Rolanmen1's Mega Man X6 "100%, X only" TAS in 1:02:26.79.
The In-game time is 24:40.
Recorded using:
BizHawk 1.12.0, BizHawk 2.0 will work too. And firmware is SCPH-5501
Decided to make this unusual TAS just to show off X's Max Potential. Only using X and getting every collectible in the whole game while Zero watches from the sides and showcase new content.
Aims
- Hardest difficulty
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Use deaths to save time
- Manipulates luck (not much)
- Unlock X's Max Potential and show it off
About the Game
This game is Mega Man game which was rushed, with untranslated voices and bad translation. Some bosses were poorly designed and look like a mess as well. Some stages are also poorly designed, being impossible to pass with the wrong armor or character, or structure randomization. The difficulty of the game is
very hard, even on Normal.
In fact, things in this game exist just to kill you, that's for sure. Not to mention that Xtreme mode turns entire stages into enemy soup. This game also introduced a new hazzard enviroment system, wich means that a stage will have some enviroment variations depending on the stages that you went previously, some of these being incredibly annoying and some not being much of a problem. A Stage will only have 1 hazzard at a time, meaning that if you went to 2 stages that would cause hazzard in a stage, only the later one will take place. This game has 8 different hazzards, and those are:
- Nightmare Bugs: After going to Commander Yammark stage, this stage along with Blaze Heatnix and Shield Sheldon stages will have this hazzard. They are just some bugs that will fly along the player, sometimes you will be getting hit if you go to fast, these can only be destroyed by Commander Yammarks power.
- Nightmare Wind: After going to Rainy Turtloid stage, Commander Yammark and Ground Scaravich stages will have some kind of wind that will slow the player a bit.
- Nighmare Mirror: After going to Shield Sheldon stage, Rainy Turtloid and Blizzard Wolfang stages will appear some kind of illusion of the other player you are not playing with, after appearing, they will ram at you, you can only avoid this using Shield Sheldon's Power.
- Nightmare Ice: After going to Blizzard Wolfang stage, Ice will appear on the floor of Metal Shark Player Stage, this can be destroyed by using Blizzard Wolfang Power.
- Nightmare Fire: After going to Blaze Heatnix stage, in Blizzard Wolfang and Infinity Mijinion stages will appear falling fire balls that will constantly hit the player, these can be destroyed using Blaze Heatnix's Power.
- Nightmare Darkness: After going to Infinity Mijinion stage, Commander Yammark and Rainy Turtloid stages will have darkness that will make the player not see most of the stage.
- Nightmare Iron: After going to Metal Shark Player stage, Blaze Heatnix, Infinity Mijinion and Ground Scaravich stages will have iron rectangles that will smash down the player and sometimes even block you, these can be destroyed using Metal Shark Player Power. Also, when getting crushed by these, it allows you to pass through other Nightmare Irons before your invulnerability runs out.
- Nightmare Cube: After going to Ground Scaravich stage, in Shield Sheldon and Metal Shark Player stages some cubes will appear in different colors, some of these can be destroyed and some can only be pushed, these can happen only by using Ground Scaravich Power.
How 100% Works
Unlike X4 or X5 there is a lot to collect in this game, a total of 148 items. And those are:
Each stage have an Armor Part (for both the Blade Armor and Shadow Armor).
Each stage have a Heart Container.
4 of the 8 stages a Tank (2 Energy Tank, a Weapon Tank and a EX Tank).
Each stage have 16 Rescuable Reploids (some of them rewards with Parts that can be equipped).
And it is worth to mention that each stage has 2 parts, one that leads to the boss and the other leads to Nightmare Zero/High Max/Dynamo. So 7/8 stages needs to be visited twice to achieve 100%.
About the Run
There are 3 ways to reach the fortress stages:
- Beat all 8 Mavericks.
- Beat High Max in a secondary area.
- Obtain 3000 Nightmare Souls.
For this 100% run the first method is faster, since this game has a lot of stuff to collect, I needed to revisit 7 of the 8 stages twice.
