Introduction

So, here we are.

Mega Man X6.

When I started my X retrospective back in the day, this was what I was dreading. I did not look forward to playing this game, at all. It's quite fascinating how I started the retrospective by telling everybody why I think Mega Man X is the best game of all time. I still play it to this day. Hell, I'm currently recording a reverse boss order run with no upgrades - and I'm having a blast with what is a masochist run of the game.

And here we are at X6, a game that I've been known to call one of the worst games I've ever played. I can't call it the worst with games Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES existing in the same world as X6, but X6 truly is a game with very few redeeming qualities.

The reason I hate X6 more than a game like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - which is just terrible, to begin with - is that I fell in love with the X series back in the day - and then X6 broke my heart.

By the way, remind me to review Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde one day. That's gonna be fun.

Anyways.

First off, like I said in my X5 review, X5 was supposed to be the end of the series. I had a truckload of criticism towards X5, but at least the game served as a great send off for the X series; Zero's death was touching, the rest of the good guys just barely survived, the world was saved, but not without sacrifice.

It was a good ending, it really was.

I never paid that much attention to the story in the X games since they are 2D run and gunners, played mostly for the gameplay, but for what X5 attempted to do with its ending, it succeeded.

So, what does Capcom do with the X series after the series ended with X5?

They begin production on X6 immediately after the release of X5. This was also done without series producer Keiji Inafune's knowledge. Keiji himself has publicly apologized for how X6 turned out and doesn't consider it canon.

My main points in my reviews have to do with gameplay, music, and graphics, so let's talk about the story a bit here in the introduction.

At the end of X5, Zero was very much dead. No longer alive. Devoid of life. Deceased, expired, departed, gone, no more, passed on, passed away, whatever the fuck.

He went out a hero who gave himself to save mankind. X then took the reigns after his mentor, introduced in X1, was gone.

And yes, Zero also died in X1, but the death in X5 had so much more finality to it, and he was damaged way beyond the point of repair, so they explained in the story why he couldn't just be repaired and revived like he was in X2.

So, how do they explain Zero being alive in X6?

Well, you see, they don't. Not really. Zero just says he hid himself away and, umm, repaired himself.

Excuse me, what?

All we saw at the end of X5 was a head, a torso, and one arm. Did he use that one arm to drag himself to a hiding place to "repair himself"? This isn't explained.

Reviving a character after a dramatic death is one thing, but if you don't even bother explaining it, it's just embarrassing. This reeks of the fact that "Hey, we want to make another X game because they make money, and Zero was a popular character, so we kinda need him back, so, you know, figure something out."

Also, X5 had several differing story paths, of which X6 decides all happened. I guess it's understandable, but I've always preferred game creators having the backbone to pick one ending, deciding that it's canon and have that be that.

It doesn't help that the Japanese to English translation, as well as the dialogue in general, in X6 is so bad and lazy, it makes Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link look like a Shakespearean masterpiece.

But what really matters here, to me, is the gameplay. So, story aside, is the gameplay any good?

For the love of God, no.

And I'll tell you why.

Gameplay

You'd think it'd be difficult to the point of impossible to make a game like Mega Man X unplayable.

The tight controls are there, the entertaining formula is there, all the tools seem to be in place. Not much has changed gameplay-wise from Mega Man X5, which was still good to play, despite its problems.

The problem lies in the level design and level design alone.

Even though X and Zero control just as well as they did before, the amazing controls can't save you when you're thrown in the middle of a godawful stage after another.

Let's talk about a good game for a second. Mega Man X.

It's challenging at first, but it's entirely possible to beat every single level in the game with no upgrades without taking damage.

The enemies are not unfair, their placement is not unfair - save, possibly, for the climbing section in the first Sigma stage.

You need to be wary and careful at all times, but if you pay attention, you can get by the enemies just by being good.

X6 is littered with unfair enemy placements, instant deaths, leaps of faith, every annoying 2D platformer trait you can think of.

One of the worst things related to the leaps of faith is the fact that the camera follows X and Zero too closely, completely failing to inform the player of the spikes on the ground if you're jumping down. This was a problem in X3, as well, but not nearly to this degree.

And the game expects you to make these leaps of faith! They are not optional.

Basically, if you're a first-time player, you just need to cross your hands, pray and hope to get lucky.

A new, fun and exciting gimmick is also introduced in Ground Scaravich's stage. And by fun and exciting, I mean atrocious and painful.

