Aaaah, Mega Man X6. I reviewed you nearly five
years ago -- that’s scary to think about -- and every time I’ve revisited you since I realize
nothing’s changed. Supposedly, you were meant to be a very hard game and all the degenerates
that criticize you just aren’t skilled enough to comprehend your true genius. Well, I’d say I’m a
fairly competent Mega Man X player, enjoying and completing challenge runs where I finish the
various instalments with heavy restrictions, and all the same I can only come to one
conclusion: X6, you still suck balls. I suppose you’re good for one thing though: you’re
exploitable for clicks on YouTube, and I could use some of those right about now, so I’ll take
this opportunity to defeat you once and for all in spectacular fashion. That’s right, we're
tackling the game on its highest difficulty, Xtreme, with the ultimate goal to use absolutely
no upgrades whatsoever: I define ‘’no upgrades’’ as no Weapons or Techniques acquired from bosses,
no health upgrades from Heart Tanks or Injured Reploids, no Sub Tanks, no Parts, and no Armor
-- not even the Falcon Armor for X. We're only allowed what is available to both characters
by default, which includes the Z-Saber for X, and the Z-Buster for Zero. Is it possible to beat
Mega Man X6 under these conditions? All footage throughout the video is recorded from a genuine
PSone, by the way, with an official Rock Man X6 copy -- much cheaper and the international version
might as well be in Japanese, anyway -- so save states are out of the question, and you’ll have to
take my word that I don’t own any cheat devices or discs. To start with, then: the intro stage.
There’s not much to comment on with this one, because it’s very tame and short. X is forced
into his Falcon Armor here, but as long as you don’t use its air dash and keep your health bar
above 50% -- since the Falcon Armor reduces damage by half -- I’d say we’re playing within the
rules. I beat D-1000 with my health well above the threshold, and so that’s level 0 we can cross
off the list. Makin’ progress, baby. Right after, I wanna go and unlock Zero, so we have him as soon
as we can. Out of all the alternate pathways in the eight main stages, personally I find Laser
Institute’s the most simple to reach and clear, so that’s where we’re headed next. Off the bat, I
had a slight bit of trouble, because this Injured Reploid above the spikes has a Life-Up part that
extends your health bar, and jumping over him is a little tricky. I failed it the first time, but
after reloading my save I did just fine. Up ahead is a lot of redirecting lasers to open doors,
which is no issue even on Xtreme, to be honest, with pretty manageable enemies. It’s all buttery
smooth sailing until we reach Zero Nightmare. When I initially tried to battle him upclose
with the Z-Saber I kept getting spanked, but once I started mixing that with charged Buster
shots from a distance to get in more safe damage, as well as when I learned to stay to the far left
or right of the room when he summons those meteors from the ground, it was a pretty easy win. Now to make a secondary save file,
where we'll be doing the Zero side of things. In terms of the eight main stages,
I don't have a preference for order, really,
so why not go left to right, top to bottom. This leads us to the Amazon Area, where the first
Injured Reploid has a Life-Up, but he’s simple to ignore. Beyond that, there isn’t anything noteworthy about this level;
you can easily jump over or damage boost through most enemies, since there are plenty of checkpoints,
and I encountered no hiccups to speak of. To this day I stand by it, Commander Yammark
is smokin’ hot with her flirty eyes, but her encounter itself isn’t so hot; blindly shoot or
hack away and you’re Gucci, really. Piss easy, is what that is, and so Amazon Area is finished as
both X and Zero. Inami Temple, though, presents a significant increase in difficulty. For starters,
the fact I visited Laser Institute earlier means I have to deal with those X and Zero soul bodies
that periodically show up to harass you, and the gimmick of acid rain pouring down means you
have to be quite fast and take little damage from enemies. The Monbando bastards are a pain in
this regard, because you have to wait for them to let down their guard, and if you attack too soon
they will keep it up even longer. Fortunately, in this cave section, you can go back once you’re at
the end of it and restore your health on this pad, giving you more leeway to clear what comes
after the cave and reach the next checkpoint. Now we’re in for some shit, however. After
the platforming segment above the water with the rockets, you have to deal with pits, enemies
rising from out of said pits with little warning, bullets being shot by said enemies, the
inconvenient soul bodies I’ve talked about, and even some dreaded Nightmare Viruses. Mind
you, there’s the acid rain during all of this, and when you take damage in this game, you get
staggered for a bit, making the whole situation ripe for classic knockback into pits. The final
kick in the teeth is that you have to blow up this thing to gain access to the next checkpoint,
and since it’s walled off by enemies, it’s not really viable to damage boost through. There’s
no secret sauce to surviving this whole stretch; ya simply gotta pay the bills with the skills.
