YMMV / Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Spark Mandrill's death cry, "So this is what it's like..." Is he simply expressing frustration at tasting defeat, or is he realising how it feels to be branded a Maverick and terminated, feeling repentant for having been a hunter?
  • Depending on the difficulty chosen, X's dialogue is different. He is far more aggressive in Hard Mode when compared to his disappointed persona from Normal.
• Angst? What Angst?: When X confronts any of the former Maverick Hunters it basically boils down to "How could you do this? We were friends/allies!" then "You're a Maverick, now die!"
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Sigma's final form. Unlike in the first game where he was immune to the Hadoken, it works on him here. Alternatively, if you skipped the buster upgrade in the normal stages to get the Zero Buster in the fortress, it does four damage to Sigma, even more than his weakness, Rolling Shield, so it'll only take eight charge shots to put him down. Sigma's attacks also have more blatant tells thanks to being attached to his body instead of being floating platforms and glowing eyes, his hands can be wall-climbed up to if they're not against the walls, and his new Desperation Attack is insanely slow and leaves him helplessly open to taking damage. If you can beat the original version's fight, he's been so nerfed that it's more like a Curbstomp Battle here.
  • Unlike in the original, where it's a borderline Goddamned Boss, the RT-55J mini-boss in Sting Chameleon's stage is complete pushover in this game and can be defeated with a measly two Storm Tornadoes.
• Character Rerailment: A large reason for this remake's existence. In the original series, X lost story relevance and allowed Zero and later, Axl to steal the spotlight more and more as the games went on, both of them getting most of the screen time, interesting background and development while X's character weakened with each successive game . Maverick Hunter X sought out to bring him back to his roots and re-establish him as the series main character with better-defined world importance and character motives. This is easily the game to most deeply explore what X's name really means: unlimited potential.
• Complete Monster (includes prologue OVA The Day of Σ): Sigma himself is the leader of the Maverick uprising, and a dangerous madman obsessed with unleashing Reploidkind's true potential. Once the respected commander of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma would orchestrate the hacking of enormous industrial robots and unleash them on cities, allowing them to kill plenty of humans and Reploids alike before mobilizing his Hunters to shut them down. When X and Zero expose him as a traitor, Sigma decides to test the pacifistic X's resolve by using Zero as a Human Shield and goading X into killing him by shooting through his friend. When X can't bring himself to fire, Sigma nearly kills Zero and goes on to annihilate the highly-populated Abel City with a missile bombardment. A merciless lunatic who's willing to abuse and kill his fellow Reploids in his bid to speed along their evolution, Sigma can only laugh maniacally over the bombed-out ruins of Abel City as he gleefully anticipates the coming battle against X.
• Evil Is Cool: Confirmed by Word of God to be the reason Vile was made playable instead of the more obvious choice of Zero.
• Fan Nickname: In Japan, the game's title "イレギュラーハンターX" ("Irregular Hunter X") is shortened to "イレハン" ("Irehan").
• Game-Breaker:
  • All of X's Game-Breakers from the original, such as Storm Tornado and charged Rolling Shield, are pretty much just as (if not more) powerful here. Storm Tornado is faster and smaller but just as destructive, while charged Rolling Shield has a higher damage threshold, can crush more enemies and when it becomes X's personal shield, it can be kept while using other weapons.
  • Vile's default Punch, Go-Getter Right, is one of his best Arm weapons. Distance Needler is also very powerful.
• Good Bad Bugs: Whenever Vile uses a Shoulder or Leg weapon while airborne, he pauses midair. With careful timing and a low cost weapon, it's possible to make Vile inch forward by attacking continuously, allowing him to move horizontally midair without descending. This might be a case of Throw It In!, as stopping Vile's descent with his weapons is the only feasible way to avoid getting hit by X and Zero during a certain attack.
• He's Just Hiding: Dr. Cain appears to die at the end of The Day of Σ; however, since there was no actual death shown, and Dr. Cain used to have a role in the original releases of Mega Man X2 and X3, which were intended to be remade after this game, it's unknown what Dr. Cain's ultimate fate is.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Not a charge shot!?".
  • "Shoot the generator, X!"
  • "I WON'T LET YOU PUSH MY FRIENDS AROUND LIKE THAT!!"
• Moral Event Horizon: Sigma officially crosses it when he launches a Macross Missile Massacre against Abel City, even after X disarmed himself and put himself at Sigma's mercy to stop it.
• Narm:
  • The soulless boss refight version of Chill Penguin is hard to take seriously when all his Boss Banter is replaced with a lifeless "Waah." Unless he gets set on fire, in which case it breaks him out of his lifeless stupor just long enough to elicit his usual surprised "WAH WAH WAH!"