This is the route used (since X is the only character used, by default assume his Falcon Armor is used unless otherwise stated):
- Intro Stage
- Rainy Turtloid 2nd Area
- Infinity Mijinion
- Shield Sheldon
- Commander Yammark
- Metal Shark Player
- Blaze Heatnix
- Blizzard Wolfang
- Ground Scaravich
- Giant Turtloid
(All 8 Bosses Beaten)
- Shield Sheldon 2nd Area
- Metal Shark Player 2nd Area
- Infinity Mijinion 2nd Area
- Ground Scaravich 2nd Area (Blade Armor)
- Blaze Heatnix 2nd Area (Blade Armor)
- Blizzard Wolfang 2nd Area (Blade Armor)
(100% Achieved)
- Gate 1 (Blade Armor)
- Gate 2 (Blade Armor)
- Final Stage
Glitches, Tricks & Errors
Saber Walljumping Trick: Allows X to cancel backward movement after doing a walljump by using the saber, saving some frames occasionally. Not always usefull though, since it forces said walljump to be as high as possible, sometimes not being the optimal solution.
Ice Floor Trick: When landing on a slippery terrain, and you stop moving forward (or backwards even) the frame before landing, you get to slide and when you dash the vertical speed gets added getting incredible fast movement, most likely leaving the camera behind.
Part Slot Glitch: Allows you to equip as many parts as you can into a single slot by pressing both X and Triangle at the same time, the part WILL be equipped but the slot will visually be available. This does NOT works with Limited Parts and Parts exclusive to the other character.
Scaravich Invencibility Glitch: Triggered when you hit Scaravich with any attack that will cause invulnerability frames when he is not moving, after moving he will be vulnerable while he has invulnerability frames, so you can do a lot of damage in a few frames.
Ice Block Glitch: By shooting a non-charged Ice Burst as X and managing to get inside it before touching the ground, X can get hit by it (but not causing any damage) causing invulnerability frames and sometimes being quicker then getting hit by enemies. But most important, while having invulnerability frames you can pass through some objects, like Nightmare Irons, Nightmare Cubes and even the Nightmare Press extensions.
Ride Armor Glitch: In the 2nd part of Metal Shark Player stage, when you jump with the Ride Armor on a destroyable grey cubes (didn't tried on Nightmare Cubes) and just before the press is about to hit it, hopping off it and the Ride Armor glitches into the cube, X must be next or in the Ride Armor once it hits the ground, otherwise the press won't glitch. If done correctly, the press will go higher that what it usually does, allowing this part to safe from being crushed. Does not save any frames, but is neat nonetheless.
Parts Used
Hyper Dash: Makes any kind of dash (including dash jumps) to be much faster increasing the characters speed significantly over the whole run. A must get Part in every TAS category of this game except Any%.
Ultimate Buster: Makes X fire charged shots of any weapon instantly without needing to charge beforehand, allowing X to fire charged shots faster than usually possible. The disadvantage of using it is that you can't use uncharged shots of any weapon (unless you are using Unarmed X), sometimes creating unconfortable situations since there is a delay you have to wait after shooting a charged shot and can only be one charged shot of a weapon onscreen at a time. In the other hand, it speed up boss fights in most cases, this part is only used until you get Quick Charge).
Weapon+: Makes any weapon (only weapons acquired by defeating a boss apply) do +1 damage to everything making boss fights a bit quicker.
Quick Charge: Halves the ammount of frames needed to charge a weapon, speeding up boss fights by a lot.
Buster+: Makes X do +1 damage with his X-Buster. Making certain bossfights quicker.
Energy Saver: Weapon Energy usage is reduced by half, usefull in the Final Stage when fighting all 8 bosses.
D-Barrier: Double up invulnerability frames after getting hit, allowing you to pass through more enemies when getting hit.
D-Converter: Converts damage into weapon energy, it fills the weapon with the least energy, usefull in the boss rush in the Final Stage.
Power Drive: Makes every weapon (includes Z-Saber) to do +1 damage for a limited amount of time, only used in the 2nd Sigma fight. This is a limited part wich means it can only be used from the start screen.