Let's get back to X1 for a second.

The reason it's possible to practice and get better at X1 is the fact that the enemies are always timed the same. They do the same things every time. This means that with practice, you can get better because you learn the patterns and how to avoid them.

Not true here.

The amount of enemies, the obstacles, as well as the enemy placement is completely based off of RNG. That's random number generator for those unaware.

What this means is that it's all different every time. I guess I can see how one might think that it could be fun in theory, but sure as heck wasn't fun in practice. Since the stage is different every time, there's nothing you can do to ever get better at it. You just need to hope that the RNG gods are on your side this time.

Not to mention, one of the armor upgrades is on an RNG based path, meaning that the difficulty of getting the upgrade is based on luck, not skill.

If you're unlucky enough, you'll be wandering around the stage forever.

Moronic.

And the RNG doesn't end there, folks, but more on that later.

I can honestly sit here and say that I dislike each and every stage in Mega Man X6. If it's not unfair enemy placement, bad camera, stupid RNG, it's something like Infinity Mijinion

The stage is literally a straight line. That's it.

The gimmick is the giant robot in the background trying to attack you as you try to dodge enemies and obstacles while racing forward. It's the epitome of lazy. And that's not even taking into account the fact that the swarm of enemies is close to impossible to perfectly dodge.

I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but good level design is when it's challenging, but with practice possible to complete a level without taking a hit. The fact that it's doable gives the motivation to try and master it.

But when the game just says fuck you from the very start, what's the point? What's the payoff?

There is no payoff, and speaking of payoff. The bosses.

The bosses in X6 are by far the worst selection of bosses in the entire X series, in my opinion. In an unexplainable twist, the bosses are usually the easiest part of the levels by far. I literally beat about half of them simply by standing still and shooting. That's how easy they are. I can't understand why, but it shows that zero effort was put into the boss fights.

It doesn't help that while Zero's Z Buster was a joke in X5, it's been upgraded to OP level in X6, and it makes the bosses even easier. Especially with the Z Buster, all you need to do is tank a few attacks from the bosses, keep firing and eventually you will win.

Awesome. It's so much fun. Fun the same way as being kicked in the head by a horse is fun. So not fun at all, really.

AGAIN, let's go back to X1.

The eight main levels had their own unique set of obstacles that you had to overcome, and with practice, did. The payoff, then, was the boss that was the challenging part of the stage. This is pretty basic video game design, in my opinion.

X6's approach is to make the stages artificially difficult and frustrating to the point of being a random ass mess with the RNG, which are then followed by bosses that are pushovers.

The whole thing is backwards and just leaves you scratching your head.

Hell, the minibosses are harder than the actual bosses. And not hard in a good way, either. Now that we're on the subject of minibosses, I must bring up.

The dreaded.

Doughnut.

You come up with a better name for that. It looks like a doughnut, so that's what I'll call it.

Not a sugar coated, delicious doughnut, though, no. This doughnut is the bane of your existence in X6.

This is an annoying miniboss in Blaze Heatnix's stage that follows you around in an autoscroller sequence, causing damage upon contact. It follows you around not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, each time in a different environment.

It doesn't sound too bad, but in practice it is. You are either moving down on a slope, upwards a hill, around in a circle, or maneuver your way up through a set of platforms while being followed by this thing, always from an angle that makes it extremely difficult to hit it, resulting in a slow moving and tedious battle. In the last bit, you're also avoiding an instant death inducing rising pit of... some purple liquid that I guess is supposed to be lava, but is purple for some odd reason, so I'm not really sure.

One of my least favorite parts of the game, and that's saying something since I dislike each and every level here.

Even the few stages that wouldn't be quite so bad otherwise are ruined by a gimmick in the game called the Nightmare Effect.

Basically, something called the Nightmare Virus is the main bad guy in Mega Man X6. So, okay, at least it's something different and potentially even interesting. I'm on board.

Until.

After completing two of the eight main stages, the Nightmare Effect comes into play, changing the remaining levels - and always for the worst.

Just like Spark Mandrill's stage ran out of electricity if you had beaten Storm Eagle's stage first, or like the lava in Flame Mammoth's stage got frozen after beating Chill Penguin's stage, the level designs change during the Nightmare Effect, but the effects are utter bullshit like turning the levels pitch dark.

Yeah. As if the level design wasn't trash enough, now you can't see a fucking thing.

