Mega Man Xtreme

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. With Middy's help, X dives into cyberspace to erase the battle data of four Maverick bosses from his previous missions. Once they are beaten, X makes his way to Mother Computer core and defeats the Shadow Hunter Zain, only to see Zain's companions Techno and Geemel retreat and Sigma unveils himself as the mastermind behind the hack. Dr. Cain manages to find Sigma's base, and X warps there via the Mother Computer core. At the hideout, X confronts Techno, firing his buster at the computer used to hack into the Mother Computer. Techno reveals that in order to hack into the Mother Computer he had to upload his own CPU into the computer X destroyed. Middy arrives, revealing that Techno is his twin brother. Having been controlled by Sigma, Techno comes to his senses and dies. X continues on, finds Sigma, and defeats him. The computer core begins to detonate, but as X escapes, Middy chooses to stay, stating that he and his twin brother share a CPU and perishes alongside Techno. The hard mode of Mega Man Xtreme partially extends the storyline, where Zero informs X that someone else has illegally accessed records from the Mother Computer and reproduced more Maverick data. The heroes soon learn that Geemel and Sigma are again responsible and dispatch both villains in a similar fashion. ==Gameplay==

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. The game is composed mostly of elements from Mega Man X and X2, as well as new content made specifically for the game. Mega Man Xtreme contains three difficulty levels with Normal and Hard mode making up the game's main narrative and featuring only four of the eight main bosses in each, while Xtreme mode acts as a bonus scenario with all eight bosses available to fight from the beginning. ==Development and release==

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. and in North America on January 10, 2001. ==Reception and legacy==

}} 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." Thompson and Provo were each satisfied with the "catchy" background music, though the latter reviewer believed the sound instrumentals to be "laughably tinny". 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 a 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. On July 18, 2013, Capcom confirmed that Mega Man Xtreme was planned for release on the 3DS Virtual Console. It was released on the platform in Japan on December 4, 2013, and in North America on May 1, 2014. ==Notes==