Mega Man X6 is certainly an interesting topic
of conversation. To all those who know the history of the Mega
Man franchise, it is certainly one of the more infamous Mega Man games, having been
bashed and beaten to the ground on the internet countless times since it’s original release
all the way back in 2001. It’s known for being rushed, punishing in
obtuse ways and is just overall a punching bag that people really love coming back to. Myself included. That little speech I just gave is a tad bit
redundant, I know. If you know anything about me, or have known
of me for years…Mega Man X6 is probably one of the reasons why. In the past five Mega Man X re-reviews, I
have saved the soap box material for the very end of the video, since that seems to be when
it resonates the most with the audience, instead of dumping it on the viewer at the very beginning
of the video. In this case, I must, because that conversation
is the very foundation of this video. So, let’s talk about it. Five years ago, I unknowingly created a video
that would arguably change the course of my entire life. As melodramatic as that may sound, I think
there is a lot of truth to that statement because I never had a belief this YouTube
thing would actually go anywhere before 2017, despite that being every YouTuber’s dream. This was a video that has gone by many names
but currently goes by “Mega Man X6 | One of the Worst Games I Have Ever Played” this
one hour behemoth covered X6 from top to bottom. Every stage, every annoying little thing the
game did, what it was like to play for the first time all those years ago in 2015, I
am sure you know this already because it’s one of my most popular videos. When I uploaded that video in February of
2017, I had 254 subscribers. Today, that number has risen to 127,000 and
while the Mega Man X series was picking up steam when I did X4 and X5 back in the day,
X6 really got the ball rolling as my video really resonated with a large audience. Of course, there was also a very vocal group
of people who thought the video was absolutely atrocious. It is simultaneously one of the most recognizable
things I have done, and also the absolute most infamous as well. Regardless of which camp you the viewer may
be in, I think this video is certainly worth considering because…five years can change
a lot of things. I was 16 when that came out, I am 21 now,
so it goes without saying that I am a completely different person. But that begs the question of what we are
doing here with this video. Going back to the re-reviews of the previous
games, I said that I wanted to pay tribute to my original X Retrospective turning 5 years
old and to give the videos a fresh coat of paint that is much more refined and…watchable,
at least to me. X6 is a challenge because of the fact that
the rage is what makes the original video what it was. The more easy going presentation for the new
videos was a much needed improvement if you ask me because of the fact that I just don’t
think the games ever deserved the treatment I gave them back in the day. Something I went in depth on back when I re-reviewed
Mega Man X2. However, it’s not because I don’t want
to make videos that have any criticism, afterall, in the past 14 moon cycles, I have done many
negative reviews, but it’s about directing that towards things I actually didn’t enjoy,
and not being an over the top cartoon character. So, with X6…over the years, through the
various live streams, commentaries, off handed remarks in other videos, my opinion on X6
never really changed. I have spent the better part of a year now,
thinking about how a re-review on Mega Man X6 would go. And that’s when I came to the realization
that… The 2017 X6 review…just can’t be outdone. That’s coming from me, you guys know, I
hate most of my old videos, especially the angry ones. It's just so embarrassing and cringe to listen
to yourself from high school scream into the mic about video games. But at the same time…that video is the perfect
encapsulation of how I felt about X6 on my first playthrough and how I felt about it
at the time. Originally, I wanted to do a video where I
calmly tore X6 apart, but I just don’t think that’s going to cut it when it comes to
making a video that can stand on it’s own two feet without it being a retread of the
original, just without the rage. At least with the Agent Clank revisit we had
the benefit of finishing the game that time. You could argue some of these videos are re-treads,
but to me, the difference in temperament is part of the improvement, a really important
one at that. In X6’s case, it just feels to me like it
would be a waste. So the idea I settled on was doing something
completely different. To pay tribute to my infamous review on Mega
Man X6 turning five years old, I have decided to flip the script and make a video talking
about all the things that Mega Man X6 does well, many of which I would refuse to acknowledge
back in the day. And by the end, we will assess how this changes
my perspective on the game. If anything, this is a follow up to the original
video, not a remake. I have been really excited to do this video,
and I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado, let’s dive in immediately. I figured it would make sense to start with
the obvious. One of the things the original video consistently
gave X6 credit for was it’s music. Nothing has changed about that over the years. X6’s soundtrack is definitely an X series
highlight, from the intro stage music where you tour the wreckage of the X5 colony, to
the bangers coming out of the fortress stages or Blaze Heatnix’s stage, or the whatever
you want to call it from Rainy Turtloid, I am here for it. X6’s music stands quite tall in the Mega
Man series roster which is saying a lot because when considering mainstream Mega Man games
that is a high volume of great soundtracks, but I definitely believe X6 is up there with
the best. With that out of the way, we need to talk
about how in X6, many of my issues with X5 have been improved upon. Let’s go over them piece by piece. In X5, I thought the inclusion of Alia was
very poorly handled. I mentioned that giving X and Zero a support
team from the Hunter Base is a good idea because it helps make the Maverick Hunters feel like
a legit organization, a real team, but before we only ever saw X, Zero, occasionally Dr.
