Mega Man Xtreme

Mega Man Xtreme is an action-platform game that features the same gameplay as the Mega Man X games on non-handheld game consoles. As the titular protagonist, the player is tasked with completing a series of selectable, side-scrolling stages in any order desired. X has the ability to run, jump, scale walls, and fire his chargeable "X-Buster" arm cannon to overcome enemies in each stage. These stages consist of various obstacles, enemies, and a boss at the end.

As the player progresses, helpful power-ups such as health, weapon energy and extra lives can be found or dropped from slain foes. Permanent power-ups include special tanks that extend the player's life bar, storage units that allow for surplus health energy to be saved for later use and armor parts that grant X new abilities such as improved damage resistance and ability to dash-jump off walls. Fully depleting the health of the end-stage boss will clear the stage and allow X to add the boss' weapon to his arsenal. As each boss is weak to another's weapon, the player can defeat the bosses more easily by choosing to complete the stages in a specific order.

Mega Man Xtreme takes place within the Mega Man X series timeline, during the 22nd century in which humans and intelligent androids called "Reploids" coexist. Daily life is under constant threat by "Mavericks", Reploids that have gone dangerously rogue. The series follows the exploits of X and his partner Zero, a pair of "Maverick Hunters" led by the benevolent Dr. Cain.

These hunters have been responsible for suppressing the threat of reploid uprising, particularly that of a dangerous Maverick leader named Sigma. At the opening of the normal difficulty mode of Mega Man Xtreme, a hacker named Techno from a band called the "Shadow Hunters" breaks into the world's Mother Computer, destabilizing all of the networks and allowing Mavericks wreak havoc everywhere. X awakens to find himself on the highway from his first adventure to stop Sigma. Realizing it is merely a simulated replication, the protagonist is greeted by Zero, who informs X that the Maverick Hunters have partnered with a computer genius named Middy to stop the current crisis.

Mega Man Xtreme was developed and published by Capcom. The Japanese version of the game was initially debuted as a playable demo at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2000. The game was shown at the Tokyo Game Show the following fall. Haruki Suetsugu was the sole artist responsible for the game's character designs and cover art, just as he had been for both Mega Man X4 and Mega Man X5.

He designed the twins Middy and Techno so that if one's helmet is turned 90 degrees, it is shaped like the other's helmet. Additionally, Middy was illustrated with soft, round lines and Techno was given sharper, pointed angles, each to reflect their personalities. Going by his instructions, Suetsugu designed Zain and Geemel in contrast to one another by giving them heavy and light armor plating respectively. He felt his illustrations may be too complex for the Game Boy Color's hardware, but he was greatly satisfied with the outcome by graphics designers.

Mega Man Xtreme has an aggregate score of 79% on GameRankings. Opinions on the presentation of Mega Man Xtreme have somewhat varied, though all agreed the game appears as a compact version of the SNES titles. Allgame contributor Jon Thompson justified the game's graphical inferiority to the SNES titles. "While obviously some graphic cutbacks have been made, due to the limitations of the system, the levels are still colorful and vibrant," he explained, "And the enemies, while many have been scaled down from their original sizes, are still clear and visually pleasing as ever."

Frank Provo of GameSpot and Marc Nix of IGN both noted the animation of the protagonist to stand out among the other sprites. Provo overall called the backgrounds "neither garish nor ugly", but complained about the frame rate, control, and collision detection in certain areas and an apparent flicker throughout the game. Nix only noticed these irritations when playing Mega Man Xtreme on an original Game Boy or Game Boy Pocket, and that they can be alleviated by using a Game Boy Color. Associated Press writer William Schiffman found the controls relatively easy, even for younger gamers.