The last chunk is less problematic, thankfully, because there’s always this healing pad at the
top you can resort to to regain health, and once I’d reminded myself of where the tiny cores are,
it was a swift endeavour to wipe ‘em all and gain access to the boss. As for Rainy Turtloid himself,
he is a joke as Zero specifically: just destroy the shards on his back, and then blast away with
the Z-Buster. You should have enough health to brute force this one. By contrast, we’ll actually
have to fight Rainy Turtloid as X, since there is no way to deal that much damage that fast. So,
when he rolls back and forth across the room, you do not have enough time to properly wall jump
over him continuously, and he also spams bubbles that fly off in random directions, making it even
more unfeasible to avoid damage consistently. The trick is to slash the shards on his back
until they are one hit removed from breaking, sit out his following attack phase, and then
instantly break the shards in his rest phase after that to dish out maximum damage. I repeated this
cycle three times and that did the job for me. Not too bad, I died a handful of times in the
middle of the stage as both X and Zero, but Inami Temple is behind us. Next up is Laser Institute
again, which is a repeat from before, only now you head to the right here at this reflection section
rather than down. Very brief and easy level. Shield Sheldon is waiting on the other side
and I’ve never had much trouble with this guy: do a wall jump over these two shells, get in a few
hits, move to the opposite end out of harm’s way, dodge his predictable attack -- rinse repeat.
Later, when he summons the laser shields around him, manoeuvre around him as best as you can, and
sneak charged shots as X or Saber slashes as Zero between the openings until he is dead. And with
that, we’ve got stage three of the main eight doneso. Nice. We’re keeping up the momentum with
North Pole Area, which is another brisky level. On the slope climb at the start, don’t even waste
time and effort going into the little hiding spots to avoid the avalanche; repeatedly dash jumping up
is a perfectly safe method and far more efficient to boot. The rest of the stage is played as normal
with few enemies or dangerous hazards to mention. As X, I got trapped and died twice where the ice
cubes fall down in a random pattern, but that was out of my control, and I made it out alive on
the third attempt. Getting trapped like that is no concern for Zero, thanks to his double jump. Of
course, Blizzard Wolfang himself is also pathetic, standing still half the time, and his attacks
are slow and laughably predictable. A boss as free as Mission Street, and a pretty free stage
overall for our adventure. Sadly, that was the calm before the storm, because the delivery guy
is knocking at my door with my donuts order. That said, before I answer, I make sure
to visit Recycle Lab first and run out of lives there to immediately leave again, since
the little Nightmare Buggers from Amazon Area would show up in Magma Area otherwise, and
I do not want those interfering during my donut fights in any capacity. Yeah, that’s how the
confusing and unexplained Nightmare system works, don’t you know? Going into Recycle Lab replaces
the Nightmare Buggers with these moving silver brick things, which hinder you slightly but only
show up in this vertical platforming portion; it’s perfectly manageable and much preferable. Now,
this portion is actually somewhat challenging, with Nightmare Viruses roaming around and flames
coming out of the floors and ceilings that can kill you in, like, two touches. The visibility
is kinda lousy, since the screen doesn’t always scroll fast enough and can get you blindsided, but
overall the section is at least not overwhelming; patience is key, and combined with some
precision, you’ll manage to get through. So, the actual donuts themselves; the first and
second encounters are fine and pretty forgiving, since the layouts of the rooms are unobtrusive
and allow you to attack all four of the cores relatively stress free. Donut number three is
where the situation gets more dicey. You see, the battle takes place on this slope, which
makes hitting the bottom left core in particular quite awkward. The safest approach is
to wait on the far left of the room, get in a few hits as the donut approaches and then
jump over, and then on the far right of the room you have a tight window where you can land some
hits after jumping over, as well. The problem is that there are also Nightmare Viruses around
