Megaman X6 (Sony Playstation) FAQ FAQ VERSION 5.4 LAST UPDATE: 07/23/2007 There was an editing correction made. AUTHOR: Webapprentice CONTACT: clowwizarderiol@gmail.com I will accept corrections and additional information, and you will be credited if you are the first to submit your information. I don't want to have to do this all alone. =) Please be courteous and write decently in your emails. Do not flame me. Email in all uppercase or all lowercase will be ignored. NOTE: There are spoilers in this FAQ. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- You may find what you need by searching for the bracketed words, including the brackets. COPYRIGHT NOTICE [COPY] FAQ LOCATIONS [FAQLOC] UPDATES [UPDATES] CREDITS [CREDITS] STAGE INFORMATION [STAGEINFO] INTRODUCTORY STAGE [INTROSTAGE] Enemies [INTROSTAGE - ENEMIES] Primary Area [INTROSTAGE - PRIMARY] Boss 1 [INTROSTAGE - BOSS 1] Boss 2 [INTROSTAGE - BOSS 2] COMMANDER YAMMARK'S STAGE - AMAZON AREA [AMAZON] Enemies [AMAZON - ENEMIES] Primary Area [AMAZON - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [AMAZON - SECONDARY] Boss [AMAZON - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [AMAZON - REPLOIDS] Other Items [AMAZON - ITEMS] RAINY TURTLOID'S STAGE - INAMI TEMPLE [INAMI] Enemies [INAMI - ENEMIES] Primary Area [INAMI - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [INAMI - SECONDARY] Boss [INAMI - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [INAMI - REPLOIDS] Other Items [INAMI - ITEMS] SHIELD SHELDON'S STAGE - LASER INSTITUTE [LASERINST] Enemies [LASERINST - ENEMIES] Primary Area [LASERINST - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [LASERINST - SECONDARY] Boss [LASERINST - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [LASERINST - REPLOIDS] Other Items [LASERINST - ITEMS] INFINITY MIJINION'S STAGE - WEAPON CENTER [WEAPCNTR] Enemies [WEAPCNTR - ENEMIES] Primary Area [WEAPCNTR - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [WEAPCNTR - SECONDARY] Minor Boss [WEAPCNTR - MINOR BOSS] Boss [WEAPCNTR - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [WEAPCNTR - REPLOIDS] Other Items [WEAPCNTR - ITEMS] BLIZZARD WOLFANG'S STAGE - NORTHPOLE AREA [NORTHPOLE] Enemies [NORTHPOLE - ENEMIES] Primary Area [NORTHPOLE - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [NORTHPOLE - SECONDARY] Boss [NORTHPOLE - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [NORTHPOLE - REPLOIDS] Other Items [NORTHPOLE - ITEMS] BLAZE HEATNIX'S STAGE - MAGMA AREA [MAGMA] Enemies [MAGMA - ENEMIES] Primary Area [MAGMA - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [MAGMA - SECONDARY] Minor Boss [MAGMA - MINOR BOSS] Boss [MAGMA - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [MAGMA - REPLOIDS] Other Items [MAGMA - ITEMS] METAL SHARK PLAYER'S STAGE - RECYCLE LAB [RECYLAB] Enemies [RECYLAB - ENEMIES] Primary Area [RECYLAB - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [RECYLAB - SECONDARY] Minor Boss [RECYLAB - MINOR BOSS] Boss [RECYLAB - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [RECYLAB - REPLOIDS] Other Items [RECYLAB - ITEMS] GROUND SCARAVICH'S STAGE - CENTRAL MUSEUM [CENTMUSM] Enemies [CENTMUSM - ENEMIES] Primary Area [CENTMUSM - PRIMARY] Secondary Area [CENTMUSM - SECONDARY] Boss [CENTMUSM - BOSS] Reploids and Parts [CENTMUSM - REPLOIDS] Other Items [CENTMUSM - ITEMS] GATE LABORATORY 1 [GATELAB1] Enemies [GATELAB1 - ENEMIES] Primary Area [GATELAB1 - PRIMARY] Boss [GATELAB1 - BOSS] GATE LABORATORY 2, SECTION 1 [GATELAB2SEC1] Enemies [GATELAB2SEC1 - ENEMIES] Primary Area [GATELAB2SEC1 - PRIMARY] Boss [GATELAB2SEC1 - BOSS] GATE LABORATORY 2, SECTION 2 [GATELAB2SEC2] Enemies [GATELAB2SEC2 - ENEMIES] Primary Area [GATELAB2SEC2 - PRIMARY] Boss [GATELAB2SEC2 - BOSS] SIGMA STAGE [SIGMASTAGE] Enemies [SIGMASTAGE - ENEMIES] Primary Area [SIGMASTAGE - PRIMARY] Boss 1 [SIGMASTAGE - BOSS 1] Boss 2 [SIGMASTAGE - BOSS 2] REGULAR ENEMY ROSTER [ENEMYROS] SECONDARY AREA BOSSES [SECNDAREABOSS] SPECIAL WEAPONS CHART [SPCLWEAP] X WEAPONS [XWEAPONS] ZERO WEAPONS [ZWEAPONS] MAVERICK HUNTER RANKING [RANKING] HEART TANK LOCATIONS [HEARTS] ENERGY TANK LOCATIONS [ENERGY] WEAPON TANK LOCATIONS [WEAPON] EX TANK LOCATIONS [EX] PARTS [PARTS] NORMAL PARTS [NORMPARTS] X PARTS [XPARTS] ZERO PARTS [ZEROPARTS] LIMITED PARTS [LIMITPARTS] ARMORS [ARMORS] BLADE ARMOR [BLADEARMOR] SHADOW ARMOR [SHADOWARMOR] ULTIMATE ARMOR [ULTARMOR] BLACK ARMOR [BLACKARMOR] NIGHTMARES AND RESCUING REPLOIDS [NIGHTMARE] NIGHTMARE SYSTEM [NIGHTSYS] FIND ZERO [FINDZERO] OPENING THE FINAL STAGES EARLY [OPENFINAL] SECRET CUTSCENE [SECRETSCENE] ENDINGS [END] COPYRIGHT NOTICE [COPYRIGHT] This document is protected by US Copyright Law and the Berne Copyright Convention of 1976. This document is for your private and personal use only. I will not permit this document from being reprinted, in part or in whole, on paper or electronically anywhere else without my expression written consent. The document is to be considered free of cost. It cannot be included as part of a commercial transaction (i.e. sold) or bundled as a freebie. All copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged and respected that are not specifically stated in this document. I do not seek to challenge those copyrights. Unpublished Work Copyright 2001 FAQ LOCATIONS [FAQLOC] I currently authorize the following sites to house my FAQ. I reserve the right to REVERSE my authorization. If you find this FAQ anywhere else, please let me know. www.gamefaqs.com: This website site will ALWAYS have the latest FAQ. Any other sites that I have given permission will be asked to get the file from here. If you find an outdated FAQ at the three websites below, tell those web administrators to go to Gamefaqs to get the latest copy. www.psxcodez.com: This website serves mostly European gamers. It is in English and German. www.neoseeker.com: This is a multi-purpose website that provides information about hardware and gaming. www.cheatcc.com: This is a website that provides cheat codes and FAQs. It serves the gaming population. faqs.ign.com: This is a gaming website that provides reviews and just opened up a FAQ section. They do allow HTML and graphics to supplement FAQs. These 5 websites are the only ones authorized by me to carry my FAQ. I will not accept further requests, because the document will be spread too thin. UPDATES [UPDATES] Version 5.3 (12/05/2003) User tip to clarify Sigma First Form's barrier. It is destructable. Version 5.2 (09/27/2003) Reader tip on defeating Gate added. Version 5.1 (09/18/2003) This is a cleaned up version of the FAQ. A visitor had commented how bloated the FAQ had become, so it is time to reorganize the FAQ. Some notable changes 1) Stage bosses are now listed with the stage information. 2) Contributions that are deemed too trivial will be eliminated. CREDITS [CREDITS] 1) Thanks for Capcom for creating and publishing the Megaman X series! 2) Thanks to GameFaqs for hosting this FAQ. 3) Thanks to the Gamefaqs community and those who discuss on the Megaman message boards. 4) A whole slew of people who made contributions here. Those individuals are credited where the information is placed. STAGE INFORMATION [STAGEINFO] Each Nightmare Investigator stage has a secondary area. This secondary area may have reploids, tanks, or armor capsules. The secondary area is reachable via blue crystal-like teleporters, usually well-hidden in a stage. Some stages have more than one teleporter. In those cases, one will lead to the secondary area, the other will continue with the stage. At the end of the secondary area is a boss you will have to fight. 