Cain and traitors and or people who don’t get much screen time. So establishing a core cast of allies works,
if you ask me. The problem was Alia’s constant interference
with the pace of the game, stopping players dead in their tracks. In X6, this issue has been entirely fixed
because the dialogue between X or Zero and Alia is still fully there if you want to read
it to learn more about the stages and obstacles, but if you want to blast your way through
uninterrupted, Alia will just call you at certain spots of the stage and you just need
to push the select button to pick up and talk, otherwise you can keep going with the stage. A perfect middle ground. I think Alia probably could have been given
more interesting things to say, but I suppose I can save that for next week. Ignoring Alia, X5’s pacing was pretty poor. A majority of it’s stages revolved around
a very slow moving gimmick which is maybe okay for one stage in the roster, but when
multiple stages do something like that, the replayability of the game really starts to
drop. And believe me, I am not about to utter the
phrase “Mega Man X6 has good level design”. I am going to say this much, after having
replayed both of these games more times than I’d like to admit…X6 still manages to
keep me in the action more than X5 does. For example, the intro stage manages to be
fast paced, while tutorializing it’s mechanics much more effectively than X5 did. In Blaze Heatnix’s stage, in between your
first and second fight with the floating donut png, you have to navigate through this room
with fire spewing from the ground and from the ceiling. Trying to tank the hits here will see you
losing a lot of health so you have to slow your pace, while simultaneously considering
your timing. Not a good stage because of these snake bosses
but at least they keep mixing it up each time, right? In all honesty, not all the stages have bad
concepts. Rainy Turtloid’s stage being one of the
better examples where you have to look for these tiny cores to progress while under the
threat of health reducing acid rain. It adds an element of pressure to these brief
bits of exploration that gradually rises in complexity until you reach the final room,
with some tight Mega Man X platforming in between, like this part where you have to
time your wall jumps carefully to ride this platform to the end. I have never seen them use the mechanic like
that before…well, X2 kind of tried to, but made it really easy to damage boost. This level, barring the nightmare system,
is genuinely good. Blizzard Wolfang’s stage is also one with
good concepts, like having an avalanche fall in the opening. It’s kind of fun to just see how far you
can get on the stage before you need to dodge the ice, and despite my giving the falling
ice blocks a lot of grief in the old video, it’s for very limited justification because…you
might die a lot here. But this is a very simple setup, see the pattern,
react accordingly, if you fail, you die. In the final room, it’s a really good platforming
segment. Earlier the random blocks potentially killing
you isn’t great, but in general I think this stage has quality platforming if you
just take your time with it. It’s very inconsistent that X and Zero could
easily wall jump on ice in previous games, but can’t now…however if you ignore that
and just focus on the action of the stage, it’s simple and entirely doable, especially
as Zero with his double jump ability. I just wish X6 had more examples you could
point to in that regard because the rest of the levels are still pretty difficult to defend,
especially once the nightmare system gets involved where playing stages causes negative
effects on the other stages. An inverse of X1 and X3 where stages would
change in your favor. Most infamously, the Nightmare causes The
Amazon Area and The Inami Temple to be blacked out for certain segments. Real fun stuff. Besides that, I mean…Infinity Mijinion really
does just toss a bunch of stuff on the screen and says…good luck, kid! Shield Sheldon deals with bouncing lasers
around the room but when the lasers refuse to fire in the right direction leaving me
standing there waiting for like…90 seconds, I get pretty annoyed. Ground Scaravich takes it’s decent gimmick
of randomized rooms but just floods the screen with nightmare viruses, instead of crafting
interesting platforming, and I won’t even speak of this abomination for right now. So yeah, X6 is still not the most tightly
designed set of levels, in fact many of them aren’t that fun at all, but I do appreciate
the pace of the game being kept up, in comparison to X5, and some good concepts do leak into
good execution, which I think is worth acknowledging. Another thing that works about X6 for me is
