If you were a Mega Man fan in the early 2000s, you might remember Mega Man Xtreme.
Released by Capcom for the Game Boy Color in 2000, it was a spin-off of the Mega Man X series, featuring a cyberspace-themed story and elements recycled from previous games such as Mega Man X & Mega Man X2.
At launch, most of the reviews for the game published for the game seemed to range from average to fairly positive, with one of the more complimentary publications, IGN, describing it as a "great package" for "diehards" and awarding it an 8, despite noting that it had "some serious balance issues." Gamespot, meanwhile, gave it a 6.4, stating the "difficulty level combined with its numerous control and visual flaws should serve as a point of caution for casual game players."
If you're wondering why we're bringing this all up now. Well, it appears that a new PC fangame, Mega Man DXtreme, has just been released, aiming to "revamp" the Mega Man spin-off, with a "re-imagined story, improved controls, wider screen, reworked weapons and bosses" and a bunch of other exciting additions (a list of which you can view below):
- While the story still follows the original plot, it has been rewritten with some new events occurring
- Wider screen resolution based on the GBA dimensions
- The stage dimensions have been reworked to fit the new screen ratio, and while the level design is globally the same, some changes have been made in some parts
- Gameplay has been updated to be faster and more responsive
- Boss fights have been reworked; they all have new moves and new behaviors
- Most of the weapons have also been reworked to be more functional and have new interactions with bosses
The project, according to the developers, was built in Construct 2, an HTML5-based 2D video game engine developed by Scirra Ltd, and was put together over the course of five months by a team of 12, including level designers, musicians, and playtesters, led by the director Tomycase.
It is available to download for free now from itch.io, and has already had a 1.1 update to fix some of the bugs reported by the first group of players to get their hands on it.
Asked whether they might give the same treatment to 2001's Mega Man Xtreme 2, Tomycase answered rather definitively that there are currently no plans to go beyond the first game.