  • Instead of Bosspider just lowering to the ground each time it descends, the animations here make it look like it suddenly trips and smashes into the ground when it reaches the end of its path, complete with a faceplant. Justified in that this is a reference to an obscure Japan-only data book that explained its weak point this way.
  • The scene where Sigma changes into his One-Winged Angel form seems to have been changed to remove the mystery aspect because Sigma fights having two phases would not be a surprise even to newcomers, but the way it was changed kills the effect. In the original game, Sigma explodes upon defeat like a normal Maverick, but his head remains and floats up to join his new form. In the remake, Sigma does not explode so that he can have more dialogue. Then his head just... detaches from his body, which explodes in a small spray of sparks. We get a close-up of Sigma's disembodied head, as he shouts: "It's not over yet, X! The battle! The angst! The destruction!"
  • Some of the names for Vile's weapons are just... what? Go-Getter Right, Bumpity Boom, Popcorn Demon, Spoiled Brat?
  • The Day of Σ OVA isn't exempt from this either. Chill Penguin barking out serious orders and complaining about X with his awkward high pitch is just plain hilarious, and when Sigma orders X to lay down his arms due to his lack of a will to fight, this results in X literally dropping the X-Buster off his body.
• Narm Charm: Silly as Vile's edgy tantrums may be, the fact that he'd blow away potential comrades over a comment that was made in response to his own insults, or because he didn't like a guy's face is terrifying, and those cases are the few where he actually has any reason at all! And there's something about his voice actor's bubbling frustration, Vile's faceless helmet, and his hammy lines that make him a joy to watch anyway.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • If one looks closely, X's shoulderpad rotates awkwardly whenever he fires his X-Buster while standing still. This is most noticeable on the "Weapon Get!" screens.
  • All boss deaths. Not only is the explosion effect itself less than impressive, the boss is clearly visible lying there for a few seconds after the explosion, and before vanishing.
• Superlative Dubbing: Unlike games like, say, Mega Man X4 and Mega Man X7, the acting in this game blows those two OUT THE WATER, and then some. Sigma and Zero's voices sound absolutely phenomenal here, but special mention goes to how Mark Gatha does X. ESPECIALLY in the final battle, where he utterly kills it when X is at his most furious, when he says, "I'll finish this, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!! I WILL DEFEAT YOU, SIGMA!!!!!"
  • The dub was handled by The Ocean Group, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that X sounds a bit like Goku.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Encounter with Sigma has an uncanny resemblence to Perplexity and Foolish Humans from Shadow the Hedgehog, since they were all based on the same stock music track.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Just like the original game, the Sub Tank in Boomerang Kuwanger's stage. You need his weapon to reach it, so it's impossible to defeat him and grab the upgrade in a single run. Made worse by the fact that charged Shotgun Ice doesn't work the same, nor does the "iceless jump" glitch.
  • The Life Up in Storm Eagle's stage as Vile. It's behind crates that Vile can only break with Ride Armor, but the closest one is from a tower on the other side of a long platforming segment. Take into account the Ride Armor's time limit and inability to wall kick, and you've got one frustrating mad dash across instant death pits.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • This remake eschews a lot of the original's gameplay-integrated storytelling. The biggest example is making Vile a legitimate intro boss instead of a Hopeless Boss Fight, resulting in some glaring The Battle Didn't Count when he seizes X anyway. Many find it also ruins the emotional impact of the original scene: giving the player a Curb-Stomp Battle to establish that they need to get stronger.
  • Another example is Zero's sacrifice scene. This time, X isn't paralyzed during Zero's kamikaze attack on Vile, meaning X and Vile go right into battle once Zero is out of the picture. The original scene, with X inexplicably escaping Vile's paralysis and regaining all his energy, was one of the few moments to actually showcase X's much-talked-about "infinite potential", an idea which otherwise feels overlooked.
  • There are also players who weren't fans of the swapped Dr. Light capsule locations. Originally, you could go to Chill Penguin's stage to get the dash and take out the easiest boss simultaneously, but now it's been moved over to Flame Mammoth's stage. The other capsules also have a certain order in which you can get them (ex. you can't get the Head Parts without the Foot Parts), limiting some of your freedom of choice.
  • The 2.5D graphics replacing the original's sharp sprites displeased some fans. However, the reason for the replacement was likely Sony's policies, which strongly discouraged 2D sprite-based graphics.
  • To a lesser extent, the fact that the player doesn't wreck the airship in Storm Eagle's stage before fighting Storm Eagle in freefall, instead simply fighting him atop the still-operational airship. It takes away some of the coolness.
• Too Cool to Live: S-Rank Maverick Hunter Zero: subverted by this point in that it's a known fact that he doesn't stay dead.
• Tough Act to Follow: Remaking one of the most iconic action games of all time was no small task. This game holds up just fine on its own, but will always be compared to the legacy of the legendary SNES original.