1) The first time you visit here, it will be Nightmare Zero. 2) The second time you visit here, it will be High Max 3) From the third visit onward, it will be Dynamo. INTRODUCTORY STAGE [INTROSTAGE] Enemies [INTROSTAGE - ENEMIES] 1) Drilling Machines 2) Rolling Metallic Balls 3) Small Flying Mechaniloids 4) Large Broken Green Mechaniloids Primary Area [INTROSTAGE - PRIMARY] This stage will allow you to practice your basic controls and introduce you to X's Z-saber. This stage is fairly straightforward. You just have to be careful of enemies and pits. Silver boxes will obstruct your way. Use your Z-saber to destroy them. Boss 1 [INTROSTAGE - BOSS 1] The giant green mechaniloid takes no damage from normal buster shots. You can, however, your use Z-saber slashes or charged shots to damage the head or front of the body. The main weak point is the control sphere robot. It controls the mechaniloid. It is also impervious to normal buster shots. You can, however, use your Z- saber slashes or charged shots to damage it. The Z-saber does more damage than the charged shot. The mechaniloid will try to collide with you. If you are on the ground it will try to land on you, but it will not land on the ground. If you crouch, you can avoid the collision. If you are on the side walls, it will run into side walls to try to hit you. The mechaniloid may also open its mouth and shoot out a blue sphere at your current location. When it lands, a vertical column of blue energy appears. You have to wait until it disappears before you can move past it. If you are closer to the control sphere robot, it will try to shoot 4 orange energy shots at you. These shots fan out, so move away quickly. If you strike the control sphere robot with the Z-saber, you interrupt its connection with the mechaniloid. The mechaniloid will drop to the ground. Do not be underneath him, or you will take damage. The control sphere robot disappears and reappears away from you. It will resume control of the mechaniloid. Boss 2 [INTROSTAGE - BOSS 2] High max makes his appearance. You cannot win this fight. The battle will end after about 10 seconds, or until your life energy has been reduced to almost nothing. COMMANDER YAMMARK'S STAGE - AMAZON AREA [AMAZON] Enemies [AMAZON - ENEMIES] 1) Snail Mechaniloid 2) Worm Mechaniloid 3) Butterfly Mechaniloid 4) Praying Mantis Mechaniloid Primary Area [AMAZON - PRIMARY] This stage is modeled the Amazon environment. It is easy to navigate. It starts off with a rainforest scene, followed by green cavern, and ending with a series of mossy block suspended in the air which must be traversed to reach the other side. In the middle part of the green caverns, there are spikes in the floor. You must jump on the Snail Mechaniloids to get across the spikes. Once across, you will reach a series of green mossy blocks suspended in mid-air. Praying Mantis Mechaniloids are strategically positioned on some of these blocks or between the blocks. You need to destroy them to get through. Secondary Area [AMAZON - SECONDARY] When you arrive at the green cavern, walk until you see a drop. The drop will have a vertical rope. Now, look at the ceiling and notice there is an opening. You must jump up into the opening and scale the wall on the right. Climb up and proceed right until you see the next drop with a vertical rope. Jump into the drop but stay to the right side. You will fall into the teleporter to the secondary area. The secondary area is a series of brown mossy blocks suspended in mid-air. Unfortunately, halfway through this area, there is a section with two large blocks in the middle obstructing your way. There is a large pit over this area. The only way I have been able to navigate this is with Blade Armor X. Slide down the left side of the block, and as you fall, initiate the Mach Dash to dash to the block on the far right. You should get to it and jump to the top of the block. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: It's possible to make it through the secondary area with Falcon Armor X. A section of the secondary area looks like this. ___________________________________________ | | | | | | | | | m | | m | | | | | | 1*|___| 2%|___| _|__| | | ___ ___ %---->3%|__| | | | | | | %----> | | | | | | __ | | | | | | | | | |_|___|_________|___|________________|__|___| 1) That first jump is pretty simple, you drop off from the *, and simply air dash over whenever you want to, as long as you don't fall and die. 2) Now, from the second block, note the first % is at about the same position as the first jump's *. Drop off and air dash IMMEDIATELY after you drop, or you'll never make it. (hence the arrow) 3) Position yourself on that middle block the same way. Drop and air dash the SPLIT SECOND you're no longer hanging onto that block. Of course, being that the last low block is pretty low, you'll have to scramble to avoid dying, but it can be done. If you're using Ultimate Armor X, you can pull that second jump with a Nova Strike, but I wouldn't chance it on that third and final jump. Sure, you may sail over that last (and lowest) block of that part, but you have a good chance of NOT having the momentum to get to that very last midair block before the door! (I for one couldn't do it that way, so I just Nova Strike the first two jumps and air dash on the third...) J. Scriba 5 (senkojin05@yahoo.com) says: In the same secondary area with the middle block obstructing your way, if you are using the Ultimate Armor, make X fall at the side of the middle, facing the lower ledge, then execute the Giga Attack to make it to the other side. _________________________ | | | | | | | | | | X______| | |____| | | | | |___________| G > ______________________ | Legend: ___= Platform or ceiling | = Wall X = Where to position Ultimate X G = Where X would do the Nova Strike > = Where X is facing in doing the Giga Attack Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Due to a REALLY unusual phoenomenon with X's Magma Blade, I just made it through Commander Yammark's Secondary stage using UNARMORED X. Here's the secret. If you put Rapid Fire on, and hold down the Triangle button with the Magma Blade equipped, X will literally FLOAT in the air as long as the Magma Blade energy holds out. It actually compensates for X not having an air dash, including the stupid third jump that is one of the top 3 most annoying jumps in the game. There are two downsides to this strategy, however. 1) X moves REALLY slowly to the right when using this. 2) Weapon energy is drained really quickly. To compensate for this, I recommend the Energy Saver part (from Shield Sheldon's secondary area) to double the Magma Blade's weapon energy, giving it more than enough juice to get the job done. It normally takes me about 25-30 Magma Blades to get the job done. This isn't an entirely reliable method, though. Sometimes the game may not respond and just drop you to your doom. If you can pull it off, however, you have the satisfaction of making it through a poorly designed Mach-Dash-in-mind area with unarmored X. You can apply this to other jumps as well, like the Metal Shark Player jump, the Blizzard Wolfang secondary jump, and the Gate's Lab 2-2 jump. ********* Boss [AMAZON - BOSS] Commander Yammark encircles himself with dragonfly mechaniloids. He has the following attack patterns. 1) He can deploy them to shoot at you. Each dragonfly will then fly vertically up and down in front of him and shoot at you. 2) He can fly at you with his encircling dragonflies. The dragonflies will shoot much faster at this point. 3) He can also fly slowly at you with his dragonflies in tow. Since the dragonflies trail him, he is basically trying to cover the screen, giving you less room to move. You can destroy his dragonflies, but he will summon more to his side. He can summon up to 6 dragonflies to his side. X Strategy: Commander Yammark is a weak enemy. X's Z-saber can destroy the dragonflies quickly and damage him. Otherwise, you can use Ray Arrow. It will damage him significantly and stun him. Zero Strategy: Commander Yammark is a weak enemy. If you have no special weapons, just use Zero's 3-hit saber combo. They will destroy his dragonflies and damage him. Zero's Ensuizan destroys Commander Yammark's dragonflies in very short order as well as damaging the Nightmare investigator. For some reason, Commander Yammark does not seem to move if Zero keeps doing Ensuizan. He will continue to try to use his dragonflies, and you might take damage if you are too close when he summons them, but since Zero's Ensuizan is fast, you will destroy the dragonflies quickly. Zero can also use Rekkoha with devastating effect on Commander Yammark. Roger Clemente (roger_clemente@hotmail.com) says: When fighting Commander Yammark, he will launch his little dragonflies at you. With Zero, when the flies are coming at you, take one swipe with your blade and it'll bat the fly back at Commander Yammark, and if you're close enough, he'll get hit and take damage. It doesn't cause much damage, but it's fun to hit him like this. Reploids and Parts [AMAZON - REPLOIDS] 01: MAH 01404 - LIFE UP 02: SUKETORM 03: SATTON - ENERGY UP 04: YONOJI 05: ISO - LIFE RECOVER 06: RYO 07: YANTOMI 08: TAHEI 09: ARAKI 10: GOKEN - SUPER RECOVER 11: YARS 12: HANSE 13: TOSHIJI 14: YOSHIMU 15: KUBORINA - RAPID 5 16: WAHDA Other Items [AMAZON - ITEMS] 1) Energy Tank 2) Heart Tank 3) Blade Armor - Leg Program RAINY TURTLOID'S STAGE - INAMI TEMPLE [INAMI] Enemies [INAMI - ENEMIES] 1) Seahorse Mechaniloid 2) Bat Mechaniloid 3) Sumo Mechaniloid, 4) Soul Body X or Soul Body Zero Primary Area [INAMI - PRIMARY] This stage is modelled after a Japanese pagoda and Shinto temple. It starts off with a series of water pits that you need to navigate while enemies attack. When you reach a green pod, it will then rain. This rain is acid rain that will slowly drain your life energy. There are bluish ground pods that you can stand on to recharge your energy. To stop the rain you must destroy the red sensors that you see along the way. There are 4 of them. These sensors maintain a force field on the rain generator. If you find the rain generator and there is a force field around it, you missed a sensor. Search all places. There are three more rain sections where you must find and destroy the red sensors. Then, you must destroy the rain generator. Eventually, you reach the inside of a large tree. There are 3 passages to the left that are protected with spikes. There are 2 passageway to the right that are protected with spikes. To go through these passageway require Blade Armor X. You must stand next to the passageway, jump, and right before landing on the ground, perform the Mach Dash through the passageway. Another way is to get hit by a Flying Bat Mechaniloid, the big Sumo Mechaniloid, or their projectiles, and then dashing through the passage way. Unfortunately, once you get through, you may not be able to get back since enemies and their projectiles may not reach you. Secondary Area [INAMI - SECONDARY] The secondary area is accessed by a teleporter inside of the large tree. There are 3 passageways to the left that are protected with spikes. There are 2 passageway to the right that are protected with spikes. To go through these passageway require Blade Armor X. You must stand next to the passageway, jump, and right before landing on the ground, perform the Mach Dash through the passageway. The teleporter is on the left side and is in the bottom of the 3 passageways. Another way is to get hit by a flying bat mechaniloid, the big sumo mechaniloid, or their projectiles, and then dashing through the passage way. Unfortunately, once you get through, you may not be able to get back since enemies and their projectiles may not reach you. The secondary area is still inside a large tree. It will precipitate acid rain again. There is an energy pod to refill your energy. There are spikes again, and this time, they are on the platforms in various places. You will need to carefully jump over them to find and destroy the red sensors protecting the weather generator. The exit is in the lower right corner of the stage. Boss [INAMI - BOSS] Rainy Turtloid is large. He starts off with his shell facing you, and will launch missiles from the jewel areas on his shell. Afterwards, he curls into a buzzsaw and rolls around the ground in his shell trying to run you down. Stay in the corners and let Turtloid come to you. Then, climb the wall and let Turtloid come up the wall. When that happens, dash jump off the wall to avoid it. Zero can double jump off the wall instead of dash jumping. If you stay on the wall too long, Rainy Turtloid will climb up the wall to hit you. After you drain half or more of his life energy away, he may roll into a buzzsaw and toss bubbles at you. He may also cause bubbles to fall from the sky (X's charged Meteor Rain) while continuing his attack on you. Rainy Turloid consists of two parts: his shell on his back and his front. If you try to attack his shell, you have to destroy the green jewels on the shell before you can damage him. If you somehow hit his front side, you will do damage to him without having to destroy the jewels first. X Strategy: It takes 6 slashes with X's Z-saber to destroy one green jewel on Rainy Turtloid's shell. X will have to jump slash the upper green jewel. The Z-saber is also useful for clearing the missiles that Rainy Turtloid fires at you. Blade Armor X's charged saber works well. Otherwise, Ice Burst will do the most damage and stun him. He will become temporarily frozen when stunned. Unfortunately, you do not get enough Ice Burst shots to defeat him, as you will run out of weapon energy. If you use all the bursts properly, the investigator should have lost more than half of his life energy. Cloud Strife (partyleader7@edsamail.com.ph) says: You do not have to destroy the green gems on Rainy Turtloid's shell. This is what you do. Keep away from him, dodge his missiles by jumping to the top of the wall opposite him, and stay there while he turns into a buzzsaw and rolls under you (you may have time to slash his shell before this but I've never tried it). Wait for a little less than one second (you'll have to feel for this one, sorry) then air-dash away before he rolls up the wall trying to get you. Dash under him when he rolls falling diagonally to the other side of the screen, then jump up the wall while he rolls under you. Wait until he's almost ready to stop, then air-dash away. If executed correctly, he should be facing your way when you land. You will be able to damage him even without destroying his gems, as long as he is facing you. Shoot like crazy (don't charge! Yammar Option is a big help here) and when he turns around do this procedure over. Note that this procedure doesn't apply when he uses Meteor Rain, as he doesn't chase after you (just rolls side to side like an idiot). ********* King Meng Lee (rickkee@mystar.com.my) says: Using X (any armor except Shadow Armor), make sure you have the Ultimate Buster part equipped. Then, keep on using the charged up Magma Blade, and he will be dead before you lose half your energy. The Magma Blade firebirds will hit Rainy Turtloid's front side. If you are using Ultimate Armor X, you can use Nova Strike against him as soon as both the green cyrstals are destroyed for more damage, but you might be hurt in the process. ********* Zero Strategy: Use the Z-saber and do his 3-hit saber combo. His third hit in the combo can strike the upper green jewel on Rainy Turtloid's shell without jumping. The Z-saber is also useful for clearing the missiles that Rainy Turtloid fires at you. Shoenzan works very well against the jewels on the shell, because its vertical range is nearly identical to the third hit of Zero's 3-hit saber combo. Use it to hit both jewels simultaneously. Two attacks with Shoenzan destroys both jewels. Although Hydroga should be Rainy Turtloid's weakness, the ceiling in the boss room is too high to use Hydroga. Either the designers made an error, or they did not want Zero to use that special technique. ********* Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Use Shoenzan to destroy the gems on his back, then stand right next to him and blast away with the Z-Buster. The Z-Buster will destroy the missiles and do good damage to him. You can get the boss down to around 1/2 health before he uses Ensuizan [FAQ author: the "rolling buzzsaw"] the first time. ********* Reploids and Parts [INAMI - REPLOIDS] 01: NASSY 02: NATSUE 03: AKEMI 04: MAYI 05: OBIN 06: MEEKA 07: MAO - ENERGY UP 08: SAKURA 09: OMY 10: ETSU - LIFE UP 11: MIHO 12: YUI - W. RECOVER 13: AI 14: NORI - HYPER DASH 15: RENA - SABER PLUS 16: NANA Other Items [INAMI - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) Shadow Armor - Body Program SHIELD SHELDON'S STAGE - LASER INSTITUTE [LASERINST] Enemies [LASERINST - ENEMIES] 1) Metools 2) Small Flying Shield Mechaniloid 3) Large Flying Shield Mechaniloid 4) Gnat Mechaniloid Primary Area [LASERINST - PRIMARY] This stage appears to be modeled after Izzy Glow's stage from Megaman X5. There are lasers and invisible platforms in this stage. When you see enemies walking on air, they are standing on an invisible platform. Jumping to where the enemy is