I can't, for the life of me, understand how this got through playtesting. It's simply not fun. Not in the slightest. The challenge is completely artificial, only there to make the game seem more difficult and lengthier. I guess to hide the fact that, in reality, the game lacks any actually interesting content.

There's no love put into this game, it's all gimmicks pulled out of a hat that. when thrown in together, form this completely random mess that's only there because they needed to make another X game and X games had the reputation of being challenging.

So, let's take the easy way out and just make it artificially challenging with unfair horseshit.

Like Blizzard Wolfgang's stage. Oh, gee, almost forgot about this one.

It's another ice level. That's okay, they're a staple in the X series. Only this time, in addition to ice physics, you are also unable to wall jump and wall slide.

Again, completely artificial difficulty. And it doesn't even make sense since X and Zero have always been able to wall jump on icy walls, dating back to X1.

The lack of grabbing on to walls leaves you completely clumsy when avoiding the stage hazards and the stage just becomes an annoyance.

Especially as X.

This leads us to another issue. That being Zero. Yes, Zero is a playable character, but he needs to be unlocked, which requires finding a secret path and a secret boss fight. The default character is X.

The game is much easier as Zero, and as I did some investigating, it frequently came up that the game was actually designed around Zero, not X. This makes sense since Zero's maneuverability, such as the double jump, makes a lot of the game's parts easier, but if the game was designed to be played as Zero, why is X the default character with Zero being hidden away with no guarantee of the player ever even being able to unlock him?

X can now utilize Zero's Z Saber which he obtained at the end of X5. This is nice continuity, and I'll actually give X6 credit for how the Z Saber was implemented; X is not as quick at using the sword as Zero was, and while some people have complained about it, I find it a good design choice for balance reasons.

It also makes sense from a story perspective since why would X be as good with the Z Saber as Zero was.

After unlocking him, Zero is much quicker with it.

Using the Z Saber as X is also optional as you can also just use the familiar X Buster. But mastering the Z Saber has its benefits, and this is actually one of the really good parts of X6. Good game design. See, I do give any game credit where credit is due.

I just wanted to get something positive out of the way before this next bit.

Metal Shark Player's stage.

Out of eight main stages, this is the most infuriating.

The gimmick is a giant trash compactor that's going up and down. Sounds simple enough. Except they throw every enemy, obstacle, hazard, the kitchen sink and Bill Clinton at your way, making it, once again, highly unfair.

And before I proceed, I want to point out that I don't want to hear anyone defend this by saying "You're just a bad player" because I'm not. I can do a minimalist, no upgrades run of every Mega Man X game up to this point, the SNES trilogy without taking damage, so I'd say I'm a fairly competent Mega Man X player.

The level gets mundane and boring really fast, outstays its welcome long before it ends, and only manages to infuriate and make one question picking up the game in the first place.

The final castle stages don't get any better, and one could argue they're even worse.

I've been ranting on for a long time, but I just wanted to make a point in saying that the level design and enemy placement in X6 are godawful. And this coming from a guy who beat Ninja Gaiden. On the NES. Legitimately.

And let's not forget the fact that the special weapons in X6 are also a bore. Nothing exciting to see here. Nothing that's useful in a non-artificial way.

The only time the special weapons were useful were when they were mandatory.

And speaking of mandatory, X6 is the first X game where the upgrades are required to beat the game. The point of the upgrades in Mega Man X was that they are special power-ups to make X stronger. They make X grow with you; you need to go out of your way to find these upgrades to make the game easier for yourself, but they are not required.

This was one of the best parts of X1, and the rest of the X games until now.

Now they're just a required, mandatory thing. So you can no longer casually play X6 like you could X1 through X5, and still beat the game with the bare minimum. No; you are required to go through every one of these terrible levels, looking for every one of the upgrades just so you can beat the final castle levels in the game.

That is a load of BitConnect. I got tired of saying bullshit.

Also, in X4 and X5, Zero's Z Sabre techniques were seamlessly integrated into the battle with different button combinations which were easy to learn and fast to use. This made it a breeze to play as Zero in both games.

For some reason, in X6, the special techniques need to be equipped via the start menu, completely breaking the pace of battling.

What a shitload of fuck.

I could go on and on. There are so many flaws in X6 that it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to see the series go from the excellent X1, the great sequels in X2, X3 and X4, and the so-so but still playable series ending X5 to... this.

But I want to talk about some of the good parts for a minute here.

Sound

And that brings me to the soundtrack, which, believe it or not, is really good!

