Downloaded this game yesterday from the 3DS eShop...it's been a long time since I've played it! I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded how good it is. Seems to deviate more from the games it is inspired from - either that, or my memory sucks, ha ha. Can't really remember the last two SNES games as well as I could the original Mega Man X for some reason.

In any case, so far it's really good and very challenging. Can't seem to beat Volt Catfish, so I'm going to try and tackle Flame Mammoth instead. I need to beat this game - it's the one portable Mega Man game I've never finished. (not counting the Battle Network or Star Force games)

Anyone else playing this?

Bought, played, finished. Other than Boss Rush mode, but I don't think I'll bother with that.

You're right that it deviates from its sources a lot more than Xtreme did. But I'd say it's almost entirely for the worse. The new hazards and bosses are pretty crappy for the most part. DOUBLE SPHINX TANK is one of the worst bosses in the series, and the final boss was pretty cheap as well.

Another thing that really bothered me is that Xtreme Mode makes you pick and choose which weapons (and potentially upgrades) to get. When you destroy a Maverick, only X OR Zero get his weapon, not both. And Zero needs some of his Maverick weapons to get his upgrades (same for X, I'm pretty sure). I wanted to give X his full repertoire of Maverick Weapons, and ended up locked out of Zero's body and arm enhancements (not to mention he had no special moves).

Xtreme 1 was definitely the better game, but I suppose Xtreme 2 felt less like a gimped port of the SNES stuff. Plus it had a number of amusing translation errors and general awkwardness to the story and dialog. And you could soup up X's buster so that the standard shots do like 5 damage even to bosses! I didn't even bother looking for weaknesses.

I think Xtreme pales in comparison to Xtreme 2. While the way weapons are assigned in Xtreme mode is a little annoying, by and large I think Xtreme 2 is a far superior game, with regards to story, gameplay, and overall design. It has been a few years since I played either game though, but I don't see much of a reason to play Xtreme when the first two X games exist. Xtreme served me well during a vacation my family and I took to Palm Springs as a kid, when the only game system I had with me was my Game Boy Color, and I could now play a Mega Man X game on the go, but it's still not that great.