it’s two playable characters. Of course, you’d be playing as Mega Man
X in…Mega Man X6, but spoiler alert, Zero is back in action. Something the game’s promotional material
spoiled pretty heavily by stating the objective is to…locate Zero, even though you wouldn’t
even know Zero was someone you could locate, following the ending of X5, until you played
this game. But anyway, X basically plays the same as
always, but following up on the ending of X5, X has taken up Zero’s Z-Saber but is
not as proficient with it as Zero was. By pressing the triangle button, X will swing
Zero’s saber and do a respectable amount of damage, even being able to dash cancel
with it like you could as Zero. X starts X6 with The Falcon Armor, only with
limited functionality, ala the Fourth Armor in X5, but here you can unlock two new ones
that still require you to collect all four pieces before use, however I think these armors
are much cooler than the ones from X5. First, you have the Blade Armor which gives
X the ability to dash incredible distances in the air, in all four directions no less. A decent charge shot and a really powerful
giga attack that can even rip apart the final boss. It also just has a really cool design with
the Saber just coming out of X’s Buster Arm, which is something they even managed
to capture in the sprite work which is an awesome attention to detail. X’s other Armor is the Shadow Armor which
looks really cool, a full on Ninja Mega Man X that can stand on spikes and leap to the
ceiling. The Gaea Armor in X5 was going for basically
the same thing but it just looked slow and clunky which is exactly how it played. Here, I actually use the Shadow Armor in stages
because…it’s cool. Has a devastating Saber charge shot that is
very useful and another wildly powerful giga attack. It really pulls it’s own weight, despite
not being able to use special weapons. Although, besides the Yammar Option, which
surrounds X and Zero with Dragonflies that both deal damage and partially tank it for
you. A fantastic weapon…as I was saying, besides
that, the weapons aren’t that useful in this game anyway. For Zero, his mechanics actually got reworked
pretty decently. Zero plays exactly the same as he did in X4
and X5, but his animations have been retooled. On the sprite sheet, Zero has more frames
of cool down when doing his saber slashes, but the cooldown of the third swing can be
chained into the next combo, when in X6 the cool down of the third swing lasts longer. However, X6 makes up for that by making saber
dash canceling from the first two swings much easier. I try to do this in X4 and X5 and while it
has uses, it often gets me hit more than I’d like, and X5 has a special move for Zero that
makes this impossible once you get it, something the improved project fixed, when in X6 you
can just go combo mad and look really based. Zero also gets this spinning move from Rainy
Turtloid that is a lot of fun to pull off. The guard shell also has this glitch where
it does more damage for your Saber which is pretty neat. On the other side of the coin, many Zero techniques
in this game just plain suck, like diving into the abyss by pressing…up. The same button you need to latch onto ropes…suspended
over bottomless pits. Classic stuff. One of my favorite additions for Zero in this
game is the Z Buster, which they tried giving Zero in X5, it just wasn’t very useful with
how slow it was to fire and to recover from. In X6, it is much faster and does great damage
to enemies from afar, but doesn’t fire as fast as X’s Buster, nor can you charge it. Giving X a short ranged saber move that does
decent damage, but isn’t as good as Zero’s, and giving Zero a long ranged shot that isn’t
as good as X’s but does decent damage is a great idea and I think it helps balance
out the two playstyles really well, giving you the best of both worlds, but also allowing
you to pick which of the two you’d rather be quicker. If you want to shoot faster and use charge
shots, then you pick X, but if you want to swing the saber really quickly then you grab
Zero, but like I said, you aren’t locked out of the thing the other character does
best. The last thing I want to mention on the gameplay
of the base game would be how X6 also simplified the systems introduced in X5. The game doesn’t have a ticking clock, so
the random factor is gone. There are three endings, but these are easily
achieved through clear parameters. Beat the game as X without rescuing Zero and
you get an ending with X and Alia, beat the game as X after having rescued Zero and you
get an ending with X, Zero and the support team. Beat the game with Zero, and you get an ending
for him. Simple and effective. The additional parts system introduced in
