Mega Man X6 - An Incomplete Nightmare (Deep Dive + Review) | Trav Guy

foreign [Music] mega man x should have died with the release of mega man x5 finishing the series arc established in four of the five games with zero's direct ties to wiley and the maverick virus that the entire series orbits around its multiple endings left fans confused on where the series would go afterwards with the intention of this being to bridge the x series into its sequel series mega man zero set to tell the tale of a resurrected zero roughly a hundred years after the events of x5 zero's death by the hands of sigma was the cornerstone of inafune's plans for the mega man series going forward but business is gonna business and capcom greenlit a sixth installment for the mega man x series without inafune's blessing or involvement the man was forced to return to the drawing board to rethink his plans for the mega man series going forwards and while his plan for the long-haired hunter would be rectified that didn't stop what i personally believe to be the worst game in the entire subseries from being born 2001's mega man x6 i didn't always feel this way towards x6 there was even a time where i praised it as being one of the coolest games i've played but this was also back when my age was in the single digits but come on a direct sequel to one of my favorite x games at the time whose plot was a direct result of the events that transpired in x5 boasting an original villain who wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the eurasia colony crash direct continuity like this is a rarity in mega man games at least the ones that i had grown up with and if the game had a bit more time to cook then i think that it would have been something truly special but instead it became infamous for all of the wrong reasons and i think the feeling is made even worse given the great first impression that the game leaves the fantastic opening cinematic fully voiced cutscenes albeit only in japanese but voiced nonetheless these are great and add a lot to the experience and even the opening level organically introduces you to the newest mechanic of x6 accompanied by an amazing composition by naoto tanaka for the opening stage that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of hope and perseverance while the very colony that nearly brought upon the end of the world lies in the background now most of my feelings with x6 are purely personal much like my own upbringing led me to regard x5 as being one of my favorite games in the series despite its flaws those same feelings are what led me to nearly despise this game it lures you in with such promise and outstanding first impressions and then just drops the ball if you believe x7 is worse than this game i understand and respect your opinion but i hope that by the end of this video you can at least understand where i'm coming from what's the first game that comes to mind when you think of a crt tv sitting alone in the room with the lights off the hum from a crt maybe even a box fan in the corner well for me that game is mega man x6 i rented this game as a kid more often than any other game growing up before i had the internet these rental stores are what introduced me to a lot of games growing up i wouldn't even have known that there were more x games beyond five and i'll never forget that love at first sight feeling i got from the game the minute i booted up x6 on my brother's old playstation 1. i somehow remember making it all the way to nightmare mother as a kid without even the slightest understanding of the game's secrets and collectibles but as you'd guess this was a roadblock for little baby trev but i didn't let it get me down i chalked the boss up to just being hard and i wasn't good enough to beat him it wouldn't be until high school that i finally owned the game for myself and that feeling of childhood like wonder slowly began to disappear it was almost heartbreaking seeing this media that used to bring me such joy for what it actually was an unfinished broken borderline insulting sequel to one of my most beloved games at the time the rose tinted glasses were off and part of my childhood died in that moment alright now am i making this out to be a bit more dramatic than it really was of course i am but my points are still genuine the amount of whiplash i felt from this game growing up was immense but i felt it was a necessary evil to help myself grow as a person okay let's start with the cd case i still love this cover art x holding zero saber like that though the rest of it the blue and cyan grid surrounding it and this bland orange band at the bottom this just feels uninspired like they took these two renders the art team offered them and just threw them into photoshop for a quick paycheck it's a bit disappointing though yeah it's not as bad as x4 well there's the first red flag zero is missing no i don't think he is x was there when zero got skewered through the chest sure x probably doesn't remember the force ghost of dr light repairing him maybe he believes zero was mysteriously brought back from the dead too the back of the case doubles down on this whole zero is missing jargon zero is missing search and rescue yeah okay i do like these early prototype gameplay screenshots looks like the opening level was going to be a tad different at one point even without the falcon armor spoiler alert there isn't a single point in the game where you should go in with naked armorless x return to battle again and again with the new nightmare system randomize level maps enemies and endings based on how you play amazing that one of the most hated and controversial features in this game is a goddamn selling point mega man x is back and now it's personal hasn't this whole series been personal whatever alright what about the manual the book that makes this promise of a super secret character the manual calls the hunter this guy sounds pretty awesome too he gets extra weapons from bosses and even wields the z saber and z bus hit zero reploid threat three weeks ago wait three weeks ago the game is building off of the good ending from x5 given that x remembers who zero is and that was three years after x was back in commission a huge reploid is running out of control get over here asap the dangerous reploid believed to have been disintegrated during sigma's attack has reappeared can he defeat the reploid for good this time alright so you're telling me that x has met this thing before that would make sense if this was what he was dispatched to fight at the end of x5 three years from now we got our reploid introductions we kept douglas but no lifesaver that's weird we've got the promise of three other reploids as well a gate hymex and isaac who i'm pretty sure is supposed to be like sergey's being a recreation of dr wily i'm getting a bit ahead though looks like the concept of saber cancelling was also known by capcom at the time actively advertised as a special dna move maybe that's why saber cancelling is absolutely broken in this game oh my god they didn't even try that's a screenshot from izzy glow stage from x5 come to think of it zero's render in the manual is also from x5 as well man this just reeks of rush development even from the manual the shadow armor is completely missing from the armor section despite the spot being left open for it the bosses are all missing renders and it doesn't even explain what xero's techniques are what do you think would happen if i mailed in this proof of purchase to capcom edge mega man x episode 6. nice to see the episode subtitle come back from x5 probably the only game in the series after five that it fits to be honest now this matrix text at the beginning would have been a great place to hide a secret and it probably has one that i'm not seeing but it seems to just be the text from the opening of x5 might even be a script for the whole game cause that i trust you zero bit isn't until the shuttle launch sequence before the fortress that's a weird way to open the game makes me wonder if they meant to imply that this is all a simulation of some sorts regardless of if it's actually [Music] canon this recap is spectacular seeing key moments from x5 beautifully animated while the commercial theme for xtreme 2 plays in the background no i'm kidding it's a great theme though the previous x games on ps1 