This game in the Mega Man Retrospective continues the Mega Man X series despite X5 originally being the final game in the series. Unlike X4 and X5 which got enough time to be made, X6 only got under a year to be produced.
Does the story make sense considering X5's ending? Is the game enjoyable despite its rushed nature? Is it REALLY as bad as some of the weakest games on the market?
All will be answered here hopefully and while I might not be the most positive with this one, I hope you still enjoy reading my Retrospective on the title!
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Development on Mega Man X6 started not long after work on X5 wrapped up and most of the same team worked on that game but with a much tighter work load.
Director - Koji Ohkohara
Designer - Toyozumi Sakai
Artist - Haruki Suetsugu
Composer - Naoto Tanaka
This game was infamous for how it was produced behind the back of Inafune, who was at the time Mega Man series producer and his comment on the game follows: "And so I’d always planned to make Zero come back to life in the Mega Man Zero series, but then X6 comes out sooner from another division and Zero comes back to life in that, and I’m like, 'What’s this!? Now my story for Zero doesn’t make sense! Zero’s been brought back to life two times!'"
He was flabbergasted with X6 being made and wanted to make up for fans for the title with pushing Inti-Crates to ensure MM Zero is strong title. Artist Hauki Suetsugu, someone who worked on past MMX PS1 titles, also cites rough working conditions when making the game. This lead him to design the Mavericks of the game to be more 'simple' compared to past MMX games.
*Image made by deityofshadows on DeviantArt
The last bit of info is that the game was completely voice acted in JP for all regions and it even kept the J-Pop intro song many PS1 Mega Man games had in the JP version but got gutted in the localized version.
X6 released in November in Japan, with December & February releases in NA and EU following after. It got meet mixed reception with a few positive reviews thrown into the mix. IGN gave the game an 8/10 while EGM gave it a 3.5/10 for example.
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The story of MMX6 is odd, as it is a mix of the two endings of MMX5. You have the good ending being used to show that X and the other hunters continue fighting on despite Zero's death but you have the bad endings impact on the Earth be present.
So the game opens two weeks (instead of two years) after the events of MMX5 with Zero still being dead and Earth being heavily damaged from the impact of the Eurasia Colony. X is sent to take out a Maverick in the crash site while seeing Zero land the final blow.
A robot called High Max, looking for the 'Zero Nightmare' and after a fight with X, both it and X warp elsewhere. We later see a Reploid called Isoc (who is NOT Dr. Wily in robot form) telling everyone that they are in charge of repairing the Earth and are looking for researchers to help find out what is going on.
X and the Maverick Hunters don't by this and start going to where eight of the researchers are located to check up on them and see what this 'Zero Nightmare' really is. The overall plot is......meh to be honest though, the translation is the highlight here.
After my enjoyment of SAO: Hollow Fragment on my Vita, I get a kick out of Engerish and badly translated games sometimes, so seeing this game being riddled with them was funny! Here is exactly, line-from-line, not joking here, an exchange between Zero and Dr. Light's Armor AI:
Light: "Zero, I'm glad to see again"
Zero: "I will never die....."
Or here is one between X and Zero after X finds Zero alive:
X: "How did you come back?!
Zero: "I hid myself to repair myself"
Shakespearean works of art, I must say. To be serious, I should be mad with this as no other X game had this level of badly translated writing but like the bad voice acting in X4 and MM8, I just can't help but chuckle at this.
Story does touch on interesting things, like Isoc being heavily implied to be a robot version of Dr. Wily and getting a bit of Aila's life outside of being a navigator for the Maverick Hunters via Gate but otherwise, its not that interesting overall.
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Gameplay here.....well I will be cutting this into three parts; core gameplay, level design & the Nightmare system.
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Gameplay is more Mega Man X, with X having his Falcon Armor from the start while Zero being unlocked via special gate in any of the levels (after you take down the Zero Nightmare boss). X is fun to play as and Zero is very overpowered, making him a joy to play as. The only major inclusion here is that X can use the Z-Saber and that Zero has his Z-Buster from the start when you unlock him.
Levels are built in mind for Zero instead of X this time though, which I will be touching on soon enough. But for now, lets just say Zero deals with the least amount of annoying things here.
We also have hostages returning from X5 and they are a large mechanic here; you NEED the parts they offer you like Speedster, Armor Defense (which increases your invincibility frames when hit) and Higher Jump (X NEEDS this) to get everything in the game and when Nightmare creatures touch a hostage, they are gone for good.
