However, Mega Man X adds a number of new features and makes radical changes to the original gameplay mechanics of previous releases in the series.

These include allowing the player to dash along the ground, scale walls, and obtain armor attachments which grant special abilities.

[11] Among the ruins, Cain finds a large capsule which contains a highly advanced robot with human-level intelligence and emotions, and even free will, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Light had wished to instill within his creation reasonable sanity, good nature, and an understanding of the more controversial aspects of human morality.

[11] Cain decides to duplicate X and, within several months, completes the first "replicate android" or "Reploid", a robot who can think, feel, learn, and grow exactly like a human.

[11] The Hunters are to capture or disable any Reploids that pose a threat to humans, provide damage control at Maverick uprisings, help with disaster recovery, and perform other tasks as needed.

Claiming that the humans are inferior and that they are limiting the growth and potential of Reploids, he calls for his followers to begin a massive extinction effort.

[13] X's abilities are similar to those in previous Mega Man games, such as running, jumping, and a chargeable arm cannon named the "X-Buster".

[13][20] When certain conditions are met, a secret capsule can be unlocked which gives X the ability to perform the "Hadouken", an attack used by characters (Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Sakura, Gouken) from Capcom's Street Fighter series.

[2] In the original Mega Man series, Inafune typically designed the protagonist while his protégé Hayato Kaji handled the supporting characters.

Inafune felt that Mega Man had always represented a classic action game formula in which the hero earns his defeated enemies' abilities; the armor parts were added to supplement this concept.

[21][24] The art and pixelization for these eight bosses were divided among three illustrators: Inafune did Storm Eagle and Chill Penguin; Kaji did Spark Mandrill, Launch Octopus, and Sting Chameleon; and Kazunori Tazaki (credited as Ikki) did Flame Mammoth, Armored Armadillo, and Boomer Kuwanger.

[2] Tatsuya Yoshikawa (credited as Tatsunoko), a fourth artist who had recently been hired by Capcom, was given the task of assisting the rest of the team by designing, illustrating, and creating the sprites for the game's minor enemies.

[28] Mega Man X was announced in North America in a March 1993 Game Players magazine interview with Capcom's Senior Vice President Joseph Morici.

[29] The autumn 1993 issue of Club Capcom announced Rockman X for a December 1993 release in Japan, divulged several plot and gameplay details, and showed Zero as a silhouetted "Blues-like character".

[30] Leading up to its release, the game was covered by the North American press surrounding the summer 1993 and winter 1994 Consumer Electronics Shows.

[3][13][17][24][39][41][42] Game Players summarized Mega Man X as "a near-perfect cart with classic gameplay, excellent graphics and sound and tons of hidden items and power-ups".

[18][21][24][45] Brett Elston of GamesRadar stated, "X was a total reinvention of the series, a perfectly executed update that had fans anticipating its release with a fervor the franchise hadn't seen since the Mega Man 2 and 3 days.

[39] Super Play editor Zy Nicholson lowered his review score of the game because he found the levels were neither large nor challenging.

"A few elementary tricks like repeating easy sections to recoup energy and weapon power will see you through the harder bits," Nicholson explained.

[58][59] IGN's Jeremy Dunham speculated that the game's more mature storyline and its inclusion of numerous gameplay extensions over the original Mega Man series helped create a "unique cadre of fans".

[10][19][21] After the SNES version debuted, Mega Man X was ported by Rozner Labs to the IBM PC for MS-DOS in 1995 and was packaged with a six-button game controller.

[5] Mega Man X received a separate PC release for Windows in Japan in 1996, based on the North American MS-DOS version.

"[68] Although the remake stays true to the original game in both gameplay and basic storyline, Maverick Hunter X features a total graphical overhaul with 3D character models and backgrounds, a remixed soundtrack, voice acting, and anime cutscenes.

The remake also has a few extras including an original video animation titled "The Day of Sigma" (which serves as a storyline prequel) and an unlockable mode to play through the game as the character Vile.

[69][70] Inafune implemented this mode to offer players a new perspective on the game through the eyes of a villain, feeling it would be "too obvious and boring" given an option to play as Zero.

[64] Like the original game, Maverick Hunter X has received very positive reviews from critics, accumulating aggregate scores of 82% on GameRankings and 79 out of 100 on Metacritic.

[80] However, this version removed extra life power-ups, and separated the levels into chunks by black screen transitions, as opposed to the continuous scrolling of the original.

[8] It also features a purchasable option to switch to the Maverick Hunter X soundtrack, composed by Kento Hasegawa, Seiko Kobuchi and Shinya Okada.

The game's instruction booklet will include a foreword by Jirard "Dragonrider / The Completionist" Khalil and packaging restoration by Jango Snow Art & Design.