all had a j-pop intro like this on the japanese releases of the game but were replaced with something the team thought was more american overseas as a filthy american myself i do prefer the overseas intros we got for 4 and 5 especially x5 as it felt more thematic to the game being an intended conclusion to the x series but with x6 we arguably did get an american intro just not for 17 years later if you're playing this on the recently released legacy collection the intro as well as the credits music has been swapped out for an original track made just for the collection and while it's not bad it just doesn't compare to the original theme words cannot describe how much i love this shot here of x and sigma when i was a kid almost every other shot from this intro is an animated recreation of stills from x5 but this one oh man it got me hyped the intro is fairly accurate aside from the three weeks ago thing we discussed earlier dynamo attempted to crash the eurasia colony into earth and zero manned a shuttle that destroyed it successfully solidifying once again that this game is canon to the good ending of x5 with xn0 getting skewered and x being the only one to come back alive taking zero saber with him to honor his fallen comrade what a fantastic opening fmv maybe it's just a fan service but god damn i love it and then we're back to this nonsense what is this title screen i was able to connect that the international title screen for x5 was either x's ear or the opening of his xbuster but i have no idea what this is supposed to be the closest that i can think of is it's the core inside of zero's chest like we saw in his x5 ending but that feels like a bit of a reach we open on a newcomer to the series gate a replied scientist investigating the crash site of the eurasia colony who comes across a mysterious piece of debris turning out to be a fragment of zero somehow whatever it is it's driving him mad it's so liberating as he puts it he's gone so mad in fact that he's gone full eugenics vowing to destroy all lowly reploids and build a society for stronger reploids alright i might have been playing a bit too much wolfenstein new order meanwhile x is dreaming can he do that whether real or not a ghostly zero tells him that there is no one else is left to fight before being startled awake by aelia warning him of a giant maverick acting up and rushing x to the scene to brief him once he's there alright well aside from the not so great grammar these cutscenes are pretty nice certainly a step up from x5 the whole scene is fully drawn rather than just mug shots dancing around the background elements but as you can tell this grammar is not great and i can't help but wonder how much of the story was lost in translation as a result a proper translation was planned for 6th generation consoles but for whatever reason it was dropped and there is no one else's left to fight continues to live on but stunning visuals and music have little need for translation because this opening level looks and sounds beautiful a running theme that you'll see as the game goes on x has the falcon armor back from x5 but it's taken some damage it can't fly anymore which is totally understandable for balancing reasons but it still has its stinky charge shot i'm not a fan of that personally but i'll work with it we've got animated mug shots back for these mid mission character interactions that's really nice and god again what a beautiful opening level soundtrack might be one of my favorite tracks in the game and dare i say one of the best opening level tracks in the entire series most of the enemies in this opening are stationary hunks of sentient junk that spit at you for the most part you've also got these obstacles typically silver orange and reddish burgundy that need to be destroyed with a z saber now taking the slot of x's special weapon slot when he doesn't have one equipped essentially the opposite of x50 he doesn't have a three-hit combo and it's not nearly as devastating as the last time x had the saber back in x3 but it's workable if not a little slow you can perform a bit of a saber cancel by jumping or crouching in the middle of a slash which does feel a tad janky but it works and after a not amazing but not terrible segment with these giant crusher drills x comes across a couple of reploids warning acts of a possessed mechaniloid yup he's a big one all right d1000 a fantastic opening boss in my opinion this guy has a smaller drone broadcaster off to the side that when struck with the z saber severs its connection between it and the mechanology dealing heavy damage that can be comboed by striking mechanology with a charge shot just before hitting the drone this boss feels like it sets the stage for bosses with an extra layer of complexity to it factoring in the new saber an exciting thought that players would have to think an extra step forward rather than just shoot to win which is kind of heartbreaking this is misleading at best as none of the bosses from this point forward go that extra step i'll discuss that more as we continue x destroys d1000 for the most part only for another ghostly zero to appear and finish the job in what feels like a callback to x1 where he finishes off vial this ghostly zero's color scheme also closely resembles this unused sprite set from x1 not sure if that's intentional though before the team has a chance to reflect on what the hell just happened they're met by the muscle of the game's new villains hi-max first we had gareth now we got max alright who's in charge of these names he claims to be investigating the zero nightmare and in retaliation to x asking what the hell a zero nightmare is he labels x as dangerous and tries to kill him you're not meant to win this fight much like violent x1 i'm not entirely sure what triggers the fight to end but after a bit of time maxwell threatens that he will destroy zero and [ __ ] off leaving a confused x to head back to hunter base this is a great opening level regardless of how i feel about the rest of the game the saber works great the music is fantastic the boss is incredible and the plot is intriguing all the while a third player enters the stage isaac a reploid who's rolled one too many katamari the robot king of all cosmos preaches about a newfound horror to the mega man universe the nightmare phenomena he describes it almost as if it's a new strain of the maverick virus caused by the ghost of zero resulting in reploids malfunctioning or deleting themselves and sending eight investigators across the globe and calling for the maverick hunters to join his cause of destroying the zero nightmare x isn't too happy hearing zero's name slandered like this zero gave his life to save us oh now you know that he's dead is he missing or not x and the team are reasonably suspicious of these eight investigators said by isaac and as you would have guessed these are the stand-ins for our eight bosses no reading of the bosses as they appear on the menu though weird thing to drop since four and five did it but i'm not complaining i also can't help but feel like x cocking his gun and saying he's going after these eight investigators comes a bit suddenly x doesn't know anything about these guys and while they turn out to be working for the villains his suspicion does seem a bit rushed going into it but i guess this is a mega man x game so whatever bring on the bosses [Music] welcome to amazon i always like to start with yamark stage no real reason why he's just who i chose first as a kid and it stayed that way i just couldn't resist those rose tinted eyelashes batting at me i quite enjoyed the overall aesthetic here the abundance of pre-columbian mesoamerican architecture combined with the chill and relaxing soundtrack made for the stage it's a unique experience for the x-series but a welcome one there is an abundance of these nightmare insect enemies which i wouldn't have too much of a problem with if they didn't regenerate immediately following their death they dropped these smaller bugs that are so short that you need to hit them with their saber if they're at your foot level and then they fire these boomerangs that will aim at your current location this is where the red flags start to pop up for me this enemy has a lot of good intentions put into it but was never properly finished or balanced it's overall