Mega Man Xtreme - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

Mega Man Xtreme garnered a mostly lukewarm response from critics. 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. Thompson and Provo were each satisfied with the "catchy" background music, though the latter reviewer believed the sound instrumentals to be "laughably tinny".

In terms of gameplay, critics saw Mega Man Xtreme as a competent entry among home console titles in the franchise. Thompson and Nix pointed out that like other Mega Man X games and unlike the classic Mega Man series, Mega Man Xtreme focused more on the end-stage boss battles than the stages themselves. A universal complaint about the game was its high difficulty. Provo largely traced this to the graphical issues and hard bosses. However, though he suggested that the player can overcome the challenge of earlier bosses with practice and patience, the final few battles become "an exercise in frustration", particularly in Xtreme mode. Nix attributed the difficulty to the player's need for Sub-Tanks and armor upgrades hidden in very remote locations. "Since there's no indicator to let players know when they've finished a stage 100%, most won't know that these bonuses are even there, and there's so few of them hidden that some gamers may never even guess that hidden stuff is even part of the gameplay," he concluded. "Without those obscure items, even the best gamers would find the further battles of this game a nightmare." 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish was less specific about his objections with the game, but nonetheless called it a "rough transition" from SNES to Game Boy Color, "bordering on unplayable".

Mega Man Xtreme was the fourth best-selling video game in Japan during its week of release at 15,312 copies. The game dropped to the eighth slot the next week, selling an additional 11,279 copies. Media Create sales information shows that Mega Man Xtreme was the 182nd best-selling game in Japan in 2000 at 64,011 copies sold. Mega Man Xtreme was followed by one direct sequel, Mega Man Xtreme 2, released for the Game Boy Color in 2001. In 2012, IGN listed both games among titles they wished to see downloadable from the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS.