Obscure "Mega Man X" Game Where The Police Are After Us

[Kilgamayan]

For reference, the normal Frost Shield projectile can be flown up and down by holding the respective directions on the pad, just like Hard Knuckle.

Also you'll want to do "full" collection before starting the fortress; the special upgrade is in Stage 1.

[Kitsune Zeta]

I just checked a guide, you need a specific Ride Armor before you can use any of them.

And that specific one is in Blast Hornet's stage, so, we won't be seeing any until it's collectathon time.

That seems like a silly decision to me - since the armor requires another boss weapon to get, that means you need to take a pretty specific route to be able to use Ride Armor on your first visit to a stage.

Funny you should mention this, because the romhack that lets you do full playthroughs as Zero who can collect upgrades happens to fix that among a bunch of other rather silly decisions.

Just beat Project Zero 100% as Zero (Black Zero Armor, Zero for all bosses except for the intro boss and one specific midboss), and no, it does not let you use the Ride Changers (Hawk, Frog, Kangaroo) without first getting the Ride Armor.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Looks like Gravity Beetle's attempt to avenge his brother Boomer were for naught.

[Blue]

Just beat Project Zero 100% as Zero (Black Zero Armor, Zero for all bosses except for the intro boss and one specific midboss), and no, it does not let you use the Ride Changers (Hawk, Frog, Kangaroo) without first getting the Ride Armor.

Are you playing an old version or patched the wrong rom version or something? Because "Ride Armor pads are redone so you can use them at any time so long as you have at least one ride armor chip!" is item number 10 on the other features list in the readme.

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

As someone casually and without irony alluded to much earlier in the thread, Gravity Beetle's Japanese name is Gravity Beetbood.


Beetbood.


I'd be tempted to say that this was by far the most ridiculous of all the garbled anglicisms that make up the Japanese names of the Mavericks, but in fact they get much, much worse.


(Beetbood.)

[Mineyl]

BEETBOOD

Man, it's like Opposites Week or something. I never have trouble with Blizzard Buffalo, but Gravity Beetle kicked my rear all over the place back in the day.

Also, I think you can hold the Frost Shield in front of you if you keep Y held down, but don't quote me on that. Makes it way more useful if so.

[Kitsune Zeta]

Just beat Project Zero 100% as Zero (Black Zero Armor, Zero for all bosses except for the intro boss and one specific midboss), and no, it does not let you use the Ride Changers (Hawk, Frog, Kangaroo) without first getting the Ride Armor.

Are you playing an old version or patched the wrong rom version or something? Because "Ride Armor pads are redone so you can use them at any time so long as you have at least one ride armor chip!" is item number 10 on the other features list in the readme.

Readme courtesy Romhacking.net:

Other Features
-------------------------------

1. The Z-Sabre is heavily nerfed on bosses to make it more difficult and less overpowered (The projectile has the same power if you decide to get the Z-Sabre for X).
2. Separate ladder coordinates for X/Zero to make it look more smooth and not a jumpy animation.
3. The 'X' on the stage select screen is now used for switching characters. It will change to an X or a Z to reflect who you're currently using.
4. X's helix-shot has been altered so it actually does something and NOT lag the game. Each shot hits individually.
5. Quicker screen scroll in menu.
6. Faster dialogue in menu when swapping characters.
8. The Golden/Black Armor can be saved via passwords.
9. New portrait palettes if you have Golden Armor/Black Armor.
10. New feature in which before the Z-Sabre boss in Doppler's level if you're playing as Zero, it forces the menu to load and X warns Zero to be careful.
11. No more force field generating on the armor upgrade.

[Blue]

Readme courtesy Romhacking.net:

Other Features
-------------------------------

1. The Z-Sabre is heavily nerfed on bosses to make it more difficult and less overpowered (The projectile has the same power if you decide to get the Z-Sabre for X).
2. Separate ladder coordinates for X/Zero to make it look more smooth and not a jumpy animation.
3. The 'X' on the stage select screen is now used for switching characters. It will change to an X or a Z to reflect who you're currently using.
4. X's helix-shot has been altered so it actually does something and NOT lag the game. Each shot hits individually.
5. Quicker screen scroll in menu.
6. Faster dialogue in menu when swapping characters.
8. The Golden/Black Armor can be saved via passwords.
9. New portrait palettes if you have Golden Armor/Black Armor.
10. New feature in which before the Z-Sabre boss in Doppler's level if you're playing as Zero, it forces the menu to load and X warns Zero to be careful.
11. No more force field generating on the armor upgrade.