a very harmless addition but i digress i'm also not too keen on the level's upgrades being hidden just off screen with little to guide the player to their location the biggest defender being the heart tank that looks as if it's hidden in an instant death pit the light capsule isn't the worst hidden off to the side like webb spider's capsule from x4 visiting this capsule is [ __ ] hilarious if you have zero zero i'm happy to see you again i'll never die you might have also noticed the plentiful amount of rescuable reploids and you better get used to seeing these guys because they are everywhere but they serve a purpose this time outside of just being extra life fodder and this is one of the more controversial mechanics of x6 certain missing reploids reward you with equippable parts you might remember these from x5 and xtreme 2. granting you perks such as a stronger buster faster movement speed higher jumps etc etc and i like that no longer requiring bosses to be at a certain level to get apart that's a welcome change however missing reploids can die by the hands or tentacles of the nightmare virus somehow manifesting into a physical form and are able to turn these helpless reploids maverick even if you don't kill the infected reploid they are gone forever and if the affected reploid happens to be carrying a part that you want you better hope that you have a previous save file already because you are not getting them back this wouldn't be as offensive if it weren't for the fact that some of these parts can be damn near essential to finish the game in some scenarios more on that later but i oh i don't like this i'd go as far to even say that i actively hate this design choice even if you didn't have to worry about the nightmare virus destroying upgrades that could kill your completionist runs i'm also not a fan of not knowing what upgrades drop from which reploids you have no way of knowing what upgrades a replay drops until the replays are processed after finishing the stage however as a silver lining you can use a guide to help you pinpoint what reploids drop specific parts if you'd so desire i feel like this could have been circumvented by a sort of credits system not exactly a shop per se but credits dropped by particular reploids that can be exchanged for specific parts a middle ground between this and extreme two's part system but back to the virus yeah we've got a physical virus this time i suppose this is better than the holographic sigma heads from x5 these guys drop nightmare souls which is the sole factor in what determines your character's in-game rank this doesn't really matter unless you plan on using multiple parts simultaneously as the amount of parts you can equip are reliant on your character's rank it's not essential and i'd argue that this is fine how do you feel about leaps of faith this is the worst part of ymark stage for the time being the camera just doesn't show enough of what's going on and i often find it safer to just take some damage and abuse the iframes to get through it and yes i did say for the time being we'll be coming back here in a bit i'm not entirely sure what's up with yamark's character he's quick to blame zero for the nightmare virus and immediately tries to kill x much like hijmax before him shame he's not nearly as durable as maximilian that is the easiest bullet hell i've ever experienced and yes i am aware that the projectiles home in on you on extreme difficulty but you could still just stand there and tank it anyway you get the yamaha option from this guy a shield weapon that fires beams from it pretty nice if i say so our cosmic king isaac is already on edge at the defeat of his first investigator and as it turns out he's working with gate from the intro big surprise next thing you'll tell me gate is working for sigma oh how is the experiment going everything is going great and the effect is brilliant god it feels like this was written by a small child and or politician they go on to imply that isaac is searching for the body of zero believing that he is still out there somewhere now i know who put up these missing posters gate doesn't seem to be all that interested though saying that he can continue his plans without zero's remains it is now time for dung beetle [Music] i do not want to be here this level is the bane of any completionist on the surface or at least on your first playthrough it might not seem so bad each of these totem poles teleport you to a cyberspace obstacle course ending with you destroying the totem pole in a sort of mini boss fight they're annoying but with yamaha option they're tolerable and after a few of these trials you make it to the boss that's not so bad right well what about the heart tank and the armor capsule and what is zelda's neutral special doing there upon revisiting the stage it might become a bit more apparent this isn't the same layout as before and that's because these totem trials are [ __ ] random the armor capsule and the heart tank are almost impossible to miss if they do show up but the likelihood of them appearing is still up to rng you can replay the whole level multiple times and not run into a single one of the stage's collectibles and better yet the speedster part that drops from one of these injured reploids is damn near essential if you want to make it through the game you can miss this this is absolutely disgusting level design for a mega man game made even worse if you want to finish the game with x more on that later scarovich isn't too bad he's a dung beetle he pushes around a bunch of robot crap left and right and if you need to you can use these ropes to avoid it if his [ __ ] ball breaks he'll rush off screen and grab another one pretty easy and nowadays i can't not think of solid snake whenever he pushes a massive load is it too late to cancel this review the music is good and the level environments look pretty yadda yadda yadda though i did expect there to be a bit more magma for this being the magma area all right let's address the giant elephant in the room the nightmare snake this is a painful attempt for a mini boss it moves left and right it's barely animated and almost entirely invulnerable it's only vulnerable in its big green glowing [ __ ] me lights all the while firing beams at you though not too damaging on their own they can slow you down when trying to catch up with the thing a charged dmr option isn't too bad if you haven't picked up the metal anchor or rey arrow yet but doing this without any special weapons is don't don't do it yes the falcon armor can charge special weapons now don't think too much about it but okay you take out the nightmare snake really should have been called a nightmare donut and you think okay maybe that was just a bad first impression and the rest of the level won't be too god damn it yep the cat's out of the bag this whole level is nearly a non-stop gauntlet of nightmare snakes this one moves up and down this one jumps at you this one hides in the lava just like my hopes and dreams get the [ __ ] out of there you rancid [ __ ] and the worst part blaze heat mix is such a [ __ ] pushover not only is he [ __ ] short i mean that literally i thought he'd be way taller but his fight is just so boring he'll cover half the stage in purple lava and either launch fireballs or dive at you and goes down with relatively low punishment it's also the only point in the game that i use scaravich's ability it's not that great just a slow moving projectile that doesn't really make up for its damage output the charged variant is amusing though the game freezes and it just goes [ __ ] you get the magma blade from this guy completely transforming x's saber into a fire sword that launches fireballs i honestly expected more special weapons to use the saber than just this one it's almost like x having a saber was added fairly late into the game who'da thunk this weapon also comes with a very interesting exploit granting x the power of flight just pop on auto fire get close to a wall you're never coming down well at least until you run out of ammo this can be used to get a couple of upgrades earlier than you're supposed to and is near essential if you want to beat the game with naked x why would you do that now you might be asking what the hell is a maginian well the answer is quite simple he's a water flea a type