Man (or X, as he's called here)
hunting down a number of renegade reploids known as Mavericks. Reploids
are typically the sorts of genial, helpful robots that do many of
mankind's more laborious tasks. But when an evil reploid (and former
Maverick Hunter) by the name of Sigma leads a revolt and turns a number
of his fellow robots into Mavericks, X must set out to destroy the
revolution much the way he always has--by picking from a number of
available boss stages, blasting his way through them, defeating the
boss at the end, and taking his weapon.
For all its posturing to the contrary, Mega Man X really was just a
marginally slicker take on the same sort of Mega Man action we've all
known and loved over the years--and that's just fine. Though the X
series did eventually run out of steam as the years went on, the
original Mega Man X is one of the best Mega Man games out there, and
Maverick Hunter X does nothing to ruin that. The gameplay pops just as
well as it did back in 1993. All the same mechanics and upgrades from
the original game ring true in the remake, too. As you defeat the
bosses you can usurp their weapons. You also have your default blaster,
which can shoot both quick shots and bigger, more powerful charged
shots. X can leap off of walls and earn armor upgrades that give him
new abilities, like dash attacks, reduced damage taken, and new blaster
shots.
How X gets these upgrades is one of the few things that have actually
been altered in the overall game design. You still gain these upgrades
by visiting assorted capsules spread throughout the different boss
levels, which have evidently been placed there by X's creator, Dr.
Light. But which stages contain which upgrades has been shuffled.
Because in some cases certain abilities are needed to defeat certain
bosses (having the dash attack to beat Storm Eagle, for instance), this
does radically change the order in which you tackle each stage. The
bosses themselves also are slightly different. It's very minor, but if
you're intimately familiar with the original game, you might notice
slight differences in the attack patterns of each boss. It's nothing
game-changing, though, and for the most part you fight each boss
exactly the same way. Beyond the boss fights and Light's capsule
placements, the level designs are almost entirely the same throughout
the game. Enemy placements, jump puzzles, and the like are all pretty
much how you remember them, albeit with a fresh coat of paint on each
one.
The graphical overhaul given in Maverick Hunter X is really
excellent. You still play the game as a 2D side-scroller, but
everything has been rendered out in 3D, giving the game a visual style
more akin to something like the more recent X games on the PlayStation
2. What's more, it's all very sharp looking. The animations are
extremely smooth, and all the different character designs are bright,
colorful, and frankly just look like fantastic 3D interpretations of
the same enemies you remember from the SNES era. Even subtle effects
like explosions and weapons fire just look more impressive, and
although this is just a side-scroller at heart, this is definitely one
of the better-looking PSP games out there. The updated audio in
Maverick Hunter X isn't quite as impressive as the graphics. The
addition of voice acting for the different interludes between boss
fights is an interesting wrinkle. Some of the acting feels a little off
in spots, but for the most part the game just seems to be going for the
ultraexaggerated, anime-esque inflections, and it pulls it off. The
remixed music tracks have mixed results. Some are just as catchy as the
original tunes, and others are decidedly inferior. It's not that any of
them are bad, exactly, but there are times where you'll pine for the
ancient synth tracks of the 16-bit era.
For as great as Maverick Hunter X is, it is still based on a fairly
short side-scroller. Make no mistake, there is certainly a solid level
of challenge to be found in this game, and overall it should take you
at least a few hours to beat the first time through. But at the same
time, a few hours of great gameplay isn't necessarily enough to make it
a worthwhile purchase. Fortunately, there's additional content to beef
up the package. After you've beaten the game the first time through,
you unlock Vile as a playable character. X historians will recognize
Vile as X's archnemesis and a relentless Maverick Hunter. Vile plays
similarly to X, although with a ridiculous amount of weaponry that can
be fired from his arm, shoulder, and leg, respectively. Beating
different bosses unlocks new combinations of weaponry with new
abilities, and there's a pretty insane list of combinative weaponry to
choose from as time goes on. On top of being able to play as Vile,
there's also an unlockable 24-minute anime video that delves into some
of the game's unique backstory and provides some insight into Sigma's
motives. Toss in multiple difficulty levels, and you've got a good deal
of stuff to play through and check out.
It's interesting that Mega Man Maverick Hunter X would turn out
to be the first side-scrolling action game on the PSP, given the
genre's continued success on other handhelds. If anything, Maverick
Hunter X proves that games like this one can still be impressive in
this day and age when given the proper treatment and care. Whether
you're a veteran Mega Man player or a newcomer to the series, Mega Man
Maverick Hunter X is worth checking out.
Source: GameSpot