here, and they respawn once you’ve off screened and then on screen their spawn points again. I
suppose there’s no better opportunity than now to mention that Nightmare Viruses are certified cunts
and the worst enemies in the game by a landslide, because they have a tendency to shoot projectiles,
love swarming toward you, and on Xtreme they can even teleport around and often on top of you if
you aren’t moving far out of their vaccinity. They can also phase and shoot through walls, which is
totally fair because the player cannot do either. Combine the above and you have a demanding
little endurance test on your hands here, but mostly as X; reason being that X is sluggish
with the Z-Saber and can only perform one slash in a single combo, whereas Zero is a much more
proficient swordsman and can whip out three super fast slashes in one combo. Additionally, there is
also the classic Saber Dash Cancelling exploit, where, by rapidly mashing the attack and dash
buttons in succession, you can chain slashes together without the recovery frames from a
finished combo slowing you down. As such, Zero can eat through basically anything that doesn’t
have invincibility frames after getting hit, and the cores on the donuts are one of those
things. This difference is felt immensely with the infamous fourth donut fight. Let’s cover
half the screen in instant kill lava, while forcing the player to hop between a ridiculously
scattered and obstructed assortment of platforms, while also shoving in Nightmare Viruses at
various intervals, in a climbing segment, as the cherry on top. The issue is simple: not
only do you need to get right up to the cores to hit them, putting you at risk at nearly all
times to receive a projectile in your face, the bottom two cores are usually ass up in lava,
leaving you with very sparse opportunities to even touch them. Essentially, you have to get lucky
that the donut rises in high enough for the bottom cores to become damageable a few times over, and
then you make these near pixel perfect dash jumps to return to safety. As X, then, this encounter
is dreadful; somehow, I was able to eke out a victory in only about half an hour, but the truth
is that a lot of that victory hinged on the donut positioning itself favorably -- it could’ve taken
way longer. Playing as Zero, however, a truckload of damage can be inflicted so quickly that I ate
up this donut on my very first try -- it is a world of difference. Still, that’s not to say this
isn’t an abominable mini boss, and even after you destroy it, you have to be incredibly careful not
to get killed by any of the Nightmare Viruses that are still present further up the climb, or you’ll
have to restart the whole ordeal from scratch. Thankfully, I did make it to the fifth donut,
even on my X playthrough, and this is probably the easiest of the group. Seriously, what is
with this whiplash? A difficulty curve, you say? We ain’t never heard of that! Compared to the hell
leading up to Blaze Heatnix, he is also an insane push over and not even worth discussing. In total,
Magma Area took me close to an hour to finish as X and only 15 minutes as Zero, but I’m relieved
the donuts are no more and that we can move on. To another rubbish stage, of course: Weapon Center.
I guess the good news is that the actual level part is not that hard; sure, it loves raining
down showers of diarrhea, but it’s practically a straight line and embarrassingly short. I had
some deaths here, but once I came to grips with the groove of the mini bosses again, and plainly
decided to keep moving forward, only stopping or holding back a smidge to dodge specific hazards
or enemies, this was surprisingly a walk in the park as both characters -- well, relatively
speaking. Infinity Mijinion, on the other hand, is not a walk in the park. His gimmick is that
he creates multiple fake copies of himself, and whenever he does his clones will release
liquid balls that home in on you. This is already tricky on Normal, but on Xtreme the number of
these is through the roof, and so the problem is the overwhelming amount of vomit that can occupy
the screen. It’s worth nothing, however, that the fight ideally plays out differently between X and
Zero. The bubbles and the clones are quite sturdy and take way too much punishment from X, so as
him it’s not even worth attempting to control the madness; instead, it’s all about mastery of
movement, quick reflexes and optimizing every inch of space available to you in order to dodge
everything that’s going on, and find those small opportunities to hit the real Infinity Mijinion.