of zooplankton so don't [ __ ] with him he went to college holy [ __ ] it's megatron this is illumina she's the guardian of the weapon center and yes i said she the game uses feminine pronouns she's not the most offensive miniboss in the game though much like magma area this is a constant struggle against a minibus but illumina is leagues above nightmare snake however i might be a bit biased the track in this stage is [ __ ] incredible and it always gets me pumped ignoring that it sounds a lot like the final countdown [Applause] the beginning of the stage does have a pretty bad problem with leaps of faith though something i find inexcusable and this is no exception this is not okay there's two checkpoints in the map both need to be destroyed to complete the level and after the destruction of the first one illumina goes full headmaster and all my ears stay off the floor and you'll be fine hey come on bro personal space [ __ ] you oh look at that look at this this is the laziest [ __ ] collectible placement i have seen in a long time literally tucked away to the left here and put side by [ __ ] side i never thought you could get lazier than wire sponge's heart tank but here we are alright i guess i can't avoid this any longer these upgrades are only acquirable in the stage's secret boss portal i checked the wiki i thought for sure they had a more specific name but nope secret boss portal so i don't inherently hate this idea a diverting path in every stage that offers additional reploids for more parts and is often the hiding spots for the game's collectibles even offering a completely different boss at the end but we're gonna forget about that for now yes this current run i'm focusing on is an x only run it is mega man x6 after all i will be discussing the elusive secret hunter in a bit don't worry just have some patience i bring this up because defeating the boss at the end of these secret paths will unlock zero and i don't want that yet so you know what that means [Music] on the plus side this did complete my first armor set the blade armor yes i did get the fourth part in between levels i'll be discussing that shortly but the blade armor is pretty awesome its charge shot isn't terrible and its mid-air dash is pretty impressive even suspending you in the air for a moment so that you can aim it that's right you can aim it we've got x3's upwards dash returning as well as a downward dash that i never really used but sure feels good now i've read on the cutting room floor that there's some interesting oddities regarding x's armor in this game armorless x has full animations and sprites for moves exclusive to his armor something that wasn't completely done in x5 folks have thought that this points to the idea that x was able to mix and match armor upgrades at one point but i haven't been able to find anything concrete about this just interesting food for thought i brought the blade armor back to yamark stage so i could get the sub tank before i take on majinion and wouldn't you know it [Music] good [ __ ] lord this sort of spotlight effect is the result of the game's nightmare effect the one advertised on the back of the case on the surface it's easy to compare to mega man x1 how beating certain bosses would affect other stages but in that game the changes were beneficial freezing mammoth's lava flooding chameleon stage disabling mandrel's electricity all changes that give you an easier time in your journey and reward you for playing the way that the game wants you to but here the nightmare effect does almost nothing but punish you you might have noticed how occasionally in the stage select certain stages will be highlighted red this is supposed to tell you what stages are undergoing a nightmare effect but it is just inconsistent this spotlight effect is caused by visiting maginian stage and will affect yamark stage as well as turtloids now on the plus side this can be avoided with some guidance the phenomenon only cares about what stage you visited last allegedly and will only affect one or two stages so say you wanted to visit yamark stage without the nightmare effect that just means you gotta visit any other stage that isn't magenians or turtleoids before going in except for when it doesn't i don't like this i really don't the game actively advertises this but this is just terrible it's made even worse that it's triggered by visiting a stage prior without even completing it heat nix's stage can be affected by these metal blocks by visiting shark players stage that completely impede your path and to destroy them you need shark player's weapon if you were unfortunate enough to visit shark's stage fail to complete it and then head to heatnik's skarovich or majinion stage you would be completely [ __ ] and forced to grind away your extra lives just so that you can go anywhere else like x5 one ups don't matter here with game overs giving you the choice to just continue without any repercussions so at points having extra lives can become more of a detriment to the experience than they are beneficial why even have a live system like this if you're just gonna slap a kilometer of duct tape over it alright this won't be quite as linear as i planned i already [ __ ] off to a completely different stage and ended up killing virginian last so i'll be coming back to you later plankton [Music] no that's not a typo his name is wolfang not wolfgang this is the only stage that is positively affected by the nightmare phenomenon oh is the misaligned background a result of the nightmare or is that just me hope you like slippery ice physics the opening is literally an uphill battle against these chunks of ice that materialize in front of you and midway through the other half of the stage won't open unless you've visited heatonix's stage prior doesn't matter if you've killed him or not you just need to visit his stage in order to get this level's heart tank the armor capsule is fine though you just need the blade armor's dash the blade armor actually breaks this stage you're able to dash out of this ice block sequence like it's nothing i just jump to the end of it but it doesn't let you leave unless you trigger it by landing at the bottom i feel like this stage was relatively harmless compared to the rest but i don't know if this is because of the blade armor or not and i'm not willing to find out wolfang is also pretty pathetic just let a couple of magma blades loose and he's wow you get the ice burst another situational weapon remember the crystal hunter from x2 it's a lot like that but without needing an enemy to freeze creating a platform shortly in front of you it's not incredible just situational however if you time it just right you can dash under where the ice block is about to land damaging yourself and giving yourself iframes meaning yep you can skip these not recommended if you're doing a completionist run or at the very least looking for the speedster or blade armor but you can do this this level will make you hate rain so not only did i have this stupid spotlight effect on despite not visiting maginian stage prior but nearly the entirety of this level is you racing against the clock the rain is somehow turned corrosive in the not galapagos island and your health is constantly ticking down you are given these healing pads so as long as you're aware that it's here this should rarely lead to death just annoyance and a feeling of wasted time on top of the corrosive rain many times your progress will be stopped by these weather analyzers that can only be destroyed once you've taken out its cores and these [ __ ] are tiny sometimes impossible to see if you have the nightmare effect on oh my god who thought this was a good idea how could you advertise this in good faith you'll also meet muscle man mom bandos here yes its name is monbando he's stationary but keeps his guard up you need to wait for him to attack to deliver punishment most of the time they're harmless but there are a couple of these guys that are placed in the dickiest of dick placements oh god i'm getting extreme two flashbacks oh boy i'm telling you i love me some instant death spikes [Music] what the [ __ ] is this supposed to be the blade armor's mid-air horizontal dash reduces the height of x's air dash which is nice it's faster it does a bit of damage and it lets him squeeze through these