X5 has also been streamlined. Honestly, how it worked in X5 wasn’t even
that complicated, it was just…not clearly explained to the player. How it works here is that these rescuable
reploids in each stage do have a function. In X5, some stages had these and they just
gave you free health and an extra life. In X6, many reploid hostages will have the
parts, and by saving them, you unlock them. However, the levels are littered with these
Nightmare Viruses, some of the most annoying Mega Man enemies as the game spams them all
over the screen as much as possible. The Nightmare Viruses will target the reploids
and you have to save them before that happens. If they corrupt the reploid, you lose out
on the part it was carrying, assuming it was carrying a part in the first place, which
some don’t. X and Zero both can equip a max of five parts,
but to use them you have to collect Nightmare Souls which are dropped from Nightmare Viruses,
and given to you by defeating boss battles. Most players probably won’t reach the requirement
for five parts unlocked, but you will definitely be able to take advantage of the jumper parts,
the hyper dash, the rapid five, life recover, all that good stuff in a normal playthrough. The system between Nightmare Souls and parts
is also not really explained from what I remember, but I just think it’s an easier thing to
intuit than X5’s was. That, and getting all the parts in X6 is a
matter of exploration and not letting reploids die, which is actively player driven, none
of that Weapons and Life Plus vs Weapons and Energy Plus business in the last game. Helps that no part “required” to beat
the game can be corrupted. All that positive talk about X6 leads us swimmingly
into Mega Man X6 Tweaks, the fan project from…this fine fellow. The same guy from X5’s Improvement Project,
and X4’s Undub, although I guess I got his name wrong, as he said in the comments of
the X5 video, so you can read the screen and check out the link to X6 project in the description. But anyway, Mega Man X6 Tweaks has been in
the works for a decent while now, and like X5, I always knew I’d play it one day, just
didn’t know when I’d end up doing so, and…now is the time. The aim of the project is to remove padding
and other unneeded elements from X6 to overall make the game more balanced. The amount of things changed in the X6 Tweaks
Project is insane, you’d need to check out the readme in order to see it all, but to,
again, list the highlights…things have been streamlined significantly. For example, X can use his new armor pieces
without collecting the full set, X and Zero share all Heart Tanks, life ups, energy ups,
nightmare soul count and Rank. This means all the souls you collected that
allow you to use Parts as X, don’t have to be recollected as Zero, which was just
needless padding. Parts allowance per rank has been edited so
that you can use at least one part from the start of the game. Useless Rescuable Reploids with no parts have
been removed, corrupted Reploids respawn after you have to kill them meaning no parts are
missable. Unarmored X as well as Shadow Armor X have
been given an Air Dash which comes in handy in one infamous segment from the end of the
game. Zero and Shadow Armor X’s ability to leap
to the ceiling has been extended, giving it more functionality. Zero’s techniques have much more comfortable
button mapping, meaning the abyss dive won’t happen. The characters have all had their cutscene
portraits redrawn to look more appealing and I think they look quite nice, and what I consider
the most interesting of the changes would be how full bits of level design have been
altered to make the game more approachable, like extending the ceiling in Commander Yammark’s
stage to avoid the blind spike jump I complained about in 2017, the jump length needed to get
the Shadow Armor part in Metal Shark Player’s stage has been decreased, Secret Lab 1 has
removed a few spikes at the beginning to make the ice block the only thing X needs to get
through the area, and Secret Lab 2 has added a platform below this part right here, so
that it is never a concern as to whether or not X can make the jump depending on what
Armor or part you have. All these things were done to make the game
more approachable, but what is very interesting is that the developer has made some tweaks
that serve to make the game more difficult as well. It sounds crazy, but remember, I don’t think
of X6 as this super hard game, I think of it as a game that is incredibly broken, and
an uneven scaling of the difficulty was part of that. For example, the game sports things someone
on their first playthrough would be heavily blindsided by which would cost them a lot
