The MBoard

I'm surprised no one is talking about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWWEKjiFLAM

Looks really good.   I hope they replace the music with X1-X3 style versions of the X8 tracks. 

It looks amazing and I hope they keep Zero as well as Axl and the navigators out of it as one of the biggest X fangame pitfalls tends to be balancing around a larger cast. Demake the music like you said and I think they have a real winner on their hands here.

Being X8 goes a long way to kill interest in a project.

But it's not X7....

Not being X7 doesn't make something not bad.

The perception of X8 (and of demakes in general) might affect how people look at this, but imagine if X8 HAD looked like this... imagine if they all did. I'm not sure I'd complain.

But if this is a 1:1 remake of the level design (I say IF because I couldn't say I played X8 enough to know them in the way that I know X or X2) then perhaps its value is the light that it sheds on that level design when you take away the things that were masking it.

I don't know if I'm just particular or if I tend to be more appreciative of little details in music more than other people are, but for the projects like this that I've come across, demaking the music tends to be the worst aspect for me. People tend to just take the tracks and remake them with older soundfonts, emulating the notes but none of the emotion or passion that went into the original work. To me it would be like tracing someone else's drawing onto a cardboard box using a paintbrush dipped in piss. You couldn't say that it didn't involve some amount of effort, but would you say it was worth it?

Some levels are 1:1, but others are retooled differently such as Earthrock Trilobyte and Gigabolt Manowar. 

I've been playing the demo and I've defeated 4 bosses so far.  Got the full Icarus Armor set and 4 Heart tanks + 1 Sub tank.

I played it a bit but it was not really fun. There's really bad level design in the new stuff and it definitely didn't help that I don't like X8 very much.

It also doesn't look 16 bit at all. X looks completely out of place in the game's graphics.

I recorded me dying horribly in a boss fight, I feel like the desperation moves should not be 2 shotting me especially when there's no partner switch in this version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbtXW-1wYz8

I found out a few days ago that this was finished and was curious how it turned out compared to the earlier versions.

I'm enjoying it so far, but my only complaint is that they didn't bother to use SNES style remixes for the music.   It makes it feel unfinished.  Hopefully they'll update it and put SNES music in.