Run Notes
Intro Stage:
By default, you start with X and his Falcon Armor. Not much to say but for the whole game, the preferred method of movement is duck dashing, the crates can only be destroyed by the Z-Saber. The boss can only get 1 damage from anything and Air Dash is the best way to deal damage, sometimes you can use the Z-Saber while on the ground since Air Slash causes lag. While fighting it, I get a lot of damage on purpourse to end High Max's fight faster (you can't win or die in the battle).
Rainy Turloid 2nd Area:
Hazzard: None
This stage is choosen because in it, you can get Hyper Dash. The rain you see causes damage over time and to advance each section you have to destroy 4 small eyes that unlocks the generators barrier, and each section becomes larger. On the large river, I executed a frame specific jump to pass through it quicker. Rescued the Reploid that has Hyper Dash and then fight Nightmare Zero, this unlocks Zero even though, he is not used in this run.
Infinity Mijinion:
Hazzard: None
In order to use Hyper Dash and get its speed, we need to get 500 Nightmare Souls to open a Part Slot, each boss gives the character 200 and we can get 100 more from Nightmare enemies to equip Hyper Dash ASAP. So the 2 shortest stage are first. This stage is just dashing down while avoiding obstacles and defeating Ilumina (the giant robot at the back) by destroying its 2 cores. The Z-Saber is the fastest way to achieve that at this moment. After, comes the boss, he has an interesting mechanic, when being hit by the Z-Saber, a projectile reflected by Mirror Shield (his weakness) or each time a 4th of his health has been depleted, he gets send to the wall causing a lot of invulnerability frames. I used the Z-Saber since being on this invulnerability period, X can charge his X-Buster. After defeating him, X gets 200 Nightmare Souls.
I also got Laser Ray, wich is the best weapon against bosses, since upon charged it does 8 damage to most of them (the same damage a charged weakness weapon does). You will see this weapon being used a lot on this run.
Shield Sheldon:
Hazzard: None
This is a puzzle stage, after the invisible floor section there are lasers and reflectors, you need to rotate the reflectors so the lasers hit the doors and then they open. Very short stage after this you get to the boss. As said above, Charged Laser Ray does a lot of damage to most bosses, even not being a weakness. After this X have already 500 Nightmare Souls wich means he has a Part Slot available. After this X gets equipped with Hyper Dash.
Commander Yammark:
Hazzard: Nightmare Darkness
From the start you will notice the huge speed bump from Hyper Dash. This is the only of the 8 stages that does not need to be revisited, since you can get every item in it. You achieve this by dying in one of the routes to backtrack and go to the other. Also note that here you can see our first Nightmare Hazzard, Nightmare Dark, it just black out most of the screen in certain sections of the stage, not a problem for the TASer, but the viewer is affected by it. Here we also pick our first Blade Armor Part then a Energy Tank, a Heart Container and every reploid. After this you get to the boss which fight is very simple, since his weakness is Laser Ray.
Metal Shark Player:
Hazzard: None
This stage is where Reploids are recicled and there is a huge press that you have to watch or either you get crushed and die. There is a Ride Armor wich can be used to be left at the highest area, thus blocking the press from stopping X. After this first section there is another press, and you have to advance when you can. Eventually you will get to a teleporter wich sends us to the next area. Believe it or not, but the next area is another press and when you advance you will get to... another press, this time the midboss wich is weak to Charged Shield Mirror, useful only when timed correctly though, after you get to the boss. Again, Charged Ray Arror FTW.
NOTE: You may ask why I picked this stage before Wolfang and use it's weapon to pass through. Well since X vertical movement is very poor at this moment. You need either Magma Blade or Ground Dash to save a lot of time in Wolfang stage, and to get the first, you need Sharks weapon and the second you need the Nightmare Iron effect from this stage, else you get Nightmare Wind wich slows X down.
Blaze Heatnix:
Hazzard: Nightmare Iron
This stage is a midboss rush, charged Metal Anchor is really usefull here since it destroys Nightmare Snakes (midboss) very quickly wich enough luck. X also needs to get enough damage to get killed by the third midboss, or else, we will have to revisit this stage a third time. After X destroys the fifth midboss you can jump to push up the screen, since you need the screen to scroll up a bit to spawn a rescuable reploid. Eventually you will get to the boss, again, charged Ray Arrow. In this stage, you get Ultimate Buster wich will be equipped later.