That said, there is undoubtedly an element of randomness involved; getting cornered or whatever
is often inevitable, and your chances of success are highly influenced by how stuff happens to line
up. This is the hardest Maverick of the main eight by a long shot, and took me close to 50 minutes
to beat as X. For the Zero playthrough, I learned from my mistake and actually did Weapon Center
as the third stage in the chain, considering the bosses will level up with more health the later
you encounter them. I recommend taking advantage of that, but like I said, as Zero, the battle is
a bit of a different beast, and you should shift your focus altogether to staying on the ground
as much as you can. The Z-Buster deals a ton of damage and is actually capable of destroying the
liquid balls and the clones pretty efficiently; this allows Zero to prevent too much crap
from spawning in with proper execution and a pinch of luck. It is still the hardest
Maverick out of the main eight, absolutely, but the fundamental difference in approach, as
well as Infinity Mijinion being level 1 now, lowered my time investment to merely 15 minutes.
Not gonna lie, that was a bit of a struggle; it's doable with some perseverance and good
play, but damn this boss sucks. Well hey, after that, you can breathe easier with the
next stage, at least, Recycle Lab. Granted, rumor has it this place is so frustrating it
drove a man to toss and break his controller, and it is certainly a punishing level, but
since the main threat is an instant kill, finishing this one is pretty standard fare. The
only notable aspect specific to our challenge is to skip over this Injured Reploid, since he holds
a Life-Up -- I accidentally touched him as Zero, so that was a wonderful stage reset -- and
at the very tail end of the level you gotta make sure not to drop down here; if that does
happen, it’s best to let yourself get crushed as to not grab the Heart Tank. The jump across
is moderately tight and nerve wracking as X, but mercifully I nailed it on my first try, and as
Zero you can simply do an air dash from one side to the other -- much more forgiving. Afterwards
Fisher Price Toy.jpeg can be put back in the trash pile, and the true boss, Metal Shark Player,
sits among legends such as Commander Yammark and Blizzard Wolfang in terms of epic encounters,
so you know what that means: another level conquered by the master gamer RZ, and we’ve
arrived at the last stage of the main eight. Central Museum is a bitch! It’s a toss up between
this and Magma Area for the worst level so far, but I think I’mma have to go with Central Museum.
Why? Well, for starters, this place is chock full of, filled to the brim, littered and absolutely
infested with Nightmare Viruses on Xtreme. It is totally excessive, and makes almost every room
a nightmare to navigate. A lot of the time, the layouts are so cramped as well with tight
corridors and ladders and what have you, and that mixes horrendously with Nightmare Viruses
moving and shooting through walls. Genuinely, to make it through many of these sub-areas, it’s
a lot of trial and error, experimenting with which Nightmare Viruses to actually kill, and which ones
to potentially run past and hope they don’t hunt you down. There’s not much of a shortcut or cheese
method to any of it either -- you simply gotta do it -- and at the end of each sub-area, you also
need to blow up this part of a Totem Pole to be transported back to the museum’s main hall.
These things are always tucked behind a group of Nightmare Viruses, making it all too likely
you’ll run out of whatever little health you’ll have remaining, and on top of that you need to
successfully destroy the full Totem Pole in the museum’s main hall to activate a new checkpoint --
die, and you’ll need to redo the entire sub-area you just came out of. The first three of these
shouldn’t give you grief, but the fourth Totem Pole sits in front of a bed of spikes, making
it tricky to hit the bottom faces and easy to get owned. To further rub salt into the wound,
the four sub-areas these Totem Gates send you to are randomly chosen between a pool of eight,
and they vary in difficulty. A few of them are a breeze in relative terms, while others are absurd
and one in particular was impossible for me; if you’re unlucky enough to get this vertical climb
sub-area at any point, you might as well restart the stage from the beginning, because the number
of Nightmare Viruses here is staggering, and the layout is so not conducive to picking them off.
No matter how much I attempted; no matter what I tried, I could not get past it. And yeah, once
the sub-area you get has been decided, it will not change after dying. It is the worst fucking thing
in the world to make it to the fourth Totem Gate, only to be greeted by this sub-area -- so much
progress lost at the whim of the game. There’s also one specific sub-area that X cannot overcome
without upgrades, which I luckily didn’t get as him and only as Zero, but still… What the hell?
