Mega Man X - X-Buster Only No Damage Speedrun Practice: Sigma's 1st Castle in 05:35

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A while back I set a challenge to myself to attempt a "speedrun" of Mega Man X using only the X-Buster and not taking damage.

Obviously, this is not an "official" speedrun and the entire concept is my own, but the point is to try and get as close to a "regular" Any% speedrun while completing the game under my far stricter rules.

This is nothing but me being a masochist, honestly.

I'm far, far, far away from completing the entire game in one sitting like this, but I've been doing some progress.

The first Sigma stage is easily the toughest one of the entire challenge, so lately I've been practicing it a lot. I woke up at 5am and couldn't get more sleep, so I decided to crack at Sigma's castle and record it, so that's what you're seeing here.

The final time was 05:35, which can surely be improved. My current goal is to get below 5 minutes.

One of the toughest challenges of the stage is right at the beginning because those turtles are tough as hell to take out in a quick fashion, while also dodging their bombs.

I miss a few frames after the turtles, as well, by slightly messing up my wall dashing in the climb up to the castle itself.

I get lucky with Vile here because his AI was very kind to me. Vile is one of the most random bosses in the game and you can never really know what you're getting. He can initiate any attack from any position, so there's always an element of luck involved. Vile is also the most physically demanding boss because in order to dodge him every time, you need to be at the top of your game and it can get hard on your fingers.

One thing you can see me using throughout the stage is the dash shot.

For those of you who don't know, X1 and X2 both had a glitch in the game that made it so that a lemon shot while dashing does double the damage. This tactic is popular among speedrunners.

The toughest part here will always be the hellacious vertical climb after the segment following the Vile fight.

It's extremely precise and tough to pull off without taking damage. I've practiced it a lot, and I have been able to get the timing down to muscle memory somewhat, but it's always a huge risk - especially with the added pressure of the clock ticking in a speedrun.

In the Kuwanger fight, I use a strategy called "the Kuwanger Dance", which is also a speedrun tactic; at the beginning of the fight, you fire one fully charged shot, dash right in front of him, wait for him to attempt to grab you, jump, shoot, repeat.

It takes practice, the first dash needs to be just one pixel away from him - close enough to trigger Kuwanger's grabbing attack, but far enough to avoid taking damage.

You can get seven shots in during the Kuwanger Dance, after which he keeps teleporting throughout the arena, but he will never attack you if you keep shooting at him during this phase.

The segment after Kuwanger is probably the second hardest part of the stage to pull off quickly. The tight space is absolutely crowded with enemies. The spinning wheels move towards you, in order to hit the mettools you need to turn around for them to reveal themselves, and the annoying purple helicopters attack you from above.

I'm sure a more optimal route can be found, I was more concerned about not taking damage here.

Luckily, the final boss of the stage is a breather because he's the one boss of the game who tells you exactly what he's going to do, every time.

Bospider moves down the vertical line, and if he encounters a green horizontal line on the way down, he will always cross it. This means it's easy to map his entire path before he ever comes down to the ground level.

Below 5 minutes can easily be done with some better route planning and overall practice, I'm sure. Especially the first half of the stage requires more work.

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