tight spots it's a really nice gimmick in theory but why did you have to line these with instant death spikes it's bad enough that the timing for this is near pixel perfect but you're actually gonna punish me with death maybe this would be more devastating if death actually meant something but all you're doing is just padding it out a couple more excruciating minutes every time i [ __ ] this up it really tests my patience in classic mega man if you slid under something that wasn't under the full path of your slide you just keep going until the opening was done putting these spikes here just feels like a lazy way to cover it up because they didn't want to think of an easier way to just push you through it oh turtle's a big boy don't let his size scare you though he's also a pushover destroy the two gems on his back and then let the ice balls flow freely spark manual syndrome has never been so boring thank god you can't just kill him [Music] metal shark player okay i see what they're going for here but player metal shark okay that's kind of obvious he is a metal shark but player is actually a mistranslation of prayer as in someone who prays his whole gimmick is being able to resurrect husks of former mavericks look it's magna centipede remember that better game i think a better name for this guy would have been metal shark necromancer or hammerhead necromancer technomancer whatever cool idea bad name i despised this level as a kid purely for how finicky it was a majority of this level was underneath a massive crusher which is able to insta-kill you if you get crushed obviously that makes sense however if you are stuck in a point where you need to duck letting go of the down button will instantly kill you as well it's like x has hydraulics in his legs that crush him if there's anything on top of him and playing this back on the ps2 was infuriating for me because of how pressure sensitive those buttons were maybe that was just me i don't like feeling like i'm strangling my controllers to death holding down a button i don't know i only get this feeling with the playstation you do get the ride in armor during this first crusher and the crusher will stop when it touches the ride and if you jump out and leave the armor on the highest point you can essentially stall the entire crusher for this first segment but it's the only free pass you get for this i don't really have anything else to say this stage is slow boring and [ __ ] the nightmare pressure can go [ __ ] off it's not the worst mini boss ever it's just so painfully slow you can only inflict damage on its purple turrets whenever it brings them down but you can only damage it from one side unless there's something i'm doing wrong shark player is enjoyable though even with his weakness his fight isn't too bad dare i say it's kind of fun and no it's not just because of the nostalgia bait but that does help you get metal anchor for this a weapon that isn't too great on its own but its charged variant is [ __ ] amazing not only does it summon a fleet of storm eagles i always appreciate the x1 callback but this is devastating against many bosses especially the nightmare snakes from heatnix's stage if you can find a good order be sure to have this weapon ready by the time you take on heatnix this along with magenian's rey arrow make this stage a breeze i took the secret boss portal to get the sub tank and heat next to stage where i totally forgot i was doing an x-only run and ran into the boss store [Laughter] hey nightmare zero do you mind doing what the original zero was created to do and just [ __ ] kill me so i could go back to the stage select i like it [Music] gareth max now sheldon what the [ __ ] is going on bazinga laser institute is a fairly short stage almost painfully short if you're not taking the secret portal for literally every secret upgrade in this level even the weapons tank which is a bit of a surprise you see those little dragonfly [ __ ] that keep swarming around these are supposed to only trigger if you recently visited yamak's stage which uh i didn't they're annoying but you can destroy them with yamaha option not a problem unless you somehow triggered these without it got a lot of laser puzzles around here better be ready to shoot flip and beam to victory i swear getting this laser guide to aim in the direction i want is like pulling teeth it just does whatever the hell it wants the armor capsule here is interesting there's these invisible platforms you're supposed to jump on that yes will drop you into the instant death pit if you missed that's pretty stupid but it's kind of cool at the same time i don't know i really don't like that you have to walk through the wall here though i've never watched big bang theory so i'm not gonna try to pretend that i know the lore behind this character but he's a big clam [ __ ] he is literally the living goo in the center of a clam turned into a battle robot i'd [ __ ] on this but honestly i'm kind of amazed that it works metal anchor will interrupt whatever he's doing so i like to get a couple of pot shot limes in there before i hit him with the anchor especially whenever he does this that's a barrier that will deflect your shots back at you and it is a pain in the ass to try to run away from because he just rushes right at you metal anchor says shut the [ __ ] up you get guard shell from this not an amazing weapon with x but for zero oh just you wait i took a detour to get the last armor capsule from shark player stage you essentially need the blade armor dash to make this jump i'm sure that there's exploits to get this without the blade armor maybe that magma blade trick works i i don't care but now we've got the shadow armor x6's second armor set and it's pretty [ __ ] awesome i'm not gonna lie it's essentially the gaia armor from x5 but not as [ __ ] it can't use special weapons it can cling to walls but also replaces your standard buster with the reskinned c shot from x5 and replaces your charge shot with an even larger slash that i'm pretty sure reuses some graphics from the crescent grizzly boss fight in x5 but whatever that's fine it could also do this [Music] i never really found a good use for this but i'd be lying if i said it wasn't cool but most importantly just look at that design that's [ __ ] sick using the normal saber with a special weapon button is also a lot faster honestly it feels like it should be this fast to begin with but whatever life is an endless succession of failures and disappointments i would not recommend bringing the shadow armor here but i did anyways oh [ __ ] we've got those steel blocks back [ __ ] off illumina i'm a goddamn ninja all right you zooplankton where's my [ __ ] nightmare souls magenian is a [ __ ] and i wouldn't recommend fighting him without some extra protection patience or whatever kind of part that you can use to help you out because this fight gets very claustrophobic very fast hitting him has a high chance of causing him to split up and duplicate now these clones of himself won't move so it's pretty easy to tell which one is the real maginian but they still fire out these homing bubbles which i think these alone are worse than the bubble boss that i feel like they're a reference to to my surprise the shadow armor didn't have too bad of a time with the boss fight i could do some heavy damage against majinion and his clones with the giga attack oh yeah the giga attacks are back now with this snazzy background animation too i'm a really big fan of that the falcon armor still has its x5 giga attack which i think makes this the first game to have x start with a giga crush the blade armors is fine not really anything to write home about but the shadow armors despite being close range is [ __ ] devastating able to shred anything nearby with its recycled crescents [Music] with all eight of his investigators destroyed gate finally makes himself known introducing himself to the hunter team for the first time boasting that he yearns for a nation without lowly reploids where only the strongest rule we know all this already do you realize what you are doing the earth can't be fixed without reploids he says despite reploids being the sole cause for the earth's uninhabitability so then gate does the logical thing and actively invites x to his secret laboratory impressed with how he took out his