Yeah, you definitely played a different and possibly older version. Mine's 3.1 and here's the feature list spoilered for space reasons:

Other Features
-------------------------------

1. While the Z-Sabre has a heavy damage reduction, the projectile X has is untouched making it still ludicrously strong.
2. The 'X' on the stage select screen is now used for switching characters. It will change to an X or a Z to reflect who you're currently using.
3. X's helix-shot has been altered so it actually does something and NOT lag the game while allowing each bit deal it's own damage.
4. Quicker screen moving in the menu when going to swap characters.
5. Faster dialogue in menu when swapping characters.
6. The Golden/Black Armor can be saved via passwords.
7. New portrait palettes if you have Golden Armor/Black Armor.
8. New feature in which before the Z-Sabre boss in Doppler's level if you're playing as Zero, it forces the menu to load and X warns Zero to be careful.
9. No more force field generating on the armor upgrade.
10. Ride Armor pads are redone so you can use them at any time so long as you have at least one ride armor chip!

[Paragraph]

"Check out this sweet empty corridor!" is pretty much X3.txt and my major gripe with the game. The levels are longer than in X1 and 2, but as a tradeoff, they consist of 50% nothing and/or stretches with just level ground and enemies in a conga line, baby's first SMBX level style. I suspect this downgrade in level design quality has something to do with the developers changing; when I did a Let's Play on the Game Boy Mega Mans, I checked out what else their developer, Minakuchi Engineering, had done. Turned out not much...except for X3.

While the GB games starting from the third are amazing, I could understand how they suddenly got a vastly increased amount of screen space to work with and just didn't really know what to do with it.

Anyway, I laughed when raocow thought "ah this is the charge attack", then the boss didn't charge...but then of course he has a charge attack because everything in X3 has a charge attack. In fact, one of the bosses has a bug making it so that he can ONLY charge!

[Kitsune Zeta]

raocow destroyed Bit, leaving only Byte and Vile for the nonstandard bosses in the Maverick Stages.

As far as weapon viability for those two go, I should mention how useful his current boss weapons are:

1 damage, per hit, at best, so not really useful at all

.

raocow lacking the Ride Armor prevents him from getting a Ride Armor Changer (and also a Chip Upgrade capsule, though this one's not one of the more useful ones, being that it's

the leg chip upgrade

.)

For those that really want to know the details, here's the remaining four mavericks, their weapons, and if they're usable for any of those bosses:

Volt Catfish - Triad Thunder (

weakness for Bit alone

)
Crush Crawfish - Spinning Blade (

weakness for Vile alone

)
Tunnel Rhino - Tornado Fang (

weakness for Byte alone

)
Neon Tiger - Ray Splasher (

weakness for Vile and Byte

)

And, yeah, not allowing Bit and Byte (or Vile, for that matter) to retreat does have an effect. We should probably at least prepare an alternate password for raocow to use once he's beaten the eight maverick stages (which is the point where you can no longer encounter bit, byte, or Vile during a maverick stage) or once we know what state he'll finish those eight in with regards to the three bosses in question, just so that he can at least experience the changes.

[Ashan]

Something interesting I found out during the SGDQ run of this game yesterday (I don't know much more about X3 than raocow does) is that apparently in this game the charged regular shots don't do double damage against bosses. They still work like that against regular enemies I think, but for bosses they just do the regular damage.

[Joseph Staleknight]

RIP Bit. I hardly knew ye.

Especially since I completely skipped over your fight the first time I watched the video.

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

Dude, raocow, don't beat the Three Musketeers with their weaknesses the first time; you'll make both the story and the fortress bosses worse.

In other news, Toxic Seahorse sure likes to dance.

[Bean]

Bit only shows up in stages 3-5 and Byte appears in 6-8. I think it's slanted so Bit shows up earlier and Byte late. I remember this from failed attempts when I did my own run years ago. On an emulator, even loading a save state would change the RNG of their appearances up.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Relevant video for today:

[Grounder]

dt3 version: ez pz

x3 version LITERALLY KAIZO

[Blue]

Dude, raocow, don't beat the Three Musketeers with their weaknesses the first time; you'll make both the story and the fortress bosses worse.

In other news, Toxic Seahorse sure likes to dance.

At least don't kill mysteriousmaverick! The fortress boss that shows up if you do is waaaay lamer.

e: also, Tunnel Rhino's AI changes so that he charges into walls less if you die in the second half of the stage.

Three sea animals, but no water-themed boss.