of lives, and then have a really easy boss fight right afterwards. Now, Reploids don’t refill your health,
nor do they grant you extra lives, but the default life count has been raised from 2
to 4, and the EX Tank raises it from 4 to 6. For the first time in a Mega Man X video I
am actively telling you that the EX Tank is useful! What a concept! You do need to watch out though, because getting
a game over will now send you back to the start of the stage, this adds some real stakes
to the game. In the original, I’d get to this part of
say, Rainy Turtloid’s stage and just damage boost my way to the Shadow Armor Part. There is no reason not to because death, even
in the event of a game over, just sends you back like 5 seconds. But I had to consider my approach when losing
my lives meant going back to the start of the stage. Bosses like Commander Yammark have been edited
to take less damage, but the Nightmare Mother boss has it’s health bar cut in half. See what I mean? Things that were ridiculously hard were made
easier, things that were comically easy have been made more difficult, and the game adds
more organic challenges by making your lives worth more, as opposed to that talking point
from my original video…there are so many great improvements here that really contribute
to the playability of Mega Man X6. But, as if that wasn’t enough for you…he
also released the Mega Man X6 Tweaks Patcher. What this does is allow you to completely
customize how the game will be changed. You change your dash speed and length, you
can customize whether or not Shadow Armor X can cancel his saber swings, you can set
how much damage every attack does to each enemy, mini boss and boss fight. You can set which nightmare effects are on,
or just…none at all, my personal favorite. You can choose what portrait art you want,
what title screen you like and the list indeed goes on. I love customization in games, and being able
to edit Mega Man X6 to where I become a god and beat the final boss in five seconds while
dashing over whole stages like it ain’t no thing, is definitely a ton of fun. Seriously, I loved the work they did with
this game, I say, great job to all parties involved. But there is one question you…may be wondering
after the X5 video. Can the item game of Mega Man X6 be fixed? Normally, I don’t tend to talk about the
item game of X6 and X7 and that’s because, as I have made clear before, I just have bigger
fish to fry with these games compared to say, X5 where that’s one of the larger problems
with the game. So, in X6 Tweaks, improvements have been made. I already mentioned using armors without needing
all four parts, that is certainly a big help, but in general X6’s new feature of alternate
stage routes make a least backtracking run virtually impossible. The alternate routes are something you find
in these crystals which end in a different boss fight from the maverick the stage is
supposed to end with. These have some important collectibles hidden
behind them, like the sub tank in Blaze Heatnix’s stage, the Jumper Parts, or some might as
well be like the Shadow Armor in Metal Shark Player’s stage. The Tweaks Project does allow you to escape
from the alternate route without having to beat the extra boss fight first, which is
handy in keeping the pace up, but you will have to play say, Blaze Heatnix twice to 100%
the game and if several stages are laid out like that, then there really is no least backtracking
run. From what I understand there won’t be any
future updates for the project, but if I were to just say what change I’d make, I’d
allow an option to use the escape function to either return to the stage select, or just
return to the last checkpoint from the main stage so that you don’t have to start the
level over. Probably easier said than done, but that’s
my idea. All in all, I don’t even think the item
game of X6 even really matters that much. The problem in X5 was just the fact that doing
it was supremely tedious with how much waiting the player would have to do in the various
boring stages. Even with that enormous list of changes I
just laid out, Mega Man X6 Tweaks makes one fundamental change that really transforms
the game. The project utilizes a retranslated script. The original Mega Man X6 has one of the worst
translations in series history. The story is hard to appreciate in X6 because
it’s barely something you can read. So many instances of awkward dialogue, words
missing from sentences, or just rampant typos like ‘X, there is no one else is left to
fight’ when the line is just trying to say ‘X you are the only hunter left’. X’s Ending with Alia in the original was
one I really roasted in my review. But what’s actually happening in X6? Well, it’s been a few weeks since the ending
