Es la forma definitiva de jugar X5. Arregla problemas con el RNG, el ritmo en el nivel de DuffMcWhalen, mejora significativamente el ritmo de los niveles en general quitando las intervenciones de Aila, quita los problemas de RNG, arregla el problema con las partes, y permite usar las piezas de las armaduras sin necesidad de juntarlas todas primero, quitando de esta forma mucho backtracking.

A pesar de esto, no lo puedo considerar bueno debido a que el diseño de niveles sigue siendo el mismo, pero con estos cambios, hace que la experiencia de este juego sea decente.

La nota corresponde al juego como tal, al proyecto como tal le daría 4 estrellas.

I actually really like Mega Man X5, and I'm coming into this review telling you this so my rating makes sense. I'm in that camp that, warts and all, thinks the game is one of the best of the X series! It's pretty damn easy for the most part, has some weird mechanics that it doesn't do the best job explaining, and has a kinda whack RNG component, but goddamn it, most of the game is pretty damn fun! Sure, Squid Adler is a mess, and the less we talk of Duff Mcwhalen the better, but I'll be damned if Grizzly Slash and The Skiver's stages don't live in my head rent free when the compeition of most memorable stages from the X series come up. Also has one of the best OSTs in the series for my money, cause damn there's some killer tracks in here. Squid Adler, Mattrex, Zero Stage 2, Dynamo, X VS Zero, the good shit. So a revamp patch for a game I love in spite of its flaws is really appreciated! What's on offer here, then?

Well, let's get less gameplay focused stuff out of the way first. The game's script is given a complete retranslation, which is kinda neat. Only noticed a few different lines myself, but it's nice for those who want a more authentic experience. The game's Japanese OP and ED tracks are used, which you're either for or against, but more importantly is the restoration of the many unused music tracks, with Duff McWhalen, most of Dr Light's capsules, the good ending, and the second stage select all being reinserted back into the game. So are the voice clips for X, Zero and Dynamo that were only in the Japanese version! Neat! The game also uses the Japanese Maverick names, which yeah sure, whatever, I'm still calling him Duff Mcwhalen. But all of that is less important, because X5 really needed some of the edges sanded off to be all it could be.

At its core, X5 is a game that still plays like X4 did, and isn't bogged down by being the terribly designed, schizophrenic difficulty scaling mess of X6, so we're off to a good baseline starting point. Where X5 struggled was that, in addition to being lower budget than X4, with its cutscenes being delivered through stills with text pings rather than anime cutscenes with horrendous voice acting, was honestly its own overambition, probably as a result of the Mega Man series as a whole being beaten with the "It's the same game as the last time" stick. RPG elements in the form of the badly explained parts system and the pace-breaking way of trying to unlock them, which in turn increases the level of Mavericks, the needless level of RNG to get to the good ending which might mean Zero might be inaccessable for the end game and you wasted any heart tanks you chose to collect as him, and the amount of backtracking the game has you do for 100% are chief among the biggest complaints X5 recieves.

And they're all taken into account by this patch, as well as a few others! To begin with, parts are now given to you regardless of remaining time on the clock, and you'll get both the possible parts regardless of which one you select. Both incredibly welcome changes, the former since it obviously makes the game flow significantly better for the player wanting to make the most out of the feature, and the latter because it means you don't need a wiki on standby to see what the life and energy up parts for that stage are. The game's endings being RNG? Gone out the window; if you want the bad ending, just launch that fucking space shuttle with no parts and there you go, have fun with your evil Zero! Duff Mcwhalen's stage is the biggest complaint of backtracking, but now if you plan your route right, you can get in and out with all the upgrades in one run, and the autoscrolling sections are made considerably faster in addition to being harder, therefore more engaging.
Other improvements include X and Zero sharing heart tanks, the ability to use any armour's pieces individually like the prior games, the requirement to collect one less orb to get the Light capsule in Squid Adler's stage (not much, but wiggle room is wiggle room!), the Ultimate Armour being useable from the moment you get it, rather than needing to game over and return to stage select, the ability to skip cutscenes and entirely disable Alia's navigation calls, a harder take on the X VS Zero battle at the end of the game, there's so much changed for the better here. Whether you're a first timer who's looking for the ideal way to play each game, or a vet like me who was replaying X5 for the dozenth time with this hack, I'd honestly go as far as to say this is the way you should definitely play X5. And I'm a pretty big purist for playing games as originally designed, so let that be a point in its favour.

At the end of the day, I'm not 100% sure on how much this would change the opinion on an X5 hater, since it's still X5 at the end of the day, and for some, I know QOL improvements can really only do so much. But as a guy who really, really likes X5? I had a huge smile on my face from start to finish. An easy recommendation, and one that makes one of my favourite Mega Man titles even better!

Differently from what i thought of X3 hack when i replayed, i still like this one a lot. Here you can disable the Alia bullshit, heart tanks goes for both X and Zero, you don't need to do something specific to get all parts, duff mcwhalen(yeah i will use the guns n roses name) stage isn't a turtle, and well, that's it i guess, things that should be in the original game, but are here. Unfortunately Gaea Armor still sucks, and the boss rush is still bad due to the bosses gigantic health, but at least this is more bearable if you use Black Zero or Ultimate Armor, which requires pre-knowledge tho.

As for most things unchanged, i really like X5, the level design most of the time flows really well and it's very fun swap between X and Zero between stages, and the weapons are by far the best from the three PS1 X games. OST is by far my favorite from any Mega Man, and that's quite something, history is probably my favorite too, the endings are still beautiful if you forget about X6, that dogshit game