team guess we got to abuse his lust for strong reploids to get this game to [ __ ] finish the lab itself is deep underground meaning aelia can't interrupt us here which actually doesn't change much since elia can't interrupt us all the time with her blurbs like an x5 they're all optional i forgot to mention that they're more like codex from metal gear hey that music sounds familiar [Music] a much faster rendition of the original theme but god damn it sounds great just like every other stage in the game the music and presentation here is on point i love the aesthetic for this stage especially these robo baphomet statues in the back it's a really nice detail how the angel statue slowly becomes more eroded as the level goes on while the baphomet becomes stronger i'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to symbolize but it's cool meanwhile the level design okay in order to get past the beginning of the stage you need to have some form of unlockable the shadow armor with its spike resistance and or high jump the jumper part along with the not crystal hunter or zero while i'm sure that there are other ways to make it past here this is insulting they were at least nice enough to put the roadblock here at the beginning of the stage so that you know what parts that you need but god this is this is terrible and goes against what i personally believe to be the peak design philosophy of earlier games i already discussed this a bit in my xtreme 2 video but mega man is at its best when the collectibles enhance the experience not just make it beatable you should be able to complete the game without collecting a single hidden upgrade unless that upgrade is given to the player in a way that is impossible for them to miss by setting this example you have taken away what makes a mega man x game so fun to play and the worst part is that the stage is perfectly playable beyond this point this was intentionally placed here to tell players who haven't met the quota yet to go [ __ ] off further padding the game and speaking of padding by god these lava segments several times throughout the level the game will hold you in place and summon a screen of lava that will rhythmically rise and fall this is first shown to you in a single one by one room that can be easily skipped i feel this mechanic should have been introduced to the player in a way that isn't so yeah and if you thought this level was bad already boy oh boy you're in for a treat [Music] the [ __ ] nightmare mother take everything you consider good boss design in a mega man game enemy telegraphs readable patterns simple displays of information to the player and dump it into the [ __ ] trash because mama's got none of that i don't even know where to start with this thing like [ __ ] the shadow devil from x5 was bad but at least it gives you decent enough windows to react to its blobs without getting hit here it's a god damn gamble you need to guess whether she's going clockwise or counterclockwise and if you get it wrong what what you're probably gonna take a hit she makes six moves across the screen in between two adjustment movements but these two heads act almost independently when it's time to attack do you get fire rain fire floor goo shavers lightning bolts who knows but you better be prepared and did i mention that this thing is invulnerable when it's not attacking you have to play its orbiting game when you're fighting this thing as x it's almost a game of rng whether or not you'll make it out of this fight alive for that reason i like to save my sub tanks for when i get at least one of its heads down which then has its own issues when its health reaches halfway she goes [ __ ] turbo i just stopped carrying all together and just damage boosted through this phase because i had that extra layer of protection but if you didn't go out of your way to get the shadow armor good [ __ ] luck this boss is abhorrent a [ __ ] stain on the entire series [ __ ] this boss and [ __ ] whoever let this slip past qa alright how is gate talking to us here i imagine this is supposed to be a screen but it really looks like he's just standing there physically next to x x dude do something do anything don't just stand there dumbass and here like many other dumbass villains gate explains his evil plans to the hunters blatantly presenting this piece of zero that he found in the rubble of eurasia bragging that it made it too easy to create hi-max on the nightmare hoping to use it to create a new breed of stronger reploids and he did those nightmare investigators were all his creations you can tell because they all have gates helmet wings on them but if this series has taught us anything it's that x has already overcome zero as a hunter so taking down elevated maxwell and his creator should be a walk in the park for the guy but in gate's deranged ramblings he makes a weirdly directed jab at aelia and this isn't for no reason if you manage to collect 3 000 nightmare souls without the use of a secret boss portal and before taking down all 8 bosses not only does this unlock the fortress early without destroying all 8 of the investigators but also gives us a bit of a lore dump aelia was once colleagues with gate and has early suspicions that the nightmare has ties to gate before its reveal at this point it doesn't offer anything new to the player but throwing alien to the mix is a pleasant surprise and her look in this flashback i really like it i like the hairstyle i'm not a simp so there's a lot of spikes at the beginning of this stage and if you're looking to have an easier time you might feel inclined to take the shadow armor i'll explain in more detail in a bit but for the love of god do not take the shadow armor take the blade armor you'll be fine you can even skip chunks of the level with a well-timed upwards dash and after a couple of excruciating totem poles hello maxwell i hope you've got some time to spare because this guy's a [ __ ] time sink in order to deal damage you need to hit him with a charge shot with your xbuster which will cause him to blink when he's in this state you need to hit him with a special weapon anyone will work some do more than others but just be sure to hit him with one that's how you deal damage this might remind you of the final boss of xtreme 2 and you'd be right in that comparison thankfully it's not nearly as bad here however the charge shot from the blade armor has the selective pseudo plasma ball when it hits a target i have no idea what triggers it it just seems to have a mind of its own but it really likes hi-max and when this thing decides to feel him up sometimes hitting him with a special weapon is near impossible with the hit registration in this case i actually prefer to use yammer option and hover near him to ensure one of the dragonflies hits him i am aware that there is a quick kill method by breaking his shields multiple times and not damaging him but i'm not doing that here because i don't hate myself on top of needing to get hit with a charge shot simply to make this guy vulnerable he's also got a shield on both sides of his person i'm sure that there's a faster way to take them out but i just used charge shots i don't care i really wish i had more to say about this boss but that's really all there is to it dash left and right to avoid him jump over his dust move and either break his shield or wait for him to launch it so he can get a hidden this is a skirmish of patience and chance and with enough of the former you'll eventually come out on top he's not hard just time consuming [Music] ready all right we're still going don't let the ready sign give you a sense of false security we're still on the same level and if you leave now to equip parts or refill your tanks in another level you'll have to deal with highmax again and this leads me to why i'm so adamant about not taking the shadow armor here this jump right here making this jump with the shadow armor is a lost cause the armor has no air dash so if you were unfortunate enough to have climbed your way through the first half of the level destroy highmax and then make it all the way here you have nearly no choice but to restart the level with the appropriate gear and you'd have wasted your time you can technically make this jump with the shadow armor with the speedster and jumper parts followed by a pixel perfect