standing on will cause the platform to materialize. After a few seconds, it will disappear. As you go through the stage, you will see laser batteries. The batteries are capable of shooting left, up, down, right, upper-right, upper-left, lower-right, lower-left. Only where the lasers touch the mirrors and the end of the laser beam will do damage to you. The middle of the laser does nothing. You can actually pass through the laser after it hits its target. The laser will rotate to shoot in the closest direction that you are standing. For example, if you stand a little to the right of the laser, it will shoot in the lower-right direction. You will also see mirrors. Some mirrors can be rotated by attacking them, while others cannot be rotated. The idea is to get the laser beam to hit the mirrors in such a way that it travels to the door or another laser battery (i.e. power up the next laser battery). This is fairly straightforward stage and quite short if you do not access the secondary area. Secondary Area [LASERINST - SECONDARY] Eventually, you will get to an area where there are two doors. One door goes right. A larger door goes down. Rotate the mirrors so that the laser beam hits the door going down. Go into the lower door. In this area, you must rotate the mirrors so that the laser beam strikes the laser cannon on the ceiling. Then jump to the middle platform suspended in the air and rotate the mirrors, so the laser battery in the ceiling shoots at them and the laser travels horizontally to the left in the top part of the stage. Go left and find a mirror suspended above a large door in the floor. Rotate the mirror, so the horizontal laser beam hits the door. Drop through the door and move a little bit to the right as you fall. You will avoid a set of spikes and land on a platform. You have one of two options: 1) There is a red wall on your left. There will be a message available where X and Zero talk about a draft. The lower part of that left wall is an illusion. Jump into the wall and land inside the wall. To the left of the wall is a wide pit with an armor capsule and reploid on the other sie. There is an invisible platform in the middle of the pit. You may need to experiment a little to find it. You can also jump over the long pit with a well-timed speed dash. You should hit the side wall of the pit on the other side, and you will need to wall jump out of the pit. 2) Go right and get on top of the steps. You will see a floor of spikes. Jump off and air dash (or dash jump) and you will cling onto a platform that was invisible. Climb up and jump to the next platform. There is an invisible platform near where a Nightmare is positioned. Jump to that platform and then dash jump to the teleporter to the secondary area. The secondary area has small flying shield mechaniloids, lasers, spikes, and a bunch of horizontal and vertical ropes. You must traverse this obstacle course to get to the door on the right. Boss [LASERINST - BOSS] Shield Sheldon teleports around the room. If Shield Sheldon is on lower left and right corners, he usually throws one shell horizontally and one shell diagonally upwards. The shells will return to Shield Sheldon using the same flight path after a few seconds. Zero or X can dash under the horizontally flying shell to attack Shield Sheldon and dash underneath the shell on its return trip. They can jump over the lower shell, but they risk colliding with the shell flying upwards. If Shield Sheldon appear at the top of the screen in the middle, the investigator will start bouncing around the screen. Dash around to avoid. If two copies of Shield Sheldon appear on the ground on the left and right sides, they are both going to throw their shells at you. Jump to a wall to get out of the way. Only one is the real investigator. The fake one flickers a little. If two copies of Shield Sheldon appear in the upper left and right corners, they are both going to throw their shells to their opposite corners. Only one is the real investigator. The fake one flickers a little. Stay away from the corners. Jump to a wall to get out of the way or stay in the middle and crouch. After Shield Sheldon is down to 1/2 of life energy, he will put up his multi- colored force field around him in the 4 cardinal directions: up, down, left, right. Every time you hit the field, it shrinks a little, allowing you to hit him. X Strategy: Wait for Shield Sheldon to throw his shells at you. When Shield Sheldon is exposed, toss him a Metal Anchor. He will take significant damage, and his shells blow up. He will then teleport away. When he reappears, his shells will be back. Without Metal Anchor, X should use the Z-saber to do damage. Yammar Option works decently. Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: Also, the charged Metal Anchor is great in the battle against Shield Sheldon when he has the shells on the corners of the screen and is diving randomly. If the fleet comes out in time, Shield Sheldon gets hit no matter where he is as he dives. Zero Strategy: Wait for Shield Sheldon to throw his shells at you. When Shield Sheldon is exposed, use Rakukojin. He will take significant damage, and his shells blow up. He will then teleport away. When he reappears, his shells will be back. Be sure that Zero is not directly above Sheldon when he does Rakukojin. Otherwise, Zero will take damage as well. You want to hit him off to his side a little. Even if you are completely off the mark, the anchor that materializes after landing on the ground with Rakukojin may hit Shield Sheldon as well. Without Rakukojin, Zero can perform his 3-hit saber combo for good damage. The saber can actually go through the force field, but unless it is the 3rd slash in the combo, you will probably be touching his force field and will take damage. Yammar Option also works decently. ********* Joakim Jern (joakim.jern@transcom.se): For little extra challenge, wait until he throws the shells. You can blast him 4-5 times with your Z-buster. Repeat when he is on the ground. ********* Reploids and Parts [LASERINST - REPLOIDS] 01: KAZU - LIFE UP 02: TEMPOLE 03: MIHOKEN 04: SIROMARU 05: MOCHI 06: MARL 07: DAI - ENERGY UP 08: GHOSN 09: JIN 10: MATUMARU 11: TAIJI - ENERGY SAVER 12: OMI 1213 13: HIM 14: KENZ - D. BARRIER 15: SO 1 - WEAPON PLUS 16: TACK Other Items [LASERINST - ITEMS] 1) Weapon Tank 2) Heart Tank 3) Blade Armor - Body Program INFINITY MIJINION'S STAGE - WEAPON CENTER [WEAPCNTR] Enemies [WEAPCNTR - ENEMIES] 1) Bird Aircraft Mechaniloids 2) Small Flying Laser Probe Mechaniloids Primary Area [WEAPCNTR - PRIMARY] This stage has a giant robot named Illumina trying to attack you as you travel your way through this stage. You cannot directly attack the robot. You run down a slope, jumping over some pits and grabbing horizontal and vertical ropes while under attack by Illumina, Nightmares, and enemy aircraft. This stage is short if you do not access the horizontal area. In the first section, Illumina will try to shoot at you with a giant yellow fireball. Eventually, you reach a large power cable with a red sensor. Destroy the sensor to advance. In the second section, Illumina will send forth three small flying probes. Because they move with the screen, you cannot destroy them. Meanwhile, Illumina shoots out a read targeting beam that tries to lock on to your location. If it gets a lock-on, all three probes will fire their lasers at the location. If you are in their crossfire, you will take damage. Otherwise, you can touch the lasers after they are shot. Jump or dash to make sure Illumina does not get a lock-on on you. It is possible to destroy all 3 using Zero's special techniques or X's special weapons. If you destroy all 3 probes, Illumina will reset the probes after 5-10 seconds. Thus, you cannot permanently stop Illumina's attacks. We all found out, though, that if you can leave one probe alone, Illumina does not regenerate the other two for a while. ********* Zac Shipley (Planetzac@aol.com) says: Before going to the right, walk back to the left, and you'll be able to easily destroy the probes. The screen stops scrolling, so you can get close enough to them to take them out with the Z-saber or X buster. The higher one might be a little trouble for X, but removing some of the danger from