Everybody likes x4 because of the anime. It's the same reason why peple loved Final Fantasy 7, Now there was cutscenes that developed the characters pretty well.

   Ironically I thought X5 was the worst of the series. (Consider the fact I'm not including X7 which should be forgotten and X8 which I havnt gotten around to yet) X1 - 3 were the best. They were simple, fun, and had just enough secrets to make them interesting but not irritating. X4 was indeed amazing ill agree with everyone on that, and I liked it for a majority of the reasons everyone else does. The anime cutscenes were well done the plot was well done and overal structure was well done. It kept the roots of the first 3, had little capcom quirks like dragoon doing SF moves, and of course had zero playable (for those that don't suck since obviously he was more difficult to use).
 
   X4 had some bad aspects though such as the voice acting...dear god...some of the voice acting was ok but most of it was just....bad. The announcer was the worst, not only did he sound like crap but so did the quality of his recording lol. And while the graphics were updated and more detailed, for some reason they just bothered me. I don't know. I didn't transition too well from X3 to X4 when it came to art direction. I wouldve preferred they kept it with X3 art design but of course thats not going forward which is what they were doing with the X series on PS1.

  X5 was a disappointment from the get-go. I mean talk about random opening stage. The lack of cutscenes was inconsitant also. If youre going to make a addition like that to a game it isnt a good idea to remove it in later sequels. You dont go backwards and thats what removing the cutscenes was doing lol. Granted that isnt a game breaking feature its just inconsitant which is my main issue with X5. The story was good in theory but the execution of it made the game too complicated. Splitting the bosses into 2 groups of 4 immediately confuses veteran players of the X series who are used to getting 8 bosses thrown at their face and to pick their order of playing the 8. The timed basis of the game was another random addition that was unneccesary. It made the player feel like they had to rush through all 8 bosses with minimal backtracking (I'm not sure if replaying a stage costed an hour or not). While it was rare youd suck so bad youd run out of time, it was still random and completely unneccesary.

   There were 2 other features in the game that after playing X6 felt like they were beta, and they were the parts and the rescue system. I to this day (and its probably mostly because I never play X5) I don't understand the parts system in that game. I mean i get the idea behind it but i often find myself not being able to equip certain things I cant figure out why (probably if not because theyre character specific then because of other factors) and the game does an amazing job of NOT telling you what things do or why you can/can't use them. So 9 times out of 10 when I play X5 I don't even bother with the parts system, I play through with base stats. And the rescue system (which I believe started in X4) to me makes no sense. I mean i understand thats where you get the parts from but other than that its....thats it the best thing X5 did was give the guys you resuce more purpose by giving them parts to hold, otherwise they werent even that worth risking your neck for in any situation.

   It took me playing X6 to realize exactly what they were trying to do with the parts and rescue system in X5 (but failed HORRIBLY in doing). And to be honest it was extremely well thought out and well executed in X6. The parts are clearly catagorzied, you know exactly when you can and cant use them, and you get a list of who gave you what part. The rescue system was also well done and made sense. You got a detailed list of rescued, dead, or missing people in each stage along with what they gave you. The list actually motivated you (for diehards that like to do EVERYTHING) to go back in each stage and FIND all 16 reploids for the parts and you felt accomplished when you finally did. Another great thing with the parts was they actually were required for certain tricky parts of the game for getting places you normally couldn't.

   Bottom line when it comes down to simple fun, X4 wins. In X4 you have no parts system no resuce system no character switching, you just pick X or Zero and play through the game like any other old X game. X4 for that reason alone is one of the best ones. When it comes down to complicating the series in a way that actually works, X6 wins that round. Everything in X6 was a completed and finished form of everything you saw in X5. X6 was HARD as hell compared to the other ones but theres never anything wrong with a challenege especially if youre going to go through the trouble of making the game complicated and in-depth.

   One more thing that makes me hate X5 more than anything else and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure theres one or two heart tanks inaccessible to Zero. This pissed me off hardcore because I either play X or Zero i dont alternate, which means i get ALL the heart tanks on one or the other. And not being able to get them all with Zero was the most annoying thing ever in the game. And X6 got huge points for letting Zero get all 8 tanks (16 technically).

   Anyways all of the above are personal opinions and ill agree with a majority of people here in saying to each their own and disagree with me if you will. No need to freak out because everyone preferrs one game over another. When this happens to me I just consider my opinions right and keep it to myself haha (cough).

OMFG Please don't mention X6 I despise that game w/ a passion for what it did to the X series.

I don't see any flaws other than lack of cutscenes in X5 which I really could've cared less since none of the anime cutscenes in X4 were really that good. The only good one was when Double goes maverick and the Zero opening.

Oct 10, 2008 -- 9:08PM, Cesar wrote:

and Axl should die.

Axl cannot die, or atleast not until he has fulfilled his part in the canon. Axl's presence is integral for various future plot points.

Why do fans overlook this?

I see alot of people dogging X5 I have always thought that was one of the better games in the series..  It's one of my favorites if you were patient enough with the system it wasn't hard to catch onto.

X4 is highly overrated in my opinion to, if you think about this was a time when Nintendo was through with platformers the X franchise had to move on, Originally the game was made for the Arcade and then suddenly Sony took it under it's Wings like they did with the Final Fantasy Series MMX made  you go back and look at Nintedo Powers and you'll noticed X was in the top 20 with all three titles for the SNES. Being the only game besides X3 on the Saturn with anime clips that made it very highly succesfull. Anotherthing it talked about the origins of Zero + It was the first  you can play him with his very own story. Capcom wasn't done with the series so they had to do everything they could to get the 4th installment to have sucess and in returned thier hard work paid off.