[Kitsune Zeta]

So to put the importance of the Tornado Fang into focus, here's a list of all the items that can be obtained without beating any stages:

• Toxic Seahorse's Heart Container
• Tunnel Rhino's Sub-Tank
• Neon Tiger's Sub-Tank
• Neon Tiger's Heart Tank
• The Leg Upgrade
• The Frog Changer
• Blizzard Buffalo's Sub-Tank
• Blast Hornet's Heart Tank
• Volt Catfish's Heart Tank

There might be one or two that are still reachable, but I don't know what those are off-hand, and the reference guide I'm looking at isn't fully accurate (for starters, it claims the Kangaroo Changer requires Blizzard Buffalo's weapon and the Arm Upgrade... which is wrong for reasons we saw back in X2). Still, 9 items out of the 20 non-chip items is almost half of them. Now, beating Tunnel Rhino (and ONLY Tunnel Rhino) allows access to the following:

• THE ONE AND ONLY RIDE ARMOR IN THE GAME
• Blizzard Buffalo's Heart Tank
• Volt Catfish's Sub-Tank
• Crush Crawfish's Heart Tank
• The Leg Chip
• The Arm Upgrade
• The Arm Chip
• The Kangaroo changer

That's 8 more items, meaning that 17 of the 24 items total (15/20 non-chip items and 2 chips) are reachable with only one boss defeated. But what about the rest of them? well...

• Gravity Beetle's Heart Tank: Requires Blast Hornet to be defeated.
• Tunnel Rhino's Heart Tank: Requires Triad Thunder (Volt Catfish's weapon)
• The Head Upgrade: Requires Triad Thunder (Volt Catfish's weapon)
• The Energy Chip: Requires Head Upgrade (and thus, Triad Thunder)
• The Armor Upgrade: Requires Gravity Well (Gravity Beetle's weapon)
• The Body Chip: Requires Armor Upgrade (and thus, Gravity Well)
• The Hawk Changer: requires Triad Thunder (Volt Catfish's weapon)

[MonkeyShrapnel]

Tunnel Rhino's stage theme is really ingrained in my head, yet this is the first time I've seen someone actually play his stage.

ROM Hacks are funny like that.

[Ashan]

Those stupid wall enemies that drill into the roof and you have to shoot the little head that screws up and down: does that not seem like an inherently bad idea for an enemy?

Like, it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't attempt to do anything unique. It's literally just a blockade that halts your forward progress. They're just there to annoy you basically.

[Joseph Staleknight]

*Insert GIF of Byte swinging his God Hand like crazy*

Yeah, it's a good thing you're saving Electric Buttface for last. I think he might be the easiest way to access Mr. Maverick the Mysterious's lair if you want to fight him. True, you'll have to fight some less exciting foes at Doppler's lab if you do him in then, but the reward's pretty much worth it.

[Kitsune Zeta]

Yeah, it's a good thing you're saving Electric Buttface for last. I think he might be the easiest way to access Mr. Maverick the Mysterious's lair if you want to fight him. True, you'll have to fight some less exciting foes at Doppler's lab if you do him in then, but the reward's pretty much worth it.

He also has Crush Crawfish's stage left, and while it's not the most convenient spot, it is one of the places where people stumble into his lair from fairly easily (almost always by accident). So it's entirely possible raocow might end up fighting him next video.

In the long run, though, it would probably be better to aim for it in Volt Catfish's stage (after Crush Crawfish's), for reasons I've mentioned in spoilers.

There's also the Blizzard Buffalo entry point, but that's a bit out of the way and since raocow probably won't do item collection until after all 8 Mavericks are defeated (I realize he is referred to as a Maverick by the game, but I'm referring to the 8 main bosses here), he won't get the chance to find it (as either he will be defeated or he'll close up shop)

[Bean]

So that thing Byte shoots out is like a magnet. In this case, it pushes you away from the wall. You pretty much have to air dash to hang on to the same wall it's on then get over Byte when he charges in. You eventually figured it out, but yeah. Now, there will be a new boss down the road to fight since they're both gone.

Also, the reason you lost to Tunnel Rhino the first time is that he has one of two different attack phases. He had the harder version up and running the first time where he'll shoot his drills out all over. The other one just has him do that fake out dealio. Pretty easy that way.

Whenever you go back to do your item collecting,

Blast Hornet

is the best choice to start with.

[Dark_Paratroopa]

Those ladders are probably built for the bigger buffer rhinocerous guy who, yaknow, lives in the quarry.

[Truhan]

raocow. Vile said "This factory is set to blow in a matter of minutes." You're the one who typoed.