They really went and published a Mega Man X kaizo rom hack lmaooo
Incompetence and ignorance is often what brings a game down. Mega Man X 6 is a rare case in that malicious design is what brings it down. It is far and away, without question, the meanest game in the whole Mega Man franchise. More than any other game in the series, it demands you to be a skilled and knowledgeable player and still wastes your time. The game, is evil. It’s fun, but it is evil.
What do I mean by evil? The game feels like a prank. You go to Blaze Heatnix’s stage and the first thing you do is fight this annoying Nightmare Snake miniboss. You beat it and then play a bit of the level only to come across yet another Nightmare Snake miniboss. This repeats until you have beaten five of these damn things.
Not to be outdone, Blizzard Wolfang’s falling icy Tetris block segments, the seemingly randomly generated layouts of the randomly selected action rooms in Ground Scaravich’s stage, and the entirety of Metal Shark Player’s stage are all unbelievably annoying and frustrating. To compound on the frustration, every level has a random chance to be affected by the Nightmare Virus, which adds more obstacles/enemies/nuisances. Sometimes feels like the developers are laughing at you for playing it.
I didn’t include Rainy Turtloid’s stage’s acid rain gimmick in that list of grievances, because I don’t think it’s all that bad. I kind of like it, actually. It gives you this sense of urgency and also turns parts of the level into a (very) simple scavenger hunt to get the rain to stop. It’s an interesting novelty for a Mega Man game, especially when compared to five back to back minibosses.
What I don’t like about Rainy Turtloid’s stage is the hidden armor capsule. This capsule gives you a part for the Shadow Armor, a ninja-like set that is by all accounts not very viable, but allows you to walk on spikes. To get to this capsule, you have to get through a narrow passage full of spikes. And it is TRICKY. If you are a pixel off, you’re getting one shotted by the spikes. Some players have found that damage boosting off a nearby enemy is the best way to get across the spikes, but the recommended way is to have completed the other set of armor, the viable Blade Armor, and use its dash to get across. It’s kaizo level stuff no matter what. The hardest spike traversal in the game and it rewards you the ability to not worry about spikes anymore. I’m sure you can see the hypocrisy of the situation here.
The Shadow Armor’s spike walking isn’t even necessary, because arguably the most important spike traversal in the game can be crossed by using one of the special weapons you get from the bosses. The Ice Burst plops a small block in front of you that you can jump on. You can use this block to jump across a large stretch of spikes in Blizzard Wolfang’s secret area so you can save Dante the Reploid dog, who gives you the Jumper parts, which is capital R Required to get through the final stages, if you’re not using Zero (because he can double jump).
Before I get ahead of myself and talk about the endgame too soon, I want to take a moment to talk about the very accurately named Another Route secret areas, which ironically can be used to start the endgame sooner than usual.
The Another Route is a shorter and sometimes trickier version of any of the main stages, where you fight one of the three secret bosses, in order of appearance: the Zero Nightmare, the nearly invincible High Max, and Dynamo from X5, here to start some trouble again. Beating Dynamo gives you points towards your rank, beating the Zero Nightmare unlocks Zero as a playable character, and painstakingly whittling High Max’s health to zero awards you with the ability to go to the final stages.
You could, in theory, begin the endgame without seeing a single boss Maverick. I don’t know why you would want to do that, because those stages are just about the most evil the game gets. Even if you pick Zero and skip the need to get the Jumper parts, the final rematch with High Max is an ordeal WITH his weakness.
I’ve been complaining a lot about Mega Man X 6 but I want to reiterate that it feels good in the hands, one of the most important things a Mega Man game can do. Dashing and jumping around any level feels good, I just wish those levels were better made.
There’s a discussion to be had about half assed level design paired with a strong list of verbs to play around with in those levels feeling good and the growing usage of machine learning to replace creatives, but this review is already too long.
A good list of verbs really does go a long way though, because despite my griping about Mega Man X 6, I’ve beaten it like four times. This was of course when I was a little bit older and could grapple with the hatred this game eminates, though.
I do not recommend Mega Man X 6. It’s too cruel. But I still respect it for choosing to be such a bastard of a game.
