It's hard to say that revisiting any specific X game would be a bad idea, but at the same time, redoing the better part of the series I'm sure things would have gotten stale after a while, ESPECIALLY if they continue to one-off it (personally I'd pack two games together with some hidden unlockables that span both).
Vile mode, I concede, was awesome. I would put forth however that the "obvious" answer is not necessarily the dull/wrong one. Zero is not any less valid of a choice for a playable X-series
character than he was ever before. I suppose his main issue with X1 would be his lacking any original enemies to end his campaign with. With X2 and X3 there's at least room to write in some obstacles on his path to the "computer core" that seems to preoccupy him. I do NOT recommend coming up with odd-ball random playable characters for every game as it would cheapen the "guest" characters, but doing one or two others may not be a bad idea.
Remakes are always a balancing act in terms of what to "fix" and what to leave alone. MHX committed the cardinal sin of watering down your main weapon (after capsule upgrade, that is) and thus competes with rather than compliments its predecessor. But at least it handled the screen ratio shift better than Powered Up did.
Since X1 basically nailed everything it did, the main draw going into a remake is technical presentation, and I do feel that was a bit hit-or-miss (Part of that I blame on having Yoshikawa in the art director's chair, but also whoever handled the character models clearly didn't know what they were doing either.). X2 and X3, likewise, are games that if remade, their main draw is the technical upgrade (not that X3 couldn't stand to rethink some of its finer points, mind you). When you get into the PS1 games, it's different. The focus then shifts from how you can make it prettier (since the PS1 sprites were pretty damn awesome and the games featured streamed audio already) and more to how you can fine-tune the storyline. Clarify things that, looking back, were not made as clear to the player as they should have been.
I know everyone and their dog says this, but in any game in which playable Zero is viable, I'd love to see co-op. It would be ESPECIALLY helpful in X4, where involving both characters would allow us to establish a more "official" depiction of the events.
I'll touch on X6 just because I'm sure it'll be a hot-button issue: I'd leave the core level design EXACTLY as it is. However, I would make the following changes: Numero uno, you are able to freely exit any stage, any time. Also, venturing into an alternate route comes with the option to return to the point at which the stage splits, so that if you get stuck you don't have to start over. At first, Nightmare effects are triggered by simple stage visits as usual, but if applicable there would be an option to override them at the Stage Select screen. You can choose from the Stage Select screen to enable a Nightmare Effect stemming from any level you have already beaten, or if you are returning to a level that you have already beaten, you can choose to play it in its "neutral" state with no effects active (note that by "beaten", I am referring to defeating its Investigator, not the alternate route).
Posted on: September 15, 2013, 11:02:57 PM
Having the ability to play Colonel sounds interesting and hopefully could shed some light on what going through Repliforce's heads, though how's Colonel side of the story going to end? I'm not sure if Iris will take losing Zero as well as losing her brother, but that could make for an interesting "what if" scenario.
Indeed it would, I've spent many-an-hour thinking of that one. Thing is, I wouldn't have it stem from a "play as Colonel" mode. Rather, I would fix it so that fulfilling certain criteria as Zero cuts his game short, so to speak...
If we were to go with the whole "package more than one game remake together" idea (or for that matter just make one game able to read the save data of previous entries--might be nice to overlap armor/weapons that way), triggering said scene would have huge repercussions in the X5 story.