Moreover, if you accidentally were to hop into the alternate pathway entrance here that you cannot
leave, if you rescue this Injured Reploid -- which I accidentally did as X and didn’t realize until
I finished the entire goddamn level -- or if you happen to collect this Heart Tank -- which
happened on my Zero playthrough-- that is an instant stage reset. Make no mistake, this is
a gauntlet; a marathon, where you best do your prayers for decent RNG, and even with decent RNG
this has to be the most agonizing level to beat, if we don’t count bosses. No hyperbole, I hated
Central Museum, though akin to Magma Area, the Maverick fight is a hundred times less painful.
Really, Ground Scaravich is an ant to squash; I mean, I’ll gladly take it, but how can the
difficulty drop so dramatically within seconds? Best not to question it, I suppose, and briefly
relish in the fact we’ve got all eight main stages cleared with neither X nor Zero requiring any
upgrades. I say briefly, because I am not looking forward to the fortress stages and their bosses,
but we’re in balls deep now and I refuse to back out; after all, this is where things get juicy
and shit hits the fan. As we head into Secret Lab 1 with X, we immediately run into a roadblock that
cannot be circumvented without breaking the rules: a section with spikes that are too tall to clear
without using any Weapons. By extension, it is with a heavy heart I have to report that it is
impossible to beat Mega Man X6 on Xtreme, or any difficulty for that matter, with no upgrades as X.
It would be lame to abandon him, though, don’t you think, so let’s move the goal post and discover
what is the least amount of upgrades necessary. Shooting out an Ice Burst and using that as
a platform gives you the height to hop over the first set of spikes, but then the following
sets are too tall even for that. That’s not good, but after ten seconds of research on YouTube --
shoutouts to the MVP ‘’ScreamyngYoshi’’ -- it turns out there is a strategy to get to the top.
What you have to do is shoot out the Ice Burst as normal, then jump off as it’s about to disappear,
land another Ice Burst on top of the spikes while you’re in the air, and also cling onto said Ice
Burst by spamming the wall jump. From there, when the Ice Burst disappears, open the pause menu,
pull out the Ground Dash and activate it as you’re holding left, open the pause menu again, pull out
the Magma Blade and fire it while holding left, and keep repeating these two steps back and forth
until you’re past the spikes. Believe me, this is deceptively finicky, requiring spot on timing
and mashing to maintain the necessary height; it took me at least a dozen attempts before I
managed to succeed once, and you need to pull it off twice in a row. It was then that I also
realized you physically do not have enough Ice Burst ammunition, and enemies do not drop health
or ammo refills on Xtreme. Opting for the least evil option in terms of this challenge here, I
gathered four Energy-Ups which is straightforward, and gives you the exact ammo cap needed. Diving
back into the strat, I got better and better at it with practice, and soon enough I did manage
to scale the set piece without the Jumper Part. Dang, that was a mouthful, so I’m glad this
section is a piece of cake as Zero; his double jump grants him enough height for all the spikes,
thus he is still operating fully within the rules. All that effort as X was for not, however, as
Nightmare Mother at the end of the stage is, without a single doubt in my mind, the worst boss
in the entire X series. Between each attack phase, the two blobs of tumors -- I dunno what else to
call them -- rotate around the room at top speed and which direction they go in is a 50/50 every
time. Now, with our current configuration as X, if the blobs move counter clockwise,
it is barely possible to jump over with insane reflexes and precise positioning --
I cannot even put into words how strict this is -- but if they decide to move clockwise,
you are absolutely guaranteed to take damage. The fight may theoretically be doable with
pitch perfect RNG and pitch perfect performance, but considering the design of the rest of it,
which, don’t worry, we’re tearing to shreds soon, if it’s at all humanly possible in real time,
I think your odds here are lower than winning the lottery. Welp, I suppose we’re getting the
Jumper Part anyway, then, that you normally need to clear the spiked walls from before. This is
located in North Pole Area’s alternate pathway, which is opened with the Nightmare effect from
Blaze Heatnix, an effect that’s still active with our stage order. To enter that pathway you need
to do a little damage boost from an enemy to cross the spikes before the ladder, and once you’re
in you make your way down to the bottom here. The Injured Reploid is chilling on the other side
of this large bed of spikes, which may seem out of the question initially, but fear not. By moving up
via this rope and triggering more burning meteors to drop, when one falls in the right location,
you can quickly head back down, take damage from the meteor, and then abuse the resulting
invincibility frames to dash jump across the spikes. When executed correctly, you can, in fact,
reach the Reploid and receive his Jumper Part. After equipping that, back to Nightmare
Mother we go and thankfully jumping over the blobs regardless of direction is now
viable. That said, there is no telegraph that informs where they’re gonna go, and by
the time your brain registers their movement, you’re too late already if they decide to move
clockwise specifically. There is, however, more breathing room for counter clockwise, and