of X5, and the Earth is in shambles, humans have taken refuge underground while Reploids
are hard at work trying to fix the damage caused during the Eurasia Incident. A Reploid Scientist named Gate discovers a
central piece of Zero and studies it, the power it contains causing Gate to go mad with
the belief that he can finally unlock the secrets of Mega Man X and Zero, two reploids
whose pasts are shrouded in mystery, at least, that’s how the public understands it. With that power now at his fingertips, he
creates a big plan to rule a nation of reploids just for himself, including a virus called
The Nightmare Virus which infects the bodies of reploids around the planet. The Nightmare Virus is subtly different from
the Maverick Virus in that the latter infects reploids and just makes them evil with the
ideology that Sigma embodies. The Nightmare Virus takes over the Reploids
entire body, making them a thoughtless body controlled by the whims of the Virus. When the virus hits, Gate’s partner Isoc
puts the blame on Zero, and that’s why the world needs to rely on he and Gate’s special
eight nightmare investigators that X now needs to put a stop to. X also discovers that Zero is still alive
and the two best friends resume their duty of taking out mavericks and uncovering the
secret behind the currently unfolding conspiracy. The story in this game is really interesting
with many different reasons as to why that is. But first, I want to discuss something. X6’s story, and entire existence is usually
summed up with the Mega Man equivalent of “Fun Fact! Super Mario 2 in America was a sprite swap
of a game called Doki Doki Panic!” The fact that Originally, Mega Man X5 was
going to be the last game in the Mega Man X series, which is why they went all out with
that game’s plot. This much is true, what is also true is that
Capcom making Mega Man X6 caused Keiji Inafune and the team at Inti Creates to change plans
for the backstory of Mega Man Zero 1. That being the biggest shake up to “the
plan” since Inafune said in the Complete Works book that he didn’t really work much
on X5 besides requesting it be the climactic final game. I can’t imagine how much chaos this caused
for the MMZ dev team, since they had to change the main villain from the Mega Man X we know
into a new character called Copy X. To be honest, I prefer the story we got over
X being a villain, so I must say that I am not too shaken up. But that’s a different subject. The point I am trying to make is that X6’s
existence is often resented by fans for “ruining the MMZ plans” and “betraying X5 being
the last game” and wanting to declare the game non canon or something like that to atone
for it. I just think that’s unfair because, while
X6 might not have been the plan…the game contributes a lot of interesting ideas to
the mythos, expanding on things left wide open after X5. So yeah, the plans got changed, but I think
it all worked out in the end. Although, if I am throwing people under the
bus for X6 themed misinfo, I might as well toss myself in that mix as well. In the old review, I said that X6 was so rushed
out the door by Capcom that it was released the same year as X5. This is true…from a certain point of view,
one that’s trying hard to make X6 look as bad as possible, however the truth of the
matter is that X5 released in 2001…in North America, early in the year at that. The game was released in 2000 in Japan, and
X6 came out a year later. Of course, that’s not to say X6 wasn’t
rushed out the door, it definitely was and that was a heavy burden on everyone making
Mega Man X6 which sucks. Capcom just wanted to rush another sequel
out and chaos emerging is the end result. But ignoring that, I think Mega Man X6 has
a pretty good story. First, it has a decently fleshed out backstory. Like I have been saying since the re-review
on X1, these bosses you fight all have backstories, but X6 makes them the most interesting as
robots created by Gate, who is also a fleshed out character. He was a Reploid Engineer who did the seemingly
impossible, create Reploids whose data, like X and Zero’s could not be analyzed, but
this caused his peers to get jealous and sabotage the Reploids he created, or labeled them Mavericks
which got them disposed of. Causing Gate to quit his research team, some
of his creations lived but they, in the cases of Shield Sheldon and Rainy Turtloid committing
suicide to escape the guilt of having hurt the reputation of Gate, even if it wasn’t
their fault. But now, Gate has resurrected them all which
is why they are more loyal to him than ever. That’s already interesting on it’s own
merits, but gets even more so when you realize that Alia was once Gate’s partner when he
was still a researcher. Alia actually having been involved in the