Even if you go back to the level, they are still 'gone'. So reset your game when this happens. Otherwise, the only thing to comment on is weapon abilities/armors and Zero has a few good tools here. You have a strong screen nuke attack and a powerful super fast spin attack are great additions to Zero's line up. X has some good tools as well, with two new armors that allow him to become a ninja (shooting shurikins) and one that lets him use the Z-Saber more.....but its best you stick with the Falcon Armor.
Overall, the gameplay here is fine enough and if you enjoyed past X games, you will have fun here......as long as you put in the cheat codes for Ultimate Armor X and Black Armor Zero. Will explain why in the level design portion.
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Level design....where to begin? Okay, lets start with the good. Some of the levels present fun gimmicks that I enjoyed. You have the ice level with walls you cannot cling/jump off of and that was a nice deviation from how things are in most X titles.
I also liked the acid rain gimmick in one of the stages, as you are pushed to get things done super fast and the game is somewhat fair with health re-store stations if you have low health.
Also like the idea behind the dual-level system where each level has a smaller level to explore that has an extra boss at the end of the state, making things quite replayable.
Now, lets move on to the bad, as there is sadly a lot of that.
X has a very hard time here, as the game was NOT built for him. You have sections where you need the added height of Zero's double jump or faster movement abilities to get through places but you do not have that. This is something you can adjust to at varying levels depending on the Mavericks you take on with X. Levels like Blaze Heatnix where you have to fight the same mini-boss 5-6 times is a problem with X but some of the earlier Mavericks aren't that bad to deal with.
Zero is the best way to play the game, as he has less annoying bits do deal with thanks to his expanded moveset. But his base armor is very weak and with how dangerous things can get for Zero are, it makes him die very frequently. Using the Black Armor Zero code removes this issue and as a result, the game can be quite fun with him. It also turns what should be a game that is very annoying to play, into quite an easy game.
I beat the game as Zero in a single sitting and that is without hunting down for everything. X took longer to beat with though and if you want a hard challenge, play the game as him.
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The Nightmare system is something that NEEDS to be discussed, as this is one of the worst parts of this entire game. Level design is a bit annoying and the core gameplay is fine but this causes a lot of the frustrations many have with this title.
Design wise, this was supposed to mirror the levels changing after fighting specific Mavericks like in MMX1 or MMX3 and that affecting the other levels. If you never played X1 before, picture this; fighting a Storm Eagle and after taking him out, Spark Mandrills stage is completely blacked out due to Eagle's ship crashing into his power-plaint.
That is a great idea, but if done poorly, it can just anger gamers with annoying level gimmicks that are NOT needed. X6 suffers from this poorly implemented on the game with Nightmare Effects that only detract from levels. Having acid rain come down on you with darkness being all over the place, fireballs making navigation across icy platforms far more frustrating then before and having extra blocks making the crusher stage even more stressful.
I don't mind this idea, but it really detracts from the game and that is a problem. You can avoid this by not selecting the Red covered stages......but you still get Nightmare Effects when you select non-Red covered stages. It makes the effect feel random and it shouldn't feel this way.
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The last portion before presentation is the tower stages and we have two with gate and one with Sigma (SHOCKER! He's back). The first Gate Stage has spikes everywhere and a very large gap that if you do not have the jumper or Shadow Armor, you will NOT be able progress. That is a major design issue that shouldn't be present. Otherwise, it is a challenging first stage, more so then other first tower levels honestly.
Rising Lava, spikes all over the place and foes flying at you from all sides. The boss (Nightmare Mother) is a fun fight with Zero as well.
The second stage for Gate is okay for and I had fun getting through here. Fighting with Gate was a tennis match the balls hurting you the more you hit them....but you have....to...hit....them. Again, poor design rearing its ugly head but fine level otherwise.
The Sigma stage is okay and fights with him (two of them) are quite easy compared to past battles. The second phase has an amazing theme though and one of my favorite versions of Sigma's theme in the entire series.
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NeoGaf Member Edson was kind enough to share his thoughts on the game and cover information that I may have glossed over. Thank you again for your help!
It's not really a mix of the two endings technically. Remember, the Colony did have pieces fall to the earth and it activated the Zero Virus, which was not explained in X5 however is explained a bit in this game. Remember X5 was "inafunes vision" of the last game even though he had no such power, imagine if X5 was left with zero explanations.
Also before someone says something about Zero coming back to life how did he come back to life in X4 from X3? At least X6 gave us an explanation as silly as it may be. Although one odd thing to note is that when X find Zero, Zero tells X that he repaired himself. But when he finds a Dr.light capsule, and I belive it's specifically finding the one in Sheldons stage first, he tells Dr.Light he heard a voice and he had no idea how he got back.