this provides a slight bit of hope. By preparing a dash jump toward the wall on the left the very
instant the blobs are going to move, you build in a hair more leniency to jump over a clockwise spin
around the room, as well as to shift back to the right if you see the top left blob moving down and
they're moving counter clockwise. I must stress again, though, that this is crazy difficult, and I
never got this part down super well -- I regularly failed it. Practically, it’s a 50/50 dice roll and
you just kinda cross your fingers you’re aiming for the right direction. You would assume we’re
boned as Zero without the Jumper Part since X was, but Zero’s double jump comes to the rescue again,
and can be used to squeeze yourself between the two blobs with correct positioning and mid-air
control. Once more, this is by no means easy to pull off, but more realistic for sure, and I
mostly mastered it by the end. Unfortunately, we’ve only scratched the surface of what makes
Nightmare Mother such a dumpster fire. As the blobs are moving around, they can shoot out
projectiles in completely random directions at complete random, so even if your reflexes and
movement are flawless, sometimes you will suddenly get hit by one of the projectiles, or you try
to course correct because they’re in the way, but in doing so you may lose precious time
and spacing to avoid the blobs themselves. That’s wonderful, isn’t it? And fucking hell, I
haven’t even talked about her active attack phases that occur inbetween all this yet. There’s a bunch
of different formations the blobs can take on with different ambushes they unleash -- what you get is
always decided at random, because that’s a fetish of the designers, apparently -- and generally
the only setup you really want is where the two are stacked above each other. The rest of ‘em
are usually unfavorable for one of two reasons: either there isn’t as much opportunity to get
in hits -- and any single phase longer this boss goes on can make the difference between life
or death -- or avoiding damage is a crapshoot, if not straight up impossible. The epitome
of the latter issue are the godforsaken electricity bolts, where it’s utterly random when
and where they will shoot down toward the ground, with no visual cue at all to indicate they are
winding up. Sometimes I would be struck by the lightning multiple times in one phase, other
times I wouldn’t get hit once. It’s such asinine bullshit, and to make matters worse this attack
will typically drive you into a corner to stay as safe as possible, but there is no cool down period
once this stuff is over; the blobs will instantly transition into their rotation phase, so if you’re
on the wrong side then suck it up because that’s another free hit you’re taking. I kid you not, I
could publish a book about why Nightmare Mother is such an insufferably terrible boss, especially
under these conditions, but it boils down to this: there are so many situations where you never ever
stand a chance of avoiding damage. As a result, beating Nightmare Mother came down to
a combination of stellar execution and phenomenal luck, and that combination is exactly
what makes her so torturous and draining. Still, I was determined and had a W within reach on
many separate occasions as X, so I knew it was possible, and after five hours of slamming my
head into the same brick wall over and over, I somehow clutched one out. Dear Lord, I was
on the edge of dying there, but I finally made Nightmare Mother mine, and while it took another
three hours to do as Zero -- the eyeballs have invincibility periods after being hit, so Zero’s
Saber skills are no more helpful in this case than X’s -- I did pull through and this is a
massive weight lifted off my shoulders. Christ. In conclusion for Secret Lab 1, the Ice Burst
Weapon and I’m fairly confident the Jumper Part is the minimum required to complete the entire
stage as X, whereas Zero can get by without any upgrades. On to Secret Lab 2, and before I enter I
unequip the Jumper Part as X to see how far we can make it here without -- just a heads up. The main
area in Secret Lab 2 we should focus our attention on is here. If you're proficient at bullet hell
games, then uh, you've got a leg up because this part is all about overseeing every tiny threat on
screen and dodging and attacking appropriately: Nightmare Viruses, these rolling turret things
along the floors and walls, the Totem Poles returning from Central Museum, and even the
rocket platforms from Inami Temple. My advice? Use the rockets as a dynamic wall jumping surface
to wreck the Totem Poles, be extremely patient, and most importantly: git gud. It is also very
helpful to inch forward slowly, step by step, to put enemies within reach of buster shots
while simultaneously not triggering them to come after you -- invaluable for taking out
the Nightmare Viruses. And whatever you do, once you've reached this devilishly cramped spike
bit at the end, do not rush your decision to go for it; wait for the rocket pattern to line up
in an ideal fashion, as to minimize the risk of dying. The next checkpoint is only at High Max and
you do not want to redo all of that bullet hell. Seemingly as per tradition by now, the entire
section is miles easier with Zero, since his double jump allows him to cling onto rockets up
above him, skipping over, like, half the enemies, and his Saber skills can be put to great use on
the Totem Poles. Plus, his air dash makes the spikes bit less nerve wracking, so that's another
benefit. Behind Central Museum, I found this to be the toughest piece of level design to overcome,
but on the bright side, with the knowledge and the sauce, High Max is duck soup by comparison.