sabotaging of Gate’s revolutionary reploids, before she became a navigator for the Maverick
Hunters. Giving Alia a backstory like this is fascinating
because it really isn’t something you’d expect. She debuts in X5 as this non character who
tells you to jump over bottomless pits, and here we find out she actually has this backstory
where she’s done things she’s not proud of and still wrestles with that fact to this
day. Sure, it’s goofy that I just said Rainy
Turtloid ended his life, but…they really didn’t have to put that much into a Mega
Man story and it works with the tone and universe the X series has set up thus far. In the actual story itself, I really like
how previous events have left an impact. The whole game is centered around the colony
from X5 having crashed on Earth and how it made the Earth temporarily uninhabitable for
humans. Now, you could criticize the game for saying
it’s been three weeks since the end of X5 when X5’s good ending says it’s been three
years, to that I say…ah, whatever. It’s a recton but one that leads to this
pretty cool story that shows the events of X5 had real consequences on X’s world so
I will take it. You could also bring up the fact that X5's
good ending scenario is based on blowing up the Colony, but X6 states that they may have
stopped its full force collision with the Virus and all that, but the debris that still
landed did a real blow to the Earth. Many previous games feel important in this
one. At the end of X5, we learn that Sigma knows
so much about Zero because of a mysterious scientist that also has a burning hatred for
X, who also understands Zero. Might seem random, but then X6 introduces
us to Isoc, a mysterious Reploid Scientist that works alongside Gate. It’s basically a fact at this point that
this guy is Dr. Wily from the original Mega Man games reborn in a robot body. X6 has Japanese voice acting and Isoc is voiced
by the same man who played Dr. Wily in Mega Man 8 and the flashback from Mega Man X4,
while that may be circumstantial, all the pieces are in the game. Isoc has that burning hatred for Mega Man
X that Sigma said he did. But also a love of, and control over Zero. The story makes sure to tell us that X and
Zero are two reploids nobody really knows or understands the history of and this guy
can just stop Zero in place? Who else other than Dr. Wily could do that? While X has a lot of enemies at this point,
Dr. Wily would definitely be one of them, X being made by Dr. Light after all. Speaking, he is also reborn in a sense, as
an AI. I threw a tantrum in my old X videos over
X5 ‘retconning’ Dr. Light into an AI as opposed to a pre-recorded message, but this
is something I was getting absolutely wrong. I mean, X4 literally shows Light’s AI talking
with X about the Repliforce Situation, only an AI could’ve done that, not a pre-recorded
message. As far back as X1, Light tells X that he developed
these armors for him because it seems fighting is the only way. Which doesn’t make sense for Dr. Light to
say and do in an era of relative peace. The AI works on all these armors whenever
X needs them, and then the AI sends these pods to X in convenient locations. I mean, why else would a Light Capsule literally
be in the moving base of Wheel Gator in X2, or the floating fortress of Wing Crowing in
X7? But enough roasting my old talking points. Dr. Wily is definitely in X6 as Isoc, and
he was also The Leader of the X Hunters in Mega Man X2, basically confirming it in the
Japanese script of that game. He can switch bodies by simply transferring
the DNA Soul from one of his bodies into another one, as seen by his shutting down his body
after Gate is defeated. Alia even mentions that what happened to him
is reminiscent of Incident in Mega Man Xtreme 2 where Reploids’ DNA Souls were getting
stolen. Again, more continuity from other games coming
back to the forefront and I can definitely dig that. The only thing in X6’s story I really feel
was unneeded, was the return of Sigma. Not even like Sigma as a character in X6 is
bad, I mean the design concept for him is that he is not complete and barely functioning,
as seen in his zombified form. That’s cool, but he really serves no purpose
in the story. He only appears at the very last level and
just serves as a free final boss fight, when it really could have just been Gate, or even
Isoc if you wanted to give him more pay off. Sigma here just feels really out of place. I obviously have handed out a lot of criticism
towards Sigma as a character in the past, but like I said earlier, I’d say that is
much better saved for next week’s video where things really go off the rails. In X6, it really is just that he’s not needed
rather than that he isn’t good in this game. But besides Sigma’s inclusion, I think X6
