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Mega Man X was one of my absolute favorite SNES games. I don't think there's much need to explain that really. It successfully took everything awesome about the NES games and actually made it feel futuristic with its new 16-bit appearance. It introduced a highly detailed Mega Man, now known as X (duh) who not only looked awesome but who could now cling to walls, do a fast dash, and maybe most importantly could throw a Hadoken fireball. For these reasons, and many others Mega Man X remained a staple of my SNES-playing for a very long time. And when the Mega Man X Collection was released for Playstation 2 and GameCube, I was sure to seek out a copy immediately.

But what's interesting is that although many sequels of varying quality were released as part of the X series, the original and wonderful Mega Man X was never forgotten. Instead, it received two re-releases on portable consoles. Both of which were complete reinventions of the game, made to re-imagine the game with the actual handheld hardware in mind.


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Mega Man Xtreme was released in 2001 for the Game Boy Color. It was the first of two Xtreme games released for the GBC that year. However where the second game was a completely original title that took full use of the GBC's new upgraded hardware, the first game was actually a backwards compatible GBC cart. This meant that although it was colorized, it still ran on the more primitive Game Boy hardware as well. Knowing this reveals just how impressive this demake really is. Essentially this a port of a SNES game to hardware less capable than the NES. Though the resolution is surely lower, the game really looks as good, or better than most NES Mega Man titles. The controls are a bit of a mixed bag, as they are sufficient, but certainly not as smooth as the SNES original.

In fairness it should be pointed out that this is not an apples-for-apples conversion of Mega Man X. Although it's very closely based on the original game, it also used bits and pieces of X2 along with a mish-mash of music. In theory it's actually a bit similar to the Game Boy Mega Man games that would combine bits from several of the NES releases to make a new game. Extras include unlockable levels and characters, which definitely add to the merits of another playthrough for fans of the X series. Though it's far from perfect, it's really a damn fine 8-bit portable Mega Man. Maybe it shouldn't be remembered quite as fondly as say the Game Boy's Mega Man V, but it certainly should not be forgotten either.


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Five years later Capcom released another remake, Mega Man X: Maverick Hunter for the PSP. Unlike the toned down version on the GBC, this one would be completely rebuilt from the ground up to show off the capabilities of the PSP and see what the game would have looked like had it been released all these years later. The game features polygons instead of sprites, full dialogue instead of text boxes, and the addition of anime cutscenes to help the story's momentum. And although none of these new features seem necessary, the game continues to grow on me.

For instance, though I'll always prefer sprites over polygons, I can't help but be a bit taken aback by the intricate details that were put into the backgrounds. Though spoken dialogue can be a drag, it is kind of fun to hear these back-and-forth's betwixt X and his enemies. And to be totally honest, the anime scenes are really quite beautiful. Though I won't for a second say that I would prefer the PSP version over the original SNES game, I can certainly recommend it for fans of the series looking for a new and interesting way to experience it. Although I assume the real target demographic were younger gamers who may not have the same fondness for 2D sprites.

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