Blizzard Wolfang:
Hazzard: Nightmare Fire
This stage has lots of obstacles that slows down X, so I end up getting damaged just to pass through, eventually you will see the Ice Floor Trick in action wich is pretty impressive, got the first Shadow Armor part. Then afterwards you get to what it looks like a bottomless pit, but it is just ice tetris, you wait for blocks to come down and you advance to the next part... twice. The last section is pretty annoying for X since he has no flexibility in vertical movement but using Magma Blade and Falcon Armor's Air Dash, you can stop X's in the air, a lot of luck manipulation have been done to optimize this. Wolfang is then defeated by, guess what... charged Laser Ray.
Ground Scaravich:
Hazzard: Nightmare Iron
Ultimate Buster gets equipped here, it helps quite a bit since each time you switch weapons or teleport Xs charge is resetted to 0, but with Ultimate Buster, you can do a charged attack inmediately. This stage is just a museum with 4 totem poles holograms, but there are 8 different rooms you can get teleported into by touching each totem, after destroying certain object in whichever room you get, you are teleported back and the museum to destroy the totem. Charged Yammark Option is used with Ultimate Buster to destroy each totem, I manipulated what rooms I got to visit taking in mind I would have to return back with the Blade Armor, I also got a second part of such armor. The boss is very rapidly defeated by a glitch that is explained above, look for Scaravich Invencibility Glitch.
Rainy Turloid:
Hazzard: Nightmare Mirror
Revisited to actually beat the boss and pick up the rest of the collectibles, pretty much the same but faster because of Hyper Dash. Yammark Option is very helpful to destroy the cores quite fast. Picked up the second part for the Shadow Armor. This boss is unique, he has 2 cores that you need to destroy to be able to damage him you can also damage him by hitting from his other side. I used Charged Metal Anchor initially since it deals ton of damage quite fast, I believe it is because you are damaging him and his cores and by hitting his cores, it resets invencibility frames, after both cores are destroyed, the boss takes damage normally so I cancel Metal Anchor by pausing and switching weapons and continue using Charged Laser Array. With this all 8 bosses are defeated and Gate Laboratory is unlocked.
Shield Sheldon 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Cube
Unequipped Ultimate Buster since Xs Uncharged X-Buster pellets are way better for the puzzle mirrors. Instead of going for the boss, we go downwards into a very extensive puzzle, it is divided into parts in which a laser must hit purple laser units to get powered and advance further. This section is very heavy on lag frames because of all the objects being processed each frame, so I tried to reduce lag as much as possible. Afterwards, I pick up a third Blade Armor part, then I procced to the second part. Rescued some reploids and picked up the Weapon Tank, and used the Ice Block Glitch to pass through Nightmare Cubes and then we get to Dynamo just a boss used as a placeholder in all the second parts. Charged Laser Ray at him.
Metal Shark Player 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Cube
Equipped the Weapon+ part we got from the previous stage. Really made use of the Ice Block Glitch to quickly pass through the press extensions and reach the huge bottomless pit wich after you get the third Shadow Armor part. The second part of this stage is an auto scroller... with a huge press that is later glitched by the Rider Armor Glitch tried to show off most of X weapons meanwhile. Dynamo likes to be beated quite a lot.
Infinity Mijinion 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Iron
Equipped Ultimate Buster and re-equipped Weapon+ with the Part Slot Glitch. Defeated the Ilumina Cores with Charged Yammark Option with Charged X-Buster, destroys it very quick as you can see. There is a reploid that in order to be rescued, you either need Blade Armor, Shadow Armor or just use a Nightmare Iron as a platform to jump from so you must visit Shark before this. After going through the portal, I pick up the fourth and last part of the Blade Armor, the Heart Container and the rest of reploids. Dynamo...
Ground Scaravich 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Iron
First time using the Blade Armor, it's buster is not as powerfull as Falcons, but can hit multiple enemies with one shot and his best asset is his Mach Dash (air dash) wich can be done in 4 directions and it is quite fast specially in some vertical sections. Manipulated to visit the 4 rooms I have not visited to pick up the rest of Reploids and go to the second part. Here you can see how useful is Blade Armors Mach Dash for dashing down on ledges. Dyna...