jump charge slash and giga attack but tell me is that an excuse [ __ ] no aside from that this turtloid segment is annoying but not appalling at least with x and after all this time we finally confront gatehead on again assuming that these aren't screens okay the floor is gone welcome to rng fest population this [ __ ] so this is a fairly unique fight if not for the game than for the whole series and on paper it sounds pretty cool gate will fly around and fire these colored projectile balls at you and each have a different effect some fire projectiles some suck you in some slow the frame rate down it's basic stuff and upon destroying these balls it launches six smaller projectiles in different directions and deals damage to gate upon impact it's a cool concept for a boss but like everything else in this game it's [ __ ] in execution for starters it's almost completely random whether or not gate will fire a ball at you or just rush you down he's got no telegraphs or audio cues he just goes and sometimes he just says [ __ ] it and destroys the map but the parts of the map respawn so fast that it barely makes a difference now you might feel inclined to move around the arena don't do that just jump between these two platforms and then jump to the associated wall to break the energy ball when it's released if you have the blade armor you can use its charged blade by holding up when releasing your charge shot to destroy the ball almost instantly it gives the saber a sort of tipper effect but what i just described to you is the entire fight you cannot damage gate directly and need to use these energy balls and it is a slog i was lucky that this only took me a few minutes jay's reviews got stuck on this [ __ ] for what felt like a lifetime back when we raced these games poor guy i hate i hate when gate eats your controls gate is shocked that he was defeated by x despite using zero's dna and in a twist that everyone saw coming he activates a resurrected sigma though if i could say anything positive about this he was never under sigma's control and just brought him back under his own free will but yeah buzz lightyear's back i wish i had more to say about it but that's about as much fanfare as the game gives him so if the game didn't care then why should i couldn't upset it better myself though this is pretty interesting with gate's defeat isaac drops down as a husk of his former self it's almost like oh the game remembers that never mind sigma returns and so does the damn boss rush i'm getting kind of tired of this gimmick as the series goes on i'm not gonna lie but it's not nearly as bad as x5's boss rush yes i am bringing the shadow armor with me you'll see why in a minute i actually didn't have too difficult of a time here most of the bosses you can just okay wakey wakey it's time for school wow they really just reused this virus mug shot from x5 you really couldn't be bothered to draw anything new so sigma is incomplete here no special name for this form he's just sigma and overall comes across as a zombie though i can't tell if that's a poor translation of an intentional part of his character in this game but yeah try not to get hit by his forehead beam giga crush him if he gets too close it's it's kind of easy oh lord he big all right i'll give the team this this form of sigma is not only intimidating but quite challenging too and oh god that music [Music] one of my favorite final sigma themes in the entire series though that could just be nostalgia it's obviously a remix of x2's neo sigma theme so for whatever goddamn reason the shadow armor's charge blade does an ass load of damage to this guy even without the buster up chips so much so that i almost feel like he was made weak against the shadow armor intentionally and it's laughable if you can get a giga crush loose on this [ __ ] sigma is unceremoniously destroyed for the i think eighth time now and x showing an act of kindness saves the body of gate though i'm sure that fucker's dead wait what the [ __ ] yeah i know right what the hell is happening okay so i guess zero was alive this whole time and just [ __ ] off but how [Laughter] all right you dark violet [ __ ] it's time to do what i should have done that uh i can't believe you would desecrate x-versus zero's theme like that your punishment is death so zero just comes back no rhyme no reason he just is hell i don't even know if the nightmare zero had anything to do with this we can sit here and theorize all day but the game doesn't really tell us anything and why does the cutscene take place in the same area as x's ending x of course is ecstatic to have his old hunting buddy back and when x asks how he returned he says he hid himself while he repaired himself alright i know that you have a healing system but how the [ __ ] do you come back from that we had to rebuild your sharp red ass four games ago and you were just a torso back then whatever the shot of the secret handshake still gives me indescribable childhood joy and the music this tranquil remix of zero's theme from x1 oh it's so good so yeah we've got zero back though the secret boss portals are still around i'll discuss those in a bit first things first his moveset has gotten a bit of an upgrade he's been fitted with a new saber and an upgraded z buster and yes the z buster is actually good this time a little too good his new saber is pretty nice and the three hit combo has been given a completely new animation with some extra vertical reach which is really nice and yes you can still saber cancel out of it you're not going to be using this as much as the previous games assuming you take down sheldon first i can't help but feel like saber cancelling is somehow more broken than it was in the last game though and i guess that's how i'd sum up zero in this game in general somehow even more broken first off guard show a mediocre weapon for x and still a mediocre weapon for zero if you use it as it's intended because of some bizarre oversight in how this thing works with zero as long as an enemy's hitbox is touching the hitbox of the guard shell their vulnerability becomes reset every frame meaning that if they're touching each other and you've got your saber out you're doing full damage every 60th of a second the totem poles become a joke the mom bandos become a joke really everything except for majinion is putty between your tiny robot feet with big robot feet i don't know why i said tiny it's got the big yowie legs and to make matters worse or better depending on who you ask [Music] but wait there's more take out rainy turtloid and thanks to the asoyzon the ability you get from him you become [ __ ] invincible by holding down and tapping the special attack button zero spins in place okay nothing bad about that but here's the thing during this animation you're completely invulnerable and at the end of the animation zero's hitbox is restored however if you find a way to interrupt this animation which is done very easily by using it on a destructible platform [Music] zero's hitbox is never restored meaning that you are completely invulnerable aside from getting crushed entering boss doors or using the technique again will make you vulnerable again though so be careful you can also activate this by sliding off of an icy platform but i can only think of two instances of this one of them being the first secret lab yeah you can make it through most of the stage without any issues did i mention that this makes you immune to [ __ ] spikes even maverick snake isn't too much of an issue zero's giga crush absolutely destroys him and when in doubt in suizan the only boss that i believe to be actively more difficult with zero than with x is mr zooplankton even then it's probably my fault for approaching the boss incorrectly though this boss is still [ __ ] so i'm gonna shift the blame a bit but back to the story it should come as no surprise that isak is a little giddy at zero's return gate even calls him out for being a little obsessed with the red reploid but if you manage to defeat highmax early i'll talk about that in a minute izak couldn't be more gleeful to zero take him down i commend the guy for trying to take a swipe at izak but surprise surprise he has special zero tractor beam powers boasting that he knows the guy inside and out and like i said he's widely and what i personally