You forgot to mention about how the multiple playable character system here is basically forcing you to use one character the whole game. The Nightmare Ranks, Heart Tanks, and other items only apply to the character your playing as making the other character useless.
Also you say no other X game had this badly translated writing but it seems you be forgetting our friend X7.
You forgot to mention DYnamo returns in this game. Which you know, not really sure what his goal is, but you basically just use him to farm Nightmares to get your rank.
A good portion of the plot is not unlocked until you get 1000 nightmare souls, it's the 3rd way to go straight to the fortress along with defeating High Max and beating all 8 Mavericks, well, Investigators not mavericks, and it drops like 45% of the games plot on you which you'll never see unless you do it.
This notion the game is not built for X is hogwash. The game is specifically built to play as X through the levels on the "whos weak against what" basis. Exploring on your own is what makes the game hard, especially since that makes it so that you run into the nightmare system more often. You do not need cheats to play this game. At least not for X, Zero in regular form takes way to much damage and the saber is way to weak. So when I see people act like this game is made for Zero I have to wonder if they mean the cheatcode Black Zero. Not only that, but it expects you to go into the secret areas, which Zero has more trouble with, going in the opposite direction as well. The only trip up in X's gameplay is Gate Fortress 2 because Shadow X and regular X (why would you even be using him?) can't air dash over this one pit.
The Nightmare system explanation you made is wrong my friend. The Nightmare system has nothing to do with mavericks, it has to do with entering a level that effects another level. For example going into Heatnix stage after MAY change the Turtle stage to have those dark spotlights. The Red indicators on stage select means that the area has changed it's nightmare levels. This can mean one of three things:
1. The level is back to normal
2. The level got nightmared.
3. The nightmare in the level changed.
As levels have more than 1 nightmare outside if I'm not mistake, the Museum which I believe only has one. But the nightmares are specific to stages.
The Plot of the game is that Gate found Zero's DNA, and he created the Nightmare and the Investigators to kill off all low level reploids, because he's insane. He is mad because when he and Alia worked together and her research was considered over his because his was considered dangerous.
While it does seem some of the Investigators don't know what is going on, gate created the Nightmare to infect people and change them into either mavericks or his mind slaves. Basically, he revived the Zero Virus, this is why the Sigma virus is barely in this game and by barely I mean not at all. As the Zero Virus is the dominate Virus in the game, and the Nightmare system is Gates Genocide weapon. Issac is also a creation of Gate to likely distract people and put the blame on Zero. Nightmare Zero, the pruple one, is a gate creation. SO is High Max.
But Gate after his defeat, admits he couldn't fully copy Zero's data and says he brought back Sigma. This explains why Sigma is kind of broken down in this game. Which at the end X and Zero (or Zero is on the side if you didn't find him saying good job) drag Gates apparently to damaged to be repaired body to Alia, and that is the end of the Viruses in the X series.
I'm not joking X7 and X8 have nothing to do with Viruses. So the story is a bit involved, but you have to play as X to get most of the relevant dialogue
Speaking of which the Zero Virus unlike X5 actually hurts now like a regular enemy instead of infecting him.
Also for the first gate stage with the wall, if you use the snow weapon you can use Ultimate to giga on the top ledge so there are 3 ways to get up the wall. But again as I said this game was made with you doing the levels in weakness order as < you'll already have the jumper without realizing you have it.
Not to mention the game does not explain the part system. But they do a nice little detail by naming ALL the respectable reploids. Speaking of which, reploids "missing" will sometimes randomly come back when a nightmare effect is activated in that same stage. I have no idea what the trigger is.
On the back of the PS1 box, they show regular X in the intro level which I'm pretty sure isn't possible but just something to think about.
Metal Shark Player revives bosses from X1-X2, and when X charges up the weapon he gets from him he sends down an army of Storm Eagles across the whole screen.
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The presentation continues the devastated look that X5 established and I like this style. Harsher looking locations makes me feel more at-edge when exploring the various levels.
Musically, its a damn good soundtrack, with many tracks hitting home. Intro Stage, Blizzard Wolffang, Blaze Heatnix, Sigma Phase 2.....many of the tracks are fantastic and next to X1, X2 and X5, this is my favorite score in the series.
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This game is very odd to me, as I should hate it more. It has bad design issues and the story isn't that interesting. But, I had fun with this and for people willing to deal with some really annoying gameplay systems/design issues, it is worth playing this game at least once.
I take back my comments about this comparing to Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06, but I still do not consider this a good game. Its just 'okay' to me honestly.