those probes makes taking on the next couple Nightmares and jumps much, much easier. Mike Molnar (CommandoKirby@aol.com) sats: With Zero, you can destroy the first two on the left by hitting them mid-air. Although it's time-consuming, if you're patient, you will eventually be able to destroy the third, by timing your attack so that the dragonflies shoot straight at it. Using X, the lower-left and right probes can be easily destroyed with his buster. The top-left is reachable by charging the Yammar Option, and letting the dragonflies fire off at all angles. Simplicio (simpliciohk@yahoo.com) says: You can take out the bottom left probe with a charged saber and use the Mach Dash to use the charged saber on the probe on the top left corner. You could use a few charged shots to take out the one on the right side of the screen. The LIM's brothers (lim_861020@yahoo.com) says: Here is how to destroy the highest laser probe of the Illumina. With Blade Armor X, Mach Dash up and do a Giga Attack facing back. If you do it correctly, the probe should be destroyed in one shot. With Zero, use Yammar Option on the ground. Then, use Hydroga to make a high jump and blast the probe with Yammar Option. ********* Eventually, you reach the second power cable. Illumina will bring down walls on the left and right sides. Laser batteries are built into the walls. Certain lasers will fire horizontally to the other side. Dodge while attacking the red sensor. Destroy this red sensor and cable, and Illumina is gone. A teleporter to the secondary area will appear in the air where Illumina was. You can either jump into the teleporter or continue to the right to face the Nightmare Investigator. Secondary Area [WEAPCNTR - SECONDARY] Jump into the teleporter when Illumina is destroyed to access the secondary area. When you reappear, go left to access an armor capsule and a Heart Tank. Then, go right to an area of horizontal and vertical ropes over a pit. A set of ropes in an upward slope, and a set of ropes go in a downward slope. Reploids and Nightmares are strewn throughout the place. As Zero, you may want to use Yammar Option to help you shoot down Nightmares quickly. The reploids are suspended in the air, some of which require you to let go of the rope, pick them up and then air dashing or mach dashing to a rope. The upper set of ropes leads to the exit. Minor Boss [WEAPCNTR - MINOR BOSS] In the first form of Illumina, Illumina will try to hit you with a very large fireball. In the second form of Illumina, Illumina will bring walls down from the sides. The walls have laser batteries, and the lasers will shoot at you in certain patterns. X Strategy: Use Meteor Rain on the red sensor on the cable. It does the most damage, and it will stun Illumina. Illumina will short-circuit when stunned. Against the second power cable, Meteor Rain will cause the side walls to explode as well as damaging and stunning Illumina. Be careful that you are not standing on the sides of the screen. If you let Illumina bring the side walls down, and you are standing underneath the falling walls, you will be fatally crushed. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: If you can avoid getting hit in the battle against the power cables for Illumina (Infinity Mijinion's stage), you can aim a charged Metal Anchor in such a way that it takes out Illumina IN ONE SHOT. Of course, to avoid being hit so that the shot is not wasted makes for a very dubious task, even with U. Buster as one of your parts. It's worth it if you can pull it off, though! Paul G. (racerboy_ph@yahoo.com) says: If you are using Ultimate Armor X, the Giga Strike (Nova Strike) will do significant damage to the red sensor. Set X on the middle, jump, then do a Nova Strike. You may also be hit after your attack. (Author's note: If you fly to far into the red sensor, you will get hit by the cable, since the cable is considered a dangerous object.) ********* Zero Strategy: Use Ensuizan on the red sensor to inflict the most damage, and it will stun Illumina. Illumina will short-circuit when stunned. Against the second power cable, Ensuizan will cause the side walls to explode as well as damaging and stunning Illumina. Be careful that you are not standing on the sides of the screen. If you let Illumina bring the side walls down, and you are standing underneath the falling walls, you will be fatally crushed. ********* Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Use Ensuizan to stun Illumina, then quickly use 2 jumping slashes. This way, you can beat each cable in about 10 seconds. ********* Boss [WEAPCNTR - BOSS] Infinity Mijinion flies slowly around. He usually will shoot a purple laser that travels slowly. When the laser is above or below you, it makes a 90-degree turn to try to hit you. Otherwise, he will clone himself. The clones will produce green bubbles that can be destroyed. The clones cannot be destroyed, so you must find the real one to damage him. He may also create small green orbs that create horizontal lines. These lines are not ropes. If you hit the orb, lasers fall from the sky, so you have to dodge them. If you do not damage the real Infinity Mijinion for a long period of time, he WILL eventually regenerate his life energy to full. X Strategy: When Infinity Mijinion dives down on the floor, he will shoot two fireballs along the ground, one going left and one going right. Using Guard Shell to deflect the fireball back at him. This does a significant amount of damage and knock him to the wall. When Infinity Mijinion flies around, he will shoot orange energy balls in eight directions. Use Guard Shell to deflect the horizontal or vertical energy balls back at him. This does a significant amount of damage and knock him to the wall. The problem with this is that this Nightmare Investigator does not always do this. You have to act fast when you see this attack pattern. If he doesn't do either of the above, he will shoot a thin purple laser that travels slowly horizontally. Jump quickly over it or dash quickly under it, because once the laser is over or under you, it will travel vertically to try to hit you. If you hit him enough times, Infinity Mijinion will be hit against the wall. He will leave a clone of himself where you hit him. Keep track of the real investigator. It is usually the one flying highest in the air. The clones will often produce lots of bubbles. You have to destroy the bubbles or you will take damage repeatedly. You can destroy the clones, but it takes a while. If you don't see an opportunity to use Guard Shell, X can use Yammar Option to destroy Infinity Mijinion's bubbles quickly and inflict some damage to the investigator. The Z-saber also works well against the bubbles. As Blade Armor X or Shadow Armor X, a charged saber slash will do decent damage and knock against the wall. Unfortunately, this will probably cause the investigator to clone himself. Zero Strategy: When Infinity Mijinion dives down on the floor, he will shoot two fireballs along the ground, one going left and one going right. Using Guard Shell to deflect the fireball back at him. This does a significant amount of damage and knock him to the wall. When Infinity Mijinion flies around, he will shoot orange energy balls in eight directions. Zero's Guard shell only appears in front of him, so use it to deflect the horizontal energy balls back at him. This does a significant amount of damage and knock him to the wall. The problem with this is that this Nightmare Investigator does not always do this. You have to act fast when you see this attack pattern. Ensuizan will take care of the green bubbles, as will Yammar Option. Both will do damage to Infinity Mijinion. ********* Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Activate the Guard Shell, then use the Z-Buster on him when the boss is close to the ground. If he creates a clone, 4 Z-Buster shots will destroy it. Use Ensuizan or a jumping slash to destroy the bubbles he may create. -twïg- (koonkii@hotmail.com) sats: You CAN destroy the clones, but they take a lot of damage, and each one has its own invincibility animation frame like the real boss. Also, each clone creates bubbles as soon as it is created. ********* Reploids and Parts [WEAPCNTR - REPLOIDS] 01: ZERDAN 02: FFF 03: DORAGOH 