X6... gosh, what a weird game.
This one came after the "finale" on X5. It portrays the events that took place not too long afterwards.
And... to be frank, the original version of the game didn't do justice to this story's plot, because I think it might be one of the better ones.
Again, quite the dark game. Most of the "Investigators" you face are Reploids that were created by Gate and were killed in bizarre accidents or events (that apparently were arranged by the Hunters or the former Reploid Research Lab that Alia worked on, that part is not fully clear), and now that they were brought back to life, they feel even more dutiful to accomplish Gate's objectives. Hell, some of their dialogues are absolutely dark, and from their dialogues it's very implied that a few of them were friends with X or Zero as well.
I honestly like how the game, at least on the Tweaks version, feels much more optimistic as well. When facing Sigma, X pretty much goes "Alright, now stay dead for as long as possible, we are still fixing the problems you caused last time". It's quite amazing how this felt like a hopeful experience.
Of course, this doesn't take away the fact that the level design in this one is.... not that good. The Tweaks mod at least make it bearable enough so you can traverse through the stages with Normal X if you want to, but... yeah, this is kinda stinky.
The bosses were overall improved here as well (as in: they have more XP) and now we can at least see some of the extra patterns they have. Still, most can be cheesed quickly enough if you're playing as Zero.
The Tweaks mod does jump my rating from a 2.5 to a 3.5, the changes made are that good for the game.
On a better world, they'd have waited a bit to release this on the PS2, maybe with an expanded story and better levels / rng picks for it.
And by god if I have to be stuck on Central Museum for 30 minutes again just to get all the reploids I swear to Zero I will stab those reploids myself-
This one came after the "finale" on X5. It portrays the events that took place not too long afterwards.
And... to be frank, the original version of the game didn't do justice to this story's plot, because I think it might be one of the better ones.
Again, quite the dark game. Most of the "Investigators" you face are Reploids that were created by Gate and were killed in bizarre accidents or events (that apparently were arranged by the Hunters or the former Reploid Research Lab that Alia worked on, that part is not fully clear), and now that they were brought back to life, they feel even more dutiful to accomplish Gate's objectives. Hell, some of their dialogues are absolutely dark, and from their dialogues it's very implied that a few of them were friends with X or Zero as well.
I honestly like how the game, at least on the Tweaks version, feels much more optimistic as well. When facing Sigma, X pretty much goes "Alright, now stay dead for as long as possible, we are still fixing the problems you caused last time". It's quite amazing how this felt like a hopeful experience.
Of course, this doesn't take away the fact that the level design in this one is.... not that good. The Tweaks mod at least make it bearable enough so you can traverse through the stages with Normal X if you want to, but... yeah, this is kinda stinky.
The bosses were overall improved here as well (as in: they have more XP) and now we can at least see some of the extra patterns they have. Still, most can be cheesed quickly enough if you're playing as Zero.
The Tweaks mod does jump my rating from a 2.5 to a 3.5, the changes made are that good for the game.
On a better world, they'd have waited a bit to release this on the PS2, maybe with an expanded story and better levels / rng picks for it.
And by god if I have to be stuck on Central Museum for 30 minutes again just to get all the reploids I swear to Zero I will stab those reploids myself-