Is it me or does Duff McWhalen's stage also look slightly darker and more blue? This combined with the music makes much more sense since it makes the stage feel like a dark and cold place to be.
Agreed. It looks much better overall. It's a mystery why they changed it for something that has no issue in the first place, even if it's the planned final X game at the time.
I have an answer for that.. it's rather sad. They removed it for two motivations. First was because it looked like a manji (a symbol close to the swastika) and two because they wished to end it In a reminiscing of the previous x games they replaced it with the other one. I too like the X4 charge better.
I like how the stage select music sounds in this version. For the stages that are locked in Stage Select, those stages have the Sigma Virus. I guess they still thought of some Sigma obstacle to add in, but they have not been set up. I did see that they were unfinished when I saw their design (which I think hacking is the only way to gain access to those locked stages).
I did think of some way to keep both the beta and final theme in. I remember the stage select theme also plays in a cutscene at a certain part. I only remember one cutscene with that theme, but there could be another that I do not remember. The final theme could play in the cutscene, and the beta theme stays used for Stage Select. I read that one of the composers left the company while in the middle of making the game, and the people sill making the game did not want to sound disrespectful by using the themes he made without permission. I think they can still keep them in, and still give him credit, because they already exist in the beta version.
@@marx4538while this is true, I also gotta admit that X5 in general has this weird feeling to it, like it's lower quality if you play it after X4, I remember getting this feeling as a kid when I played it for the first time right after X4 and it never went away. Can't blame it tho since I think X4 had a bigger budget and it was an anniversary game.
@@shadowmaster452 Yeah, X4 had a way bigger budget due to the anniversary, so in some areas of X5, visuals usually look at least a little bit unfinished. I do think some areas look great though, and oddly enough those areas are usually the ones not seen in the earlier prototypes at all (like Rosered's stage), which makes me wonder why some of the far less polished looking places went unchanged.
@@shadowmaster452yet X5 is the better game difficulty wise, it presents more of a challenge(and not a cheap challenge like x6) in comparison to x4 which most consider by far the easiest gamr of the x series.
@@pangeaforever haha I made this video quite a bit ago, haven’t played on Tidal Whale’s stage in a while so don’t really remember any potential differences 😅
People love to complain, but X5 blew X4 out of the water. They litteraly improved on everything from that game. People love to complain on Alia and the shuttle RNG but they forgot this game is intended for kids also who have never played an X game in their life possibly.
@jstick9980 The main reason I like X4 more than X5 is that X4 has cut scenes, which makes the story easier and more interesting to understand than X5 (X5 gave me more questions than answers). Almost every enemy you face in X4 says or pronounces something during and before starting a battle which makes the fighting cooler, X4 graphics seems like you are actually playing a PS1 game whereas X5 3D background graphics and some 3D enemies (especially sigma and U-555) doesn't fit well with the 2D sprites of X, Zero and various enemies. Sigma's second form feels like you are fighting a static picture. Those zero space stages were real torture, especially the laser part.
@@mrunknown7714 I respect your opinion, I for one dont rate X4 rhat high mainly because its too easy. Putting that aside its a solid game with cool dialogue, story, and surprisingly challenging 3 stage Sigma.
