Its definitely optional to get it. Sorry you don't like it 🤷 This game is awesome (and free)
I get where you're coming from. A trade-off sounds nice in general, but using the beam sometimes feels off. I just posted about this some minutes ago. It takes more time to actually dispatch enemies that are usually a one hit uncharged. Like bats for example.
Due to this I more often than not smash into minor enemies, that remained undestroyed in the beam for a while. Especially if I fire the beam mid dash-jump. I get that the hitbox is a wee bit smaller than one from the previous charge level, but if a minor enemy is directly in the beam, that usually is just destroyed by one normal X-Buster hit, it should disintegrate instantly, no?
On a different note: The original X1 had at least the same damage value between charge stage 2 and 3 and X3 had one point of damage more on the last stage then the one before. So technically it would be more true to its source material. But I get that this might feel like a stretch. x"D
Yes, this is exactly what i'm talking about, sometimes the beam just takes a long while to damage many enemies and in the original MMX games the upgraded buster did at least as much damage as the regular one. Although the X3 buster was quite annoying because if you threw the combined shot from far and the smaller sorrounding shots hit the boss before the big shot they would have priority and only do the same 2 damage as the regular lvl2 charged shot instead of the 3 damage of the big lvl4 shot, so you wasted time charging the whole thing where you could have dealt more just by spamming lemons
It's optional, but it's an upgrade for levels and a couple of bosses (Fortress 2). It's a bummer that i have to choose between a better buster for the levels and 2-3 bosses and a better buster for bosses (fortress bosses don't have weaknesses aside from sigma 2) with no way to revert the choice. An upgrade should be an upgrade. You also need it for the hadouken.
I like the game, I care deeply about this game and this franchise, and because I care about it i'm constructive because i want it to be the best it can be.