believe to be an abandoned plot point i think that this guy is responsible for zero's resurrection i can't fight this hunch that wiley as isaac rebuilt zero like how the ghost of light rebuilt x which possibly resulted in the creation of the zero nightmare alright so these secret boss portals once you unlock zero the fight inside is replaced with hi-max you don't need zero to fight him you just need to make sure that the zero nightmare is defeated just be sure to take in a special weapon with x or the insulizon for zero otherwise you're going to be soft locked with no way out he's lacking some of his tricks that he uses in the secret lab namely his shields and a lot of his projectiles aren't nearly as fast but he's still a huge time sync after he's defeated the secret labs are opened early regardless of how many investigators you've defeated and the secret boss portals are now indefinitely replaced with the returning dynamo you'd think i would approach this with a bit more fanfare but if the game doesn't care yeah you get my point his fight is different from x5 despite reusing most of his sprites but it's not too bad if you ask me you can also fight him repeatedly to grind out additional nightmare souls to boost your ranks now if you're wondering if you can use this to get the secret alia cutscene in my experience no you can't this cutscene only triggers before the lab is unlocked and given that you need to defeat hi-max to encounter dynamo and the lab unlocks with maxwell's defeat yeah speaking of rank here's a bizarre oversight so your own rank will affect what level of boss is and there exists code in the game for zero to be unlocked with his black zero armor if you defeat the nightmare zero while he's at level four but here's the thing you can only get him to level 4 upon collecting 5 000 souls which at that point the secret labs are already unlocked and if you unlock the secret labs even if you haven't fought the nightmare zero yet the boss portal is then permanently set to dynamo so while there is a means to legitimately unlock the black zero armor it's literally impossible because of this oversight just shifting some numbers around fixes this yes the black armor and ultimate armor return in this game more on that in a bit oh okay so that is a screen apparently he did approach x and then just ran away sadly we don't get much unique in this cutscene aside from this typical you'll never get away with this banter except it's poorly translated i like this shot though i like to see zero yell i obtained your dna it couldn't be analyzed it couldn't match the original after all i couldn't analyze it alright maybe we should take this guy to the er i think he's having a stroke [ __ ] fighting nightmare mother with zero in order to use his version of metal anchor which is the boss's weakness you need to tap down an attack at the same time in midair not just simply hold down while pressing attack this doesn't sound too harmful at first but getting it to trigger just feels so finicky though in unrelated silver lining zero is able to avoid the nightmare cubes a lot easier than x double jump up to this tiny space up here and mash the insouzon it feels really jank it is jank but it works beyond this point it's smooth sailing highmax is arguably even easier uppercut him to stun him and soils onto deal damage you don't even have to worry about his shields but oh god the rest of the secret lab zero segment here is completely different from the turtloid segment from x's run instead being a more aggressive crusher segment similar to shark player stage and this one's even more prone to [ __ ] there's a chance that you can die simply by wall jumping against the crushers during these really narrow moments where you're forced to wall jump above a bottomless pit [ __ ] this gate isn't too bad if you're using the guard shell exploit you can destroy the energy balls that come at zero arguably making his run safer than x's but i did have a nearly two minute long period where gate just refused to do anything zero destroys gate gate releases sigma razer is far less surprised than x was but in a surprising twist the ghost of wily emanates from isaac's body calling zero the strongest reploid which i'm sure would be a lot cooler if this wasn't [ __ ] in translation it's a really cool moment that makes this feel more unique than x's run but i wish that there was a bit more to it sigma doesn't even care that zero's back and then you beat his zombie phase and i think he needs five more minutes and oh look at that there's a platform in this boss fight i have already won [Music] okay i guess that restores hitboxes cut ahead an undisclosed amount of time and zero feeling guilty for his maverick origins meets with a replayed scientist in hopes of removing whatever traces of the virus from his systems putting himself into stasis for roughly 102 years jesus this is obviously a less subtle lead into the zero series than x5's ending but as you probably know there are two more x games canonically after this arguably three so here's my theories this cutscene is a time jump to the canonical end of the series taking place after x8 and or command mission and so on which i know is a boring theory so here's my second one this is the beginning of a split timeline where from this point forward the main canon splits where zero's ending leads to the new arcadian timeline of 0 1 and x's ending leads into x7 which continues on through command mission taking place through 22xx the same century as the zero series god where do i even go from that okay mega man x6 is not a good game don't let its flashy exterior and fantastic first impressions fool you as what's under the hood is held together with wood glue and scotch tape i understand many of you regard this game as better than it really is i understand that i have guilty pleasures myself and i was once on your side but we should all take this as an opportunity to grow and accept that this game just isn't that good yes it is very fun to break and if you genuinely enjoy that then go for it there's nothing stopping you from enjoying this but that shouldn't be an excuse for how broken this game can be yes it is obviously unfinished but there are unfinished games out there that still remain to be a good time it's not bad because it's unfinished it's bad because it lacks quality and the most upsetting part is that there's clearly the dna of a good game under this mess it was just never fully realized i am aware of the mega man x6 tweaks project that aims to restore a lot of this game's shortcomings no i haven't played it yet maybe i'll stream it someday so be sure you're following my twitch you can run through the game with the returning ultimate armor or black zero now only obtainable via code like an x4 which is interesting you even get the plasma buster back too zero gets some added protection and damage buffs it is a nice crutch and a good way to revisit the game it's not like this is much of a secret though the game actively gives you the codes during the credits sequence though that is an interesting palette swap for x's ultimate armor i'd kind of like to see this again someday but alright i know that a lot of you prefer this game to x7 but from my perspective we're finally over the horizon i put off this video for so goddamn long and it's not for no reason a combination of over ambition and general anxieties when it came to looking at this game but it's in the past now and i'm not planning on taking another year and a half hiatus off of the mega man series so keep an eye out ladies and gentlemen we'll be taking a look at the mega man x series first dive into the 3d realm sooner than you think with that said have a good one guys [Music] is

Channel: That Trav Guy

Views: 192,375

Keywords: mega man, Trav, That Trav Guy, mega man x, mega man x speedrun, mega man x ost, megaman, psx, playstation, x6, mega man x6 walkthrough, mega man x6 review, mega man 2021, video game review 2021, high max, mega man x6 ending, mega man x6 zero ending, mega man x6 zero, mega man ps1, mega man games on ps1, mega man x6 gameplay, mega man x6 shadow armor, mega man x6 gate, sigma fight, high max fight, megaman x6, megaman x6 stage, megaman x stage, mega man x analysis

Id: ZqnJHTqMvSM

Length: 61min 44sec (3704 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021