All you have to do is the following: attack his shields when you can, dash away from under
the shields when they are about to drop down, and jump over High Max as he zooms across the
room. As X, that last step is admittedly not the most forgiving to perform over and over,
but it's within reason, and as Zero you can simply use the air dash, which is very reliable.
How long High Max sticks around in this phase, I'm not too certain -- it seems random -- but just
keep it up until the next phase. Unfortunately, X cannot damage High Max at all with his Buster,
so we're gonna have to use a Weapon to do so. I’m gonna use the Magma Blade for reasons that will
become clear later, but since there is a delay on swinging it, you wanna be very careful not to hit
this ball; doing so will unleash this craziness, and you’re basically screwed. Regardless, it is
possible to beat High Max this way. On the flip side, Zero is an absolute mad lad and can hit High
Max with his Saber -- no Techniques needed -- so once it's dessbo time, get into a rhythm, focus,
and put that punk to bed. As far as I’m concerned, this is the easiest out of all the fortress bosses
-- no contest. Hold off on celebrating, though, because in one of X6's cruel twists Secret
Lab 2 is not over yet. That’s just wonderful, and it’s peculiar that X and Zero get their own
dedicated sections here. Nothing about Zero's is different than usual, since it's another crusher
segment where the only active danger are instant kills. Moving over to X's section, then, just
jump over and pass through the Monbandos in your path -- there's a health restore pad up ahead --
and soon enough there it is: a long stretch of abyss that infamously cannot be crossed without
either the Blade Armor or specific Parts. Well, that is, at least not in a manner that's intuitive
or seemingly even intended by the developers. After getting X to slide down to the very bottom
of this platform and then dash jumping off, open the pause menu, equip the Magma Blade, and keep
spamming that weapon to slow down your descent; with proper execution, you can make it over to
the other side. Who knew, right? And this is also the reason we were using the Magma Blade
on High Max. The rest of X's section is pretty straightforward and relaxing, even, by this point.
This just leaves us with RNGate to take care of. This is a horrible boss fight if you attempt
to play its game honorably with the awkward and unproductive clutter of platforms, and
balls that can easily explode right onto you in trying to hit Gate. Y’know, fuck that,
cheese him with this tactic instead: hop back and forth between the left and right platforms
at the bottom whenever Gate flies toward you, let him shoot a ball, and then slide down the wall
next to you; ideally, strike the ball two times with the Z-Saber, and land your third hit when
you’re low enough to be out of range of the splash zone. This is a little precise, so if you mess
up, you can always jump back up and take a hit if necessary. Remember, the goal is to lose less
health, comparatively, than Gate. Sometimes you may have to improvise another angle of approach
regardless if you get a ball in an undesired spot, but carry out the strategy above whenever you
can and you may be pleasantly surprised... as X, anyway. For whatever reason, the number of
hits the game registers on these balls when Zero slashes them is wildly inconsistent. In fact,
occasionally they can be denied altogether. I don’t doubt there is some kind of
logic behind this -- it would be a criminal offense if they purposefully programmed
in randomness -- but whatever the variables are, they’re so nebulous and unclear that for all
intents and purposes it is random. End result: since I don’t think there is a way to
predict how many slashes a ball will take, they can explode from a single swing, and other
times they may take more hits than anticipated, allowing their various effects to take hold
and Gate to catch up to you. It’s so bizarre and pissed me off badly. They should’ve called
this Mega Man Party X6; that would’ve been a more informative and accurate title. Whatever, with
RNGate defeated, that’s a wrap for Secret Lab 2: X needs the assistance of at least the Magma
Blade Weapon, whereas Zero is still in the race for the challenge as a whole. Let me tell
ya, never had I been happier to hear this: It feels like I truly earned it. Man, I can't believe it: we've made it
