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I have played the original Mega Man X games and its sequels quite a lot, yet I never get tired of them at all (at least, of most games). They remain ageless and will never tire me out. You could say that the games don't even need a remake, yet here we are with Mega Man Maverick Hunter X. Despite not needing a remake, Capcom did an excellent job at making this remake not one that replaces the original, but compliments it very well alongside new additions to make this a must-play for Mega Man fans, or fans planning to get into the franchise to begin with. The core Mega Man X gameplay still functions very well, and the stages have mostly been a one-on-one translation with the exception of the Sigma Stages. Power-ups may also appear in different places which left me paranoid at first, because the dash upgrade was not in Chill Penguin's stage but instead in Flame Mammoth's, in a place I'd normally not visit because I need another upgrade in the original to get there. Near the fourth stage I was getting afraid because all I could find was 1-ups and an occasional heart tank. But at the same time, I don't dislike this change because it encouraged me to check out stages all over again and possibly in a different order than I do normally. There's not much else to say about the main game because like I said, it's pretty much a direct copy from the original with minor changes. I can also proudly say that they kept a very secret power-up for X in the game, and I'm very happy with that. But aside from an already great main game, we get introduced to a playable Vile for the first (and only) time ever! It did catch me off-guard as I never really cared for Vile that much, but after playing through it I ended up very satisfied. Not only does the game give more exposure to who Vile is and what his goals are (though they can literally be summed up in one word: jealousy), but also to how fun it is to play as him. He's very different from that characters that we were able to play as previously, being armed with a total of 45 (!) weapons of which you can choose three at the start of each stage. Most weapons fall into one of nine weapon categories which are the same with small differences like power or reach, but the game encourages you to experiment with them to finetune Vile to your liking. It did take some getting used to, but once I got the ball rolling, it wouldn't stop and I just continued playing with him until I reached a satisfying ending. There were minor differences in the stages as well, and now I also know why the upgrades were switched around in stages when playing as X, because most of Vile's upgrades could be found in the remaining spots. Aside from Vile mode, there is a thirty-minute animated short serving as a prequel to the game (though I do sometimes question how canon it is), a lot of Quality of Life updates like voiced cutscenes and more. Mega Man Maverick Hunter X is an almost perfect homage to the original game, and one that should be played by all fans who fell in love with the original. It is not just simply a remake; it is a tribute to a legacy.
9/10
