Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

X starts from a wonderfully blunt setup: you are in a space tank on an alien planet, Earth needs defending, and there is a job to finish before the clock or your shielding runs dry. That immediate pressure gives the first mission a real edge. You are not simply roaming and firing at whatever appears; every detour raises the question of whether it is worth the time and damage you may take.

The choice between open overworld travel and underground tunnels is where the game earns its bite. Roaming above ground lets you guide the tank freely, but enemy patrols can open fire. The tunnels offer replenishment points for the tank and its weapons, making them an important lifeline rather than a decorative alternate route. Learning when to push ahead and when to divert for supplies is the kind of small tactical decision that starts to click after a few attempts.

The mission list also helps X feel more focused than a single endless assault. Restoring power to a plant asks for a different mindset than a seek-and-destroy assignment, even though both are built around the same dangerous drive through alien territory. Ten missions is not a huge campaign, but the changing objectives give you a reason to engage with the map instead of treating every encounter as interchangeable.

Frustration arrives with the hard fail conditions. Run out of either time or shielding and it is over, so mistakes can be expensive. If you want a forgiving shooter, X will feel severe. If you enjoy a compact challenge that asks you to manage a route, avoid unnecessary fights, and make each resupply stop count, that severity becomes the point.

Graphics

X puts you in a first-person view from a space tank, moving between the planet’s open overworld and its underground tunnels. On the Game Boy, that shift in location helps break up the journey: exposed routes carry the threat of enemy patrols, while tunnels read as the safer place to regroup and replenish.

Story

The story is direct sci-fi mission framing: an alien invasion threatens Earth, and you are sent to another planet in a tank to stop it. It is a clean excuse to put the player under pressure, and X benefits from not making you wait around for the action to begin.

Its objectives do some of the narrative work. Restoring a power plant suggests a planet with infrastructure worth reclaiming, while seek-and-destroy missions turn the same hostile territory into a more immediate military problem. That is modest storytelling, but it gives the ten missions a little more texture than a string of disconnected shooting stages.

Do not come in expecting the invasion premise to carry the experience on its own. The real stakes are mechanical: Earth is in danger, but right now your timer is shrinking and your shielding is taking hits. For this kind of action game, that close-range urgency is more effective than a lot of extra exposition would be.

Overall Experience

X is a tough, purposeful Game Boy shooter built around pressure rather than spectacle. The free movement across the overworld, the risk of patrols, the tunnel resupply stops, and the mission clock all pull in the same direction: you need to make decisions quickly, and you need to live with them.

Its limits are inseparable from its appeal. The campaign is only ten missions, and the game-over conditions can make it feel punishing when a run falls apart. Yet that same harshness makes a successful route feel earned. You are not merely outlasting enemies; you are preserving enough time and shielding to complete an objective.

Give X a chance if you like old-school shooters that demand concentration and reward deliberate movement. Skip it if you need abundant second chances or a relaxed pace. For everyone else, this is a compact alien-war challenge with enough mission variety and route-planning tension to justify the struggle.

Retro Replay Score

6.5/10