A step up from X5, a big step up from X4, and easily the best PlayStation X game soundtrack. It's on par with X2 and X3, but I still prefer the soundtracks on the SNES slightly.

It takes some time getting used to, it's not hard rock like in the first X game, but once you accept that and move on, you'll find out that the soundtrack is very good and the tunes fit the stages very well.

Maybe the guy who composed it playtested X6 and thought "Man, I need to make this soundtrack really good to try and save this piece of shit".

He wasn't able to save the game, but the soundtrack does deserve a ton of credit.

Especially the Introduction Stage and Sigma Reborn are among some of my favorite game tunes in general.

The theme of the first stage sets the stage for X6's post-apocalyptic world extremely well, and the final stages are rock hard and dramatic.

At times, they almost make you think you're playing a good game.

Until you realize you're not.

But let's no go into negativity here, I do want to compliment the game when there's reason to, and the soundtrack is a redeeming factor for sure.

A special shoutout goes to some of the older X tunes being remixed here, such as the X Hunter Stage 2 from X2, as well as the first Sigma battle theme from X1.

They're a nice low key love letter to the past series, which the game otherwise lacks entirely.

Graphics

As noted, development (or lack thereof, judging by the end result) on X6 started immediately after X5, so it was to expected that not much would be changed graphically.

Except that there kinda would be. For the worse.

The engine itself is the same by the looks of things, and the graphics didn't get worse from a technical standpoint, but the drawing itself is not on par with the previous two PlayStation titles.

Dull colors, boring locales, and just generally ugly sprites, to be honest. It looks like zero effort went into making the game look good. Just one more of those things that make it clear that Capcom simply thought the X name would sell itself, so there's no point in putting any actual effort into the game.

Also, the animations are clearly worse than they were in X5. They're just off, not as smooth, not as fluid. And the amazing thing is that they're basically the same animations from X5 - yet they still somehow managed to make them look slightly less appealing.

What gives? I don't know.

I guess the game was just doomed from the start.

The boss designs are also uninspiring this time around. Again, just generic designs from a "What Does a Mega Man X Boss Look Like?" instruction manual.

The main engine is good, of course, but what's being done with it does leave a lot to be desired.

The game was just rushed out the door for the dolla dolla bills, and it shows.

In Closing

The fact that the game was rushed out the door shows in every aspect of the game, save for the awesome soundtrack. It highlights what I think is my biggest issue with the game: it lacks heart.

See, even though X5 had its fair share of problems, you can tell a lot of love went into it. You can tell it was intended to be the series finale, and therefore it had heart and soul to patch up the flaws that the game design had.

X6, on the other hand, is just what a mass-produced X title would look like when stripped of all the soul that made the X games special, to begin with.

Mega Man X6 is a game that should not exist; it was made only for money, it crapped all over the original five-part series, was completely nonsensical in its story, does nothing for the overall canon of Mega Man X, and is simply not fun to play.

I honestly did not have fun at all playing this.

Special thanks go out to my girlfriend who managed to deal with the constant

"SHIT!"
"FUCK!"
"OH COME ON!"
"BULLSHIT!"

she had to live through as a result of allowing me to purchase the X Collection on her PS3 to make these reviews. She even made me sandwiches to ease the pain. We never got the X Collection in Europe so I had to travel all the way over here to the US to suffer my way through this goddamn game to give you this review just because I promised.

It's not good, it's not recommended, you're not missing out anything by skipping this game.

The Mega Man X games will be released for all major platforms this year to celebrate the anniversary, so if you're thinking of grabbing it, I hope this review helped you out and you'll be skipping X6.

What more is there to say.

If they were dead set on making another X game, then fine. It could have been made well. Have X5 be the end of that saga. Let Zero and Sigma remain dead and introduce a new threat. It didn't have to be Sigma every time. Have X struggle without his friend and mentor, trying to fill his shoes. Or something like that, anything but what we got.

But no, since X6 was never about the love for the series, it was just a cash grab to fool people into thinking they were playing an X game. When in fact they were merely playing a poorly made fan game - that wasn't even really a fan game. Let alone a fun game.

So, that's it for my Mega Man X6 review, I hope you enjoyed it. Enduring the game took a lot out of me, so I hope you appreciate it.

But GUESS WHAT.

We're not done. There are still two more X games to get to, this time on the PlayStation 2. Surely things can't get any worse, right? Right?

See you next time.

I'm off to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.