Box Art
Game: Megaman X6
First Released: November 29, 2001, Playstation
Developers: Capcom, Value Wave
Platforms: Playstation, Gamecube, Playstation 2,
Rated: E, for Cartoon Violence
First Released: November 29, 2001, Playstation
Developers: Capcom, Value Wave
Platforms: Playstation, Gamecube, Playstation 2,
Rated: E, for Cartoon Violence
How I Came To Play This Game
The First Boss
My experience with the Megaman X series is similar to my experience with the xlassic series, being that I'm playing them on a collection disk. The Megaman X Collection is no doubt a must have for the Gamecube or Playstation 2. Who wouldn't want to have the first six Megaman X series games on one disk to play whenever they feel like it? Well, it turns out this game is very rare to find in stores used. This was way back before I used the internet to buy things, so the best I could do is wait for one to pop up at a store. I later found out that the Gamestop store in Taylorville, Illinois which was 86 miles away. Luckily for me, we were going on a trip soon to visit my Grandma who lives in Chicago, so I was able to convince my Mom to stop at Taylorville to get it. It was well worth the trip too!
Story
Three weeks after the crash of the Eurasia colony in Mega Man X5, the Earth's surface is badly damaged, and humans have been forced to live underground to survive from the pollution. Reploids have been sent to the surface to attempt to make it livable once again. There was no trace of Mavericks for some days, and the Maverick Hunters help cleaning up the world. Gate, a Reploid scientist who was once a colleague of Alia, stumbles upon the crash site of Eurasia, finding something unusual. After that, Gate became mad and a strange set of Maverick outbreaks occurs, and when X is called to stop a giant Mechaniloid, he sees a purple-like figure that resembles Zero. Around the same time, a powerful Reploid named High Max appears and claims to be investigating the Zero Nightmare, and they fight. High Max, however, proves to be too strong and X cannot damage him with his X-Buster. A Reploid scientist named Isoc makes an announcement saying that the ghost of Zero, Zero Nightmare, is behind the new Nightmare Phenomena. He sends eight Reploids to investigate areas with high jamming suspected to be infected by the Nightmare to discover the mystery surrounding it and delete Zero's ghost, with High Max leading the mission. Isoc also ask for volunteers to help them. X goes off to the suspected areas to investigate the Nightmare, defeat the Mavericks, and rescue the Reploids that volunteered to help. During his mission, X fights against the Zero Nightmare and finds the real Zero, who was believed to have been destroyed after the last encounter with Sigma. Signas is reluctant to ask Zero's help as he had just return, but due to the crisis, Zero helps X in the mission. After defeating the Mavericks, the Maverick Hunters discover Gate was behind the Nightmare Virus. Gate is impressed with the abilities of X and Zero, and challenges the Hunters to a duel, revealing them the location of his hidden laboratory. In his laboratory, Gate also reveals he was able to create the Nightmare and High Max by analyzing Zero's DNA, which he found in Eurasia's crash site. X and Zero defeat High Max and Gate; Isoc was later found unconscious in a similar way to the Erasure Incident (mentioned by Alia when playing as X). Upon Gate's defeat, Gate reveals he had revived Sigma. Sigma states that he didn't need his help to revive, attacks Gate and retreats. X and Zero rush to stop the partially-reconstructed Sigma and battle him, and although he was not fully complete, he puts up a good fight. In the end, the Hunters prove victorious, defeating Sigma and removing Gate's body from the wreckage of his lab to attempt to repair him.
Mavericks
Commander Yammark, Shield Sheldon, Blizzard Wolfang, Ground Scaravich, Blaze Heatnix, Rainy Turtloid, Infinity Mijinion, and Metal Shark Player.
Review
Before I get into the more frustrationg aspects of the game, I am going to talk about the good things. There are many similarities to Megaman X5. The team from said game returns to help X, there are two armors to find parts for, there are chips to upgrade, and there are reploids to rescue. However, there are many new things. Now saving reploids is a bigger part of the story. Saved reploids sometimes have parts that can be made into chips. Also, each stage has a warp portal hidden inside that warps you to an alternate path. This alternate path always leads to a special boss, completely seperate from the stage boss. This means that you will have to play through the stage again using the normal route to defeat the boss. The special bosses include the Zero Nightmare, which upon defeat, Zero comes back and becomes playable again like in the previous two games of the series. Then after you beat that, the next time you reach the end of the alternate path you will fight High Max. If you manage to beat High Max, it will allow you to go to the final stages early, even if you haven't played through all the main stages yet. Anytime after you beat High Max that you reach the end of an alternate path, you will fight Dynamo, the famous time waster from Megaman X5. By the way, Dynamo still explodes and doesn't die. There you have the good stuff from the game, but this game in my opinion is the black sheep of the Megaman X series. It's not horrible, but it is very frustrating. I am going to talk about a few flaws from the game. The first one, is saving the innocent reploids. Now don't get me wrong, I like rescuing reploids for chip parts, but there is one problem. The enemies known as Nightmares, can possess those reploids and turn them into mavericks. Once they turn into mavericks, there is no changing them back. This would be fine under normal circumstances, but what if you want to save all of them? you'd figure that all you would have to do is die and the enemies and reploids would respawn. This is not the case. If a reploid is possessed by a Nightmare, they are gone for good. Even if you kill yourself in an attempt to try again, the reploid will be gone without a trace. The only option you have is to reset your game and load your last save file. This makes the game very repetetive, because you're going through the same stage over and over again until you get it right. Another problem I have is that the game doesn't always do what I tell it to do. I don't know if it's just the X Collection or not, but he seems to just turn around and go the wrong way sometimes at complete random. you also can't air dash right after you wall jump, you have to wait a second beofre doing so. Many of the stages are made as if they were for a means of torture. The rising lava sphere battle from Blaze Heatnix's Stage, the falling ice blocks from Blizzard wolfang's Stage, the limited vision of Rainy Turtloid's stage, and the crushing cieling from Metal Shark Players Stage. At the end of the alternate route on Metal Shark Players Stage, there is a conveyer belt constantly pulling you toward the left side of the screen and it ends with a wall with a reploid and a Nightmare behind it. I was in a ride armor to protect myself from the crushing cieling. So what I needed to do is jump out of the ride armor and over the wall while the cieling is high up to kill the Nightmare before it possessed the reploid. I jump up, then try to jump out of the ride armor but can't. I keep trying to get out as the Nightmare inches closer to the reploid. Finally I get out and I try to make up the time by using the Giga Attack over the wall, but X goes in the wrong direction, making it curtains for the innocent reploid. I'm sorry Bambu, I wasn't able to save you.
Releases
Megaman X6 was first released for the Playstation in 2001. Then it was bundled with the five other games in the series as part of the Megaman X Collection which was released for both Gamecube and Playstation 2 in 2006.
My Rating
I give this game a 7/10. Though this game is terribly flawed, the story, music, and graphics are all good and it still has that classic Megaman X feel.