04: PARALLA - D. CONVERTER 05: MARION 06: VIRTUF 07: TEKK - SPEED SHOT 08: SHEN 09: FANTRON 10: GITAL - LIFE UP 11: METAL - MASTER SABER 12: ROD 13: GRANTSU - ENERGY UP 14: KURONO 15: DAVIE 16: SOSALIES Other Items [WEAPCNTR - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) Blade Armor - Arms Program BLIZZARD WOLFANG'S STAGE - NORTHPOLE AREA [NORTHPOLE] Enemies [NORTHPOLE - ENEMIES] 1) Wolf Mechaniloid 2) Soul Body X or Soul Body Zero Primary Area [NORTHPOLE - PRIMARY] This stage is an ice cavern. Initially, you must climb up an icy upward slope. You can jump really quickly to get up the hill or dash jump. Since this entire stage is ice, you will slide. When you reach certain points on the upward slope, the screen will shake indicating an avalanche. Go down the ladders to avoid the avalanche. The avalanche will inflict a lot of damage if you get hit. There are 5 avalanche areas. The first two can be avoided with the ladders. The third can be avoided by crouching beneath the rope to the right of a set of floor spikes. The fourth can be avoided by climbing to the top of the rope. The last avalanche can be avoided by climbing the last rope. Climb to the top and then you must jump onto ice pillars over pits, while avoiding vertical avalanches. Vertical avalanches do not cause the screen to shake, so you have no warning. You cannot grip the sides of these pillars. You will also slide on them, so jump immediately to stop sliding. Make your way across and stop before the downward slope, because there is a vertical avalanche. Now proceed down the slope. When you reach the bottom of the slope, ice boulders will tumble down from behind you. From where you are, you will see a ledge on the upper right of the screen. Zero can double jump to that ledge. Blade Armor X can Mach Dash to that ledge. There is an armor capsule on that ledge. If you came from Blaze Heatnix's stage, fireballs should rain from the sky and the cracked walls on the right side at the end of this downward slope should be gone. Going through the passages on the right will let you reach the secondary area. Going down the ladder will let you continue the stage. Go down the ladder and you have to kill the wolf mechaniloids while dodging tumbling ice boulders. You have to climb the upward slope. Be careful of spikes on the sides of walls. When you fall down, the left drop, dash or move to the right to avoid floor spikes. Continue along and you reach a large pit. Drop down. Ice blocks will fall down from the sky. If you get hit by the ice block, it will be destroyed, and you will take damage. Let the ice blocks fall in such way, so you can climb up the pit and reach the right side. You cannot destroy the ice blocks. Some ice blocks will have wolf mechaniloids that will attack you. You can destroy them. Then, there is a second pit. There are spikes in the side walls and spikes in the center of the floor at the bottom of the pit. Carefully drop down into the pit, to the right or left of the spikes. Ice blocks will fall down from the sky. If you get hit by the ice block, it will be destroyed, and you will take damage. Let the ice blocks fall in such way, so you can climb up the pit and reach the right side. You cannot destroy the ice blocks. Some ice blocks will have wolf mechaniloids that will attack you. You can destroy them. Once past this second pit, climb up a ladder. A series of horizontal blocks will fall from the sky. Notice there is a one-block gap in each set of falling blocks jump through the gap and stay on top of the ice blocks. Once the set of blocks touches ground, the gap is filled with ice. If you are in the gap when that happens, it will cause instant death. You cannot destroy or climb the blocks from the side. You must jump up through the gaps while the ice blocks fall down. Along the sides of the wall are reploids you can rescue, but you must move quickly or risk getting trapped and killed by the ice blocks filling up the gaps. Zero's double jump is easiest to maneuver through this. Blade Armor X can also Mach Dash through this. A Jumper part will also work. Otherwise, you must carefully jump on the top of the ice blocks when a set of ice blocks is almost touching ground. Once you make it to the top, head to the boss on the right. Secondary Area [NORTHPOLE - SECONDARY] If you came from Blaze Heatnix's stage, fireballs should rain from the sky and the cracked walls on the right side at the end of the first downward slope should be gone. Going through the passages on the right will let you reach the secondary area. They both go to the same area, but go through the lower one to be able to jump onto a ledge with two wolf reploids to be rescued and a Heart Tank. There will be a pit to your right and a ledge on the other side. Jumping over to the ledge will allow you to reach the teleporter. The sides of the pit and the floor of the pit is riddled with spikes. Shadow Armor X can go through this. An EX Tank is on the bed of spikes at the bottom as well as a wolf reploid to be rescued. Otherwise, you must let a Nightmare hit you. While invincible, drop down the pit, dash right to get the EX Tank and get to safety. Climb the ladder, air dash through the narrow hole to get back to where you were. Jump into the teleporter. When you reappear, you must go down an icy slope. It is so icy that you cannot readily go back up. You must dash jump to go back up. As you slide down, there are floor spikes and pits that you must carefully avoid. At the end of the slope, there is a veritcal rope you can jump to grab it. The entire floor is riddled with spikes. You must dash jump or air dash to the right to safety and the door. If you are Shadow Armor X, you can go on the spikes and go left through the passageway to rescue a wolf reploid. The passageway is also filled with floor spikes and is so long that there is no way to get hit and use the invincibility to get through that. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For the long spiked corridor, if you have Ultimate Armor X, it is possible to use the Giga Attack (Nova Strike) many times to fly through that corridor. ********* Boss [NORTHPOLE - BOSS] Blizzard Wolfang will try to pounce on you or run into you. Just keep away a certain distance and let him make his move first. When he lands, hit him. If his mouth glows a blue sphere, he will shoot blue spheres at you. Dodge them by jumping or dashing. He may also leep to the ceiling or grab the walls and do the same thing. Blizzard Wolfang may also call forth blue orbs from the sides of the screen. As these blue orbs travel towards the center of the screen, they drop icicles to the ground and ceiling. You can destroy these, but you will take damage if hit by them. X Strategy: Magma Blade will do the most damage and stun the investigator. Since Magma Blade shoot fireballs, you can use this move from a distance. Magma Blade will destroy all his icicles as well. He seems only to take damage when stationary. If he runs along on the ground, he does not seem to take damage. Zero Strategy: Shoenzan will do the most damage and stun the investigator. You have to be close to do this, so you might want to try hit and run tactics. He seems only to take damage when stationary. If he runs along on the ground, he does not seem to take damage. ********* Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Once you get him to use the Ice Burst, you can blast away with the Z-Buster, and he normally won't break out of using Ice Burst. You can normally defeat him quicker with the Z-Buster than with Shoenzan. J. Scriba 5 (senkojin05@yahoo.com) says: When battling Blizzard Wolfang, a charged Magma Blade can kill him in 5-7 hits even when he is moving! ********* Reploids and Parts [NORTHPOLE - REPLOIDS] 01: MORINGA 02: CODY 03: RYU - SHOT ERASER 04: GUY 05: KEN - ENERGY UP 06: NINA - WEAPON DRIVE 07: BATSU 08: DATA 09: REGINA 10: LEON 11: CHUN - LIFE UP 12: SAM 13: NARUHO 14: DANTE - JUMPER 15: GOMEZ 16: ARTHUR Other Items [NORTHPOLE - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) EX Tank 3) Shadow Armor - Leg Program BLAZE HEATNIX'S STAGE - MAGMA AREA [MAGMA] Enemies [MAGMA - ENEMIES] 1) Gnat Mechaniloid Primary Area [MAGMA - PRIMARY] This stage is in a volcano area. You have to fight a red ring-shaped