Mega Man X6 - Level 4 Nightmare Zero and the Black Armor

Описание: So it's a commonly bandied tidbit that X6's designers coded Zero's Black Armor to be obtainable in-game, without the use of a code. It follows the heels of the practice set forward in X5, but in a comical misstep by no means atypical of this game's rushed production, Capcom lanced themselves into a contradiction concerning the armor's prereqs; specifically, fighting Nightmare Zero at level 4.

For the uninitiated, the way boss levels work in X6 is a deal less obtuse and decidedly more active than in X5. Your character's rank directly correlates to the level he'll encounter bosses at. Ranks themselves are tied to the amount of Nightmare Souls your character has collected. 5000 are necessary before bosses bare their sharpest.

Now, there's another somewhat unrecognized oddity to X6's coding: should you collect 3000 Nightmare Souls with either character before defeating all eight Nightmare Investigators, Gate's Lab will open up. It's an obscure third alternative to beating High Max or slugging through things the typical way. Unlocking the endgame has another effect, unfortunately: it closes off both the Nightmare Zero and High Max fights and fast tracks to Dynamo. You can put two and two together and realize how moronic this game's production can be. You are locked out of a fully coded, prepped and ready secret by X6's own paradoxical bullshit.

There is of course an obvious workaround: using a Gameshark to boost boss levels to 4 irrespective of in-game rank or Nightmare Soul total. Oddly, as routine as this trivia is, there don't seem to be any showcases of collecting the Black Armor the intended way, without use of the code obtained at the end of the game. So I figured it was worth a look-see.

The happenings in the video are self-evident. It's simply a showcase of the fight itself and the subsequent goodies, as well as a small expose on the Black Armor's merits should there be any curiosity to such. Although I know people genuinely looked through this game's code ages ago to find this little curiosity, I'm honestly surprised the game itself actively provides the armor if the conditions are set. But the bigger surprise is that Nightmare Zero has coded changes at level 4, and he's a good deal meaner.

The most obvious and devious change to his routine concerns his large crescent slashes. Ordinarily whenever Nightmare Zero teleports away from your position, he'll invariably follow up by throwing three large projectiles across the top of the screen at one of two speeds. These are castrated hilariously by either ducking or jumping behind their terrible hit detection.

On level 4, though, Nightmare Zero will pause briefly and add a fourth slash to his set, and this is an absolute killer, if not apparently so at first glance. After another brief pause Nightmare Zero will segue into a new attack while you're busy being herded by the screen-hogging crescent. If it's a slow moving one, you're really fucked. You can't climb the wall to get over top of it, so the only option is to do a well-timed dash and static jump maneuver that handles any of the four attacks he can launch into at random, the standard 3-shot combo being the deadliest option.

Besides this, Zero's AI is more aggressive in subtle ways that go decently far in intensifying the fight. He has basically had all his occasional trickery given a significant frequency boost. He has a greater tendency to string longer sequences of attacks together before teleporting, usually double dashing or launching the first of his fast-moving shots at the worst of times, meaning your placement in battle needs to be carefully considered. His veritable Giga Attack has also been given more appreciation, and he'll no longer launch into it only from specific actions: now it's purely instead of occasionally about proximity (ala X5) and can also be used independently. This also curiously allows for the same exploit Maverick Zero in X5 granted, but it's much more precise to pull off here. Not worth it except for show. Lastly and least importantly, past half health he adds a projectile to every saber slash, not just the ones in combos. Then there's the usual flurry of shots that's always a bother.

You can't even cheese his worst attack set with the usual methods. Jumping behind Nightmare Zero as he's firing his crescents this time will immediately send him into a Giga Attack when he's finished, and the wall behind him is not a place you want to be when that's used. You could optionally jump back in front of him and high tail it after his fourth shot, but you'd better be damn sure of the safe spots.

I skip all awful dialogue because nothing changes based on unlocking the Black Armor. You don't even get a notice from Alia. You just kinda have it when you enter a stage with Zero. Oh, presentation.