Incompetence and ignorance is often what brings a game down. Mega Man X 6 is a rare case in that malicious design is what brings it down. It is far and away, without question, the meanest game in the whole Mega Man franchise. More than any other game in the series, it demands you to be a skilled and knowledgeable player and still wastes your time. The game, is evil. It’s fun, but it is evil.
What do I mean by evil? The game feels like a prank. You go to Blaze Heatnix’s stage and the first thing you do is fight this annoying Nightmare Snake miniboss. You beat it and then play a bit of the level only to come across yet another Nightmare Snake miniboss. This repeats until you have beaten five of these damn things.
Not to be outdone, Blizzard Wolfang’s falling icy Tetris block segments, the seemingly randomly generated layouts of the randomly selected action rooms in Ground Scaravich’s stage, and the entirety of Metal Shark Player’s stage are all unbelievably annoying and frustrating. To compound on the frustration, every level has a random chance to be affected by the Nightmare Virus, which adds more obstacles/enemies/nuisances. Sometimes feels like the developers are laughing at you for playing it.
I didn’t include Rainy Turtloid’s stage’s acid rain gimmick in that list of grievances, because I don’t think it’s all that bad. I kind of like it, actually. It gives you this sense of urgency and also turns parts of the level into a (very) simple scavenger hunt to get the rain to stop. It’s an interesting novelty for a Mega Man game, especially when compared to five back to back minibosses.
What I don’t like about Rainy Turtloid’s stage is the hidden armor capsule. This capsule gives you a part for the Shadow Armor, a ninja-like set that is by all accounts not very viable, but allows you to walk on spikes. To get to this capsule, you have to get through a narrow passage full of spikes. And it is TRICKY. If you are a pixel off, you’re getting one shotted by the spikes. Some players have found that damage boosting off a nearby enemy is the best way to get across the spikes, but the recommended way is to have completed the other set of armor, the viable Blade Armor, and use its dash to get across. It’s kaizo level stuff no matter what. The hardest spike traversal in the game and it rewards you the ability to not worry about spikes anymore. I’m sure you can see the hypocrisy of the situation here.
The Shadow Armor’s spike walking isn’t even necessary, because arguably the most important spike traversal in the game can be crossed by using one of the special weapons you get from the bosses. The Ice Burst plops a small block in front of you that you can jump on. You can use this block to jump across a large stretch of spikes in Blizzard Wolfang’s secret area so you can save Dante the Reploid dog, who gives you the Jumper parts, which is capital R Required to get through the final stages, if you’re not using Zero (because he can double jump).
Before I get ahead of myself and talk about the endgame too soon, I want to take a moment to talk about the very accurately named Another Route secret areas, which ironically can be used to start the endgame sooner than usual.
The Another Route is a shorter and sometimes trickier version of any of the main stages, where you fight one of the three secret bosses, in order of appearance: the Zero Nightmare, the nearly invincible High Max, and Dynamo from X5, here to start some trouble again. Beating Dynamo gives you points towards your rank, beating the Zero Nightmare unlocks Zero as a playable character, and painstakingly whittling High Max’s health to zero awards you with the ability to go to the final stages.
You could, in theory, begin the endgame without seeing a single boss Maverick. I don’t know why you would want to do that, because those stages are just about the most evil the game gets. Even if you pick Zero and skip the need to get the Jumper parts, the final rematch with High Max is an ordeal WITH his weakness.
I’ve been complaining a lot about Mega Man X 6 but I want to reiterate that it feels good in the hands, one of the most important things a Mega Man game can do. Dashing and jumping around any level feels good, I just wish those levels were better made.
There’s a discussion to be had about half assed level design paired with a strong list of verbs to play around with in those levels feeling good and the growing usage of machine learning to replace creatives, but this review is already too long.
A good list of verbs really does go a long way though, because despite my griping about Mega Man X 6, I’ve beaten it like four times. This was of course when I was a little bit older and could grapple with the hatred this game eminates, though.
I do not recommend Mega Man X 6. It’s too cruel. But I still respect it for choosing to be such a bastard of a game.