has a really interesting story where I was interesting in reading the text for all the
various cutscenes, and that is purely thanks to the Tweaks Project including a new translation,
I can’t thank them enough for that because I never knew how cool X6’s story was until
people told me about it, and I never got to experience it like that until now, because
I can barely understand what is even being said in the original. But we have been going on for the last almost
half hour now discussing things I now appreciate about Mega Man X6. Less intrusive interruptions to the stages,
faster paced levels compared to X5, cool unlockables, and an interesting story. However, I think it’s time to close this
video by discussing: what has changed as a result of these things? The title of the video is Learning to Love
Mega Man X6, because I wanted to look at the game from a different perspective, and to
answer, what have I learned? Mega Man X6 is not a game I really enjoy playing. I appreciate some of the ideas in it’s stages,
but through things like the Nightmare System, or the grinding needed for different parts,
the alternate routes, the default X6 is just kind of a chore to think of replaying. There are so many exploits or weapons you
can use to bypass things that made the game frustrating on a first run, but these only
serve to make the game super easy throughout, but also in a way that’s kind of dull. However, I really wasn’t having a terrible
time while playing it for the video, it’s just not a game you’d see me come back to,
which was really cemented when I got to Metal Shark Player’s stage, which I saved for
last. I really dislike this level, it’s the worst
kind of stage, it goes on for an eternity and sees you barely moving, it just bores
me out of my skull. But things really went south when I reached
the fortress stages. In particular Secret Lab 2, of course I had
the jumper parts equipped with Shadow Armor X and not the Hyper Dash which meant…I couldn’t
make this stupid jump in the second section, had to leave, equip the Hyper Dash instead,
play the first half of the stage again and then I could proceed. Stuff like that is just why I find X6 to be…unpleasant
to play, overall, even though I have played it enough to where I appreciate things about
it, I could never recommend this game to someone who hasn’t played it. X5 is a game I’d tell someone who likes
the other games to try out, because it’s not a terrible game, it’s just not that
fun to replay. Any first time player of X6 would probably
encounter a lot of confusion and frustration, they’d play the intro stage of X6 and think
it’s fine but then…Well then they play with the awful camera in commander Yammark’s
stage, as if that wasn’t bad enough, deal with the RNG of Ground Scaravich, than Infinity
Mijinion which literally isn’t even a level, it’s just a straight line with enemies on
it. Yadda Yadda Yadda…that sentence was ripped
directly from my original review of X6 because I still think that’s how the X6 experience
goes. But things have changed for me because, well
for starters, I am not a first time player of X6, I have been playing this game for almost
a decade, so I can’t just pretend I am some newcomer and review it like so, I know a bunch
of cheeses and exploits and with that, there are some good moments to play in the game,
and the improvement project really cleans X6 up to be a game, maybe you won’t see
me return to it frequently, but if I were say, binging the X series, I’d definitely
come back to the Project version because it was a massive, MASSIVE improvement over the
original, which I already now have an understanding of. And there is the customization project which
really adds a ton of replay value to the game, and will definitely keep playing that. As I said though, I didn’t want to rage
at this game this time around, which is why the original video can stay where it is, and
today, I could just do something different.. I really did think it was going to be interesting
to just look at the bright side of X6 for a change. Yeah, I didn’t come out loving it, but I
think it produced a really interesting video, one that I really enjoyed writing. And I meant every compliment I gave the game. If you like X6 as a whole, that’s just fine,
you do you, have fun with it, and do what I said in the X3 review, feel free to speak
your mind because I don’t have the popular opinion in saying X2 and X3 are like…perfect
games to me, but I just say how I feel and that’s that. Next time, I am going to be talking about
X7, and let me just say…there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for that one. In the meantime, thank you all for watching,
and I will see you next time.