to the home stretch; the last stage. The franchise tradition of a boss rush
takes place here, and honestly I think we can safely skip over it, considering it’s the eight
Mavericks again; if you could beat them before, you can beat the majority of them a second time
with little issue, even though they have more health now. As you'd expect, the one exception is
Infinity Mijinion; this guy just blows, and the health buff only makes him worse. Nevertheless,
the approaches are no different, so to make a long story short: do what you did before, except do it
better. Or get luckier. Either of the two works. Right before Sigma, there is a bit of regular
stage with a boatload of Nightmare Viruses and other enemies that I frankly think are not even
worth trying to eliminate all cleanly and neatly; it seems like a grueling task, one you can
forego by damage boosting through the tanky bois early on, and then killing, dashing and jumping
around foes carefully in order to reach the boss door before kicking the bucket. I’m too lazy to
describe how I did it; watch the footage, which is principally identical for Zero as well. Alright,
this is it: the final showdown, and the last obstacle in our way to finishing the challenge.
Because X6 is such a polished and balanced video game, Sigma himself is… actually a hell of a lot
less difficult than Nightmare Mother or even Gate, and possibly the least difficult final boss in
the X series. Despite that, it's still garbage, because it's another boss where getting solid
luck is half the battle. In the first phase, Sigma may straight up never attack you and
hand you a free win, or he may attack you and combine multiple stunts that together turn
avoiding damage into a pipe dream. The attacks individually are rather inconsequential, however,
so how much health you'll lose here before the second phase is partially up in the air. Your
experience with the second phase will also be heavily dictated by how generous the game is
feeling. Sigma himself barely attacks you; he just summons a bunch of slime monsters that can
shoot projectiles, and is not vulnerable in these moments. He only becomes vulnerable when he opens
his mouth to cast this laser spell or "Hipendru" or whatever the hell he shouts. Not to sound like
a broken record, but when he decides to do so is random; it could be near instantly and quickly
in a row, or it could take minutes to happen once. In light of that, there’s not much I've got in
the way of tips, because both phases are quite simple in nature, so do your best to dodge what
you can and sooner or later you'll beat Sigma. He's practically in the bag if your ass could
make it this far, and fully doable without any upgrades needed for either character. This means
I can officially confirm that, yes, it is possible to beat Mega Man X6 on Xtreme with no upgrades
as Zero. It's a shame Secret Lab 1 and 2 are not possible as X -- we were so close to a complete
home run -- but alas, it is what it is, and we still pushed the game to its bare minimum limit
of what is necessary. I'll take both playthroughs as an achievement for myself at least, and I
think it's forever cemented my belief that X6 is poorly made regardless of how good I've become
at it. Doing challenge runs, without any crutches and bandages to rely on, tends to reveal the true
quality of a game's core design underneath it all, and it's a disaster in X6. The difficulty
balancing is unspeakably sporadic, and the hardest bosses are only as hard as they are because you
cannot avoid their attacks when the internal slot machine doesn't cooperate. A few stages were
fun and more fair, notably Inami Temple and the bullet hell in Secret Lab 2, but holistically
the journey felt more time consuming, and like I was being cheated a lot, rather than rewarding.
Self explanatory, the game wasn't intended to be played like this, but for the most part I loved doing
these same challenges for the previous X instalments. If you ask me, I think that sums up everything. Thanks for stopping by, fellas! I hope you enjoyed this trip down X6 memory lane
in some sense, and watching me suffer, I guess. If you would like to support the channel, consider
backing me on Patreon. I have a single, universal Tier of $1 Per Video -- not Per Month -- and every
little bit really helps me out to produce videos more regularly. That's all I've got for today, so
thank you for making it to the end and peace out.