Blaze Heatnix 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Iron
Unequipped Ultimate Buster and equipped Quick Charge (wich I got from previous stage) and Weapon+ from the Part Slot Glitch. Not much to say till I get the fourth and last Shadow Armor. In some cases, it is faster to destroy the Nightmare Irons, and sometimes it is faster to pass through with the Ice Block Glitch. Mach Dash FTW. Dy...
Blizzard Wolfang 2nd Area:
Hazzard: Nightmare Fire
Wanted to use Shadow Armor in this stage but the Dynamo fight would be really slower. Have to get damaged to pass through some obstacles. Used an Ice Block to avoid using the ladders to get to the second part. Not much to say, last time you will see Dynamo (hurray).
Gate 1:
Equipped every part needed so I won't have to come back to this menu for the rest of the game, equipped Weapon+, Quick Charge, Buster+, Energy Saver, D-Barrier, D-Converter and Power Drive. Blade Armor makes this stage more enjoyable to TAS with it's Mach Dash. Used the Ice Block Glitch to pass through the magma to save some good amount of time, next is an auto scroller and Nightmare Mother. Basically 2 Eye Devils that can only be damaged when they get out of their bodies. Charged Metal Anchor does quite a lot of damage as you can see.
Gate 2:
This is 2 stages in one. First part is some vertical section that Blade Armor get advantage of, afterwards you can make a totem skip sticking in the ground before getting to that section (not talking about holograms but actual totems and they take quite some time to destroy and have to wait for explosions). After used the Ice Block Glitch to pass through the pillars, it is faster than waiting to be crushed. Now we get to High Max to get our revenge, used Charged Saber to trigger vulnerability and used Mach Dash with Mirror Shield to cause a lot of damage very quickly, also used the wall to use another air dash quickly.
The second part is a rain section with some complex platforming, Mach Dash is used whenever it is faster. After that we finally get to Gate, he is inmune to everything you can throw at him, except his orbs wich on being destroyed releases some small orbs wich damages him. When he throws the orb, they go towards you, so I put X where they spawn to minimize the orbs movement since they can't be destroyed during this movement and using Charged Laser Ray to take advantage of its invencibility to destroy the orbs ASAP.
Final Stage:
So it appears Sigma is behind everything <sarcasm>No one thought about this.</sarcasm> So Falcon Armor is used for this since it's X-Buster can do +1 damage to bosses compared to Blade Armor Buster. So the reason I equipped Energy Saver and D-Converter is to maximize the use of Charged Laser Ray since you already know, it is the best way to beat most bosses. The first part saves energy (ammo) and the second converts damage to energy, so I get hit on purpouse. I could unequip D-Barrie (long invencibility periods) but would loose frames.
The second part is a somewhat simple stage with nothing interesting to talk about, until you get to Sigma. The first fight is pretty simple, in the other hand the second fight I used Magma Blade to do Saber Damage to him (the fire does not any damage at all) and activated Power Drive to do +1 damage for each hit, what makes Magma Blade different is that it stops X vertical movement, reducing the delay between slashes to almost 0. After this, the game is beaten and you see Zero in a cutscene. At the end, X Rank is GA and Zero Ranks is D.
Other than the usual tools, I created a
Lua Script that helped me a lot in the process of making this TAS. It shows you the values of the common adresses you would be using on RAM Watch, these includes: Player's HP and Inv values, Souls collected by X and Zero, the X and Y Speeds and Positions with SubPixel of the player, the dash meter and a charge meter that only shows when the charge of any of the 2 weapons is greater than 0, that prevents it for showing when using Zero. It also shows the Boss HP and Inv if there is one.
Fog: This is another well executed run, with extremely detailed notes which helps explain all the tricks and glitches.
The run finally lets X show off his true potential, and completely side-lines Zero from any action in this run. It makes for a pretty interesting run, with audience reception appearing to agree with this.
I have no issues with the branch, as we already have different publications on this site which use other characters to complete the game (e.g. Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Castlevania, etc.).
Accepting for Moons as a new branch!