Mechaniloid with green orbs attached to it 5 times throughout the stage. When you first arrive, drop down into the large pit to fight the mechaniloid for the first time. The weak points are the green sensors attached to it. It will slide back and forth trying to collide with you and shoot green energy balls at you. You can crouch in the little trenches to avoid colliding with it, but the enemy projectiles may still hit you. Defeat it and proceed to a green area. Flamethrowers shoot out flames in set patterns and timing. The flames do a tremendous amount of damage if you get hit. Make your way down the vertical passageway, negotiating the path though the flamethrowers. You will eventually drop into a cavern with the mini-boss again. The cavern is a large space with a large rock platform in the middle, forming a loop. The mini-boss will move around this loop in a counter-clockwise directions. You can climb the walls and the middle platform as you will. You can also crouch to let the mini-boss pass you by, but you may be hit by its projectiles. Destroy it a second time and proceed right. You will reach a vertical area where there is an upper and lower door. You will notice the ceiling is quite high above the upper door. Either one leads you to the mini-boss again. Above the upper door, however, leads to a capsule and the secondary area. Depending on which stage you previously came, there may be a metallic block that will materialize and then move up and down near the upper door. Jump on it and before reaching the top, have X dash jump to the sides of the ledge and climb up. Zero can double jump. Be careful not to wait too long or the metallic block will push you against the ceiling, causing significant damage. If the metallic block is not there, only Blade Armor X can reach that area. Blade Armor X must climb the either side wall, jump off the wall near the top, then perform a Mach Dash to get to the ledge. If you choose not to peruse the secondary area, going through the upper and lower doors will lead you to the mini-boss. This time, the mini-boss will slide on the sloped floor in the long cavern. There are vertical ropes that you can grab to help you leap over the mini-boss as it comes by or if there is enough clearance, you can hang onto the rope and let it pass by you. Destroy it again and proceed right. You will reach a vertical passageway with a lot of little platforms. Purple magma will rise up from the ground. Jump to a platform. The mini-boss will rise up from the magma, so jump to the side opposite it to attack. It will shoot at you and then go back down into the magma. It will then rise up on the opposite side it was on. Jump to the opposite side of it and attack it. Be sure to keep jumping upwards, because the magma is always rising. Touching the magma is fatal. Defeat it and the magma will recede. Climb to the top and go through a door. When you go through to the next section, you will fall down. Immediately move yourself so you land on the rock platform and not fall into the magma. Like the mini-boss of Split Mushroom's Stage in Megaman X4, this mini-boss will follow the same pattern. It will maneuver horizontally until it is underneath you, and then it will rise up and attack you. Jump to another platform and attack. When the mini-boss rises, it will not destroy the rock platform. Defeat it for the last time and proceed right. You will reach the Nightmare Investigator soon. Secondary Area [MAGMA - SECONDARY] After you defeat the mini-boss for the second time, you will reach a vertical passageway with two doors on the right which lead to the third mini-boss fight. Jump to the ledge with the upper door. You notice you can climb either of the side walls and see two ledge extending from the side walls with a gap between them. Depending on which stage you previously came, there may be a metallic block that will materialize and then move up and down near the upper door. Jump on it and before reaching the top, have X dash jump to the sides of the ledge and climb up. Zero can double jump. Be careful not to wait too long or the metallic block will push you against the ceiling, causing significant damage. If the metallic block is not there, only Blade Armor X can reach that area. Blade Armor X must climb the either side wall, jump off the wall near the top, then perform a Mach Dash to get to the ledge. Go to the right to access the teleporter to the secondary area. In this secondary area, you must climb up a green vertical passageway. There are flamethrowers in the area, so you should move cautiously. An Energy Tank is in plain sight for you to get. Near the top are a series of alternating ledges. Unfortunately, each ledge is protected by a flamethrower. You can try timing the flamethrowers and jumping on each ledge in turn, but it could be tricky as the flamethrowers do not stay inactive for long. Otherwise, the easier option would be to wall jump on the side of each ledge, like the triangular jumps of Strider Hiryu. Jump towards the side of one ledge, then jump to the side of the opposite ledge. Repeat this until you get to the top. Get to the top, and go through the door to fight the boss. Minor Boss [MAGMA - MINOR BOSS] The Red Ring-shaped Mechaniloid fights you five times in Blaze Heatnix's stage. It will vary its attack pattern in each case. Its only attacks are to shoot green energy spheres at you and to collide with you. You must attack the four green sensors on the enemy. One sensor is destroyed for each 1/4 life energy you deplete from it. The green green energy spheres can be destroyed. X Strategy: X's Falcon Armor Giga Attack works, but it is not quite as effective as Zero's Rekkoha. If the Giga beams hit in the green orbs on the Mechaniloid precisely, you can make the Mechaniloid lose 1/2 of its full life energy. Otherwise, you may try Blade Armor's Giga Attack. Get as close as you can to one of the green sensors and use it. The crescent slashes will just reach the sensor on the opposite side. Shadow Armor X's Giga Attack will work as well. Otherwise, you can use Meteor Rain or a charged Metal Anchor. Zero Strategy: Zero's Rekkoha works very well on the round Mechaniloid in Blaze Heatnix's stage. If Rekkoha's ray arrows fall in the green orbs on the Mechaniloid precisely, you can make the Mechaniloid lose 2/3 to 3/4 of its full life enregy. Otherwise, you can use regular saber slashes or Rakukojin. Ensuizan is very good for destroy the energy spheres. ********* Joe2k1701@aol.com says: It's possible to destroy this boss with one use of Rekkoha. It's timing and luck. Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: The Ring Mechaniloid midboss in Blaze Heatnix's stage, can be easily destroyed, with a full charged Metal Anchor. Note that you should always turn your back on the enemy whenever you decide to use this move. The Storm Eagles come from the corner behind X, which is the area that hit the most. Mew Seeker (cadieux_philippe@hotmail.com) says: You can also destroy the Red Ring-shaped Mechaniloid with a charged Meteor Rain. It's not easy, but when you manage to hit him, it can easily lose half of its energy. ********* Boss [MAGMA - BOSS] Blaze Heatnix's chamber is divided into a top and bottom section by three platforms. He starts off at the top section. Whichever section he is in, he will draw forth magma in the other section. When he is in the top section, he will try to throw fireballs at you. If the fireballs hit the platforms or lava, they explode into smaller fireballs and disperse. You can get hit by either the large or small ones. When he is in the bottom section, he will try to ram you by flying low or high. You can dash jump over him if he flies low, but be careful not to jump too high, or you will touch the magma. You can dash under him if he flies high. He will also try to shoot crescent flames at you. You can dash under these. If the magma recedes and he flies off the screen, he will change into a huge phoenix and try to fly in the section that you were located. It covers about 2/3 of the total height of the screen, so you do not have much room to dodge. It is best to stay in the bottom section and dash underneath the phoenix. X Strategy: Ground Dash will do the most damage and stun him, but it is a slow weapon. If you let Blaze Heatnix shoot his fireballs, it may cancel out the Ground Dash and cause you not to hit him. This weapon might be best used at close range to ensure you will hit him. Otherwise, Meteor Rain bubbles will do decent damage. Zero Strategy: Using Ensuizan will damage and stun Blaze Heatnix. It does not do the most damage, but stunning Blaze Heatnix gives you time to get out of the way. Sentsuizan does the most damage, but it is hard to use because of the fatal magma. You could accidentally dive into the magma in the top section or simply run into Blaze Heatnix. The best time to use Sentsuizan is in the bottom section. Make sure you are not too close to Blaze Heatnix and use this move. This move will also stun the investigator. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: The Magma Flame which Blaze Heatnix summons is not fatal. It will deal heavy damage, though. Nick (nickwhiz1@buckeye-express.com) says: Unusually, any attack that causes damage to Blaze Heatnix will temporarily stun him, even the Z-Buster. So, from a distance, blast the boss with the Z-Buster. Even if Blaze Heatnix is too high to hit him, the Z-Buster will instantly destroy the fireballs he shoots. When he goes low, then you can use either the Z-Buster or Sentsuizan. ********* Reploids and Parts [MAGMA - REPLOIDS] 01: CLARMON 02: CHIBON - BUSTER PLUS 03: KASSY 04: BANDO 05: YUKI 06: HAGI 07: MODS 08: TAZACK 09: FUJI 10: HATORI - LIFE UP 11: HAYATO 12: AKKY 13: HIGURAI - ENERGY UP 14: HAL - POWERDRIVE 15: KEIJI - U. BUSTER 16: TATSUYA Other Items [MAGMA - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) Energy Tank 3) Shadow Armor - Arms Program METAL SHARK PLAYER'S STAGE - RECYCLE LAB [RECYLAB] Enemies [RECYLAB - ENEMIES] 1) Metools 2) Large Broken Green Mechaniloids Primary Area [RECYLAB - PRIMARY] There is a compactor at the top of the screen. It will go up and down in timed intervals. If you are in an area where you cannot avoid the compactor, you will be fatally crushed. At the beginning of the stage is the Raiden ride armor from Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. Its controls are the same as in previous games. While seated in the ride armor, the compactor cannot crush you. The compactor simply stops on top of the ride armor. Use the ride armor to travel through the area. Eventually, a high junk pile will prevent you from using the ride armor any longer. You must disembark and move on foot. There will be shallow areas in the ground where you can crouch to avoid the compactor. If you do not use the ride armor to prop up the compactor, do not use any special weapons that cause you to stand. Do not dash, because you will stand up at the end of the dash. If you do this while the compactor is fully lowered, you will be fatally crushed. Get down the first ladder, and make your way left. A new compactor will try to crush you. Again, move carefully through the area, destroying enemies and dashing to cover more ground. Find safe spots where you can wait for the compactor to raise itself. When you get to the next ladder, stop. You can go down the ladder to continue the stage or you can go left to reach the secondary area. The path to the secondary area is long. There is a Nightmare in the way. You can try to kill it and run back to safety or you can dash through. You will take a hit, but the invincibility should last long enough for you to get through. For now, go down the ladder and take the teleporter. Read the next section about the secondary area. You will now be heading right. You are on a conveyor belt moving left. You must travel to the right, destroying enemies along the way and finding safe spots to avoid the compactor. There is now the added obstacle of spikes placed on the junk piles and on parts of the compactor. If you came from Blizzard Wolfang's stage, there are now ice patches on some junk piles. Be careful not to slide into spikes. With the ice, the area is much more difficult to navigate. After you get past the first junk pile, three junk boxes will come down the conveyor belt. Destroy them or jump over them. If they back you into the junk pile behind you, you will be fatally crushed. You will eventually see a bed of spikes on the left side of a junk pile. Zero can double-jump over the spikes. X will need to cling to the side of compactor overhang and dash jump from the wall. There are more spikes and longer paths between safety spots, so it will take all your skill and perhaps a few tries to get it right. If you can navigate with the ice patches, congratulations. Eventually, you reach a clearing on the conveyor belt. The mini-boss will make a sudden appearance. ********* Mike Molnar (CommandoKirby@aol.com) says: The ceiling stops when it hits the Raiden ride armor, even if X or Zero is not in it. By placing the armor on the highest point in the beginning, you make it so that the ceiling cannot come down far enough to fatally injure you, no matter where you may be standing. You can even stand in the areas you would normally need to crouch. When you reach the second ladder going down, go left instead. This path to the secondary area is longer than the previous sections. There is a Nightmare in the way. You can try to kill it, run back to safety, and wait for the compactor to start to raise itself before dashing through the path. You can dash also just dash through the path once the compactor starts to rise. You will take a hit, but the invincibility should last long enough for you to get through. In either case, do not wait until compactor is fully raised, or you will not make it across the path. Go down the ladder. You will fall down into the next chamber. If you came from Ground Scaravich's stage, there will be red, black, and blue blocks. Use Ground Dash to destroy the red block and push the black and blue blocks to the ledge overlooking the wide pit. You should be able to make a little extension of the ledge. Then, you can dash jump across and barely grab the other ledge. If you came from any other stage, there will be no blocks. As I see it, you cannot cross this wide pit without a Speedster part and a Hyper Dash part. As Blade Armor X, you can Mach Dash over the wide pit barely. Once you get to the other side, you will find a reploid, an armor capsule, and a teleporter to the secondary area. Jim Hearl (jdog_34609@yahoo.com) says: To get across the pit, walk to the edge and destroy the Nightmares in front of you. Now, back up a few steps and fire the Ice Burst towards the ledge. If it goes over the ledge and into the pit, back up and try again. Keep shooting until you end up with an ice block that "looks" like it's floating next to the ledge (you'll have to experiment with the Ice Burst to find the exact range since there is no landmark to tell you where to stand - I kept shooting off the ledge and taking a step back to find the exact spot). Now, jump on the block and dash jump (NOT jump in the air and dash as that will have you falling short and dying) over to the other side. You'll have to wait for the very last second to press the jump button and be prepared to start jumping on the other side's ledge when you grab, since you will be close to falling off. It's tough, but it can be done. Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For X, just set up the Ice Burst so that it is on the edge of the platform, hop on it, hop off it toward the ledge, and use Blade Armor's Mach Dash or Ultimate Armor's Giga Attack (Nova Strike) to cross the pit! Grady Low (aznsmallfries@hotmail.com) says: For X, equip Magma Blade. You dash jump first, and when you are in front of the ledge on the other side, keep using Magma Blade. Each Magma Blade moves you forward, so once you get close enough to the ledge, climb up the wall, and get the capsule. ********* Secondary Area [RECYLAB - SECONDARY] The secondary area has a moving conveyor belt. You must travel to the right while the conveyor belt moves to the left. Do not get scrolled off the screen or you will die. Embark on the Raiden ride armor and use it to prevent getting fatally crushed. Use the ride armor to destroy enemies along the way and to dash along the conveyor belt. Watch out for spikes on some parts of the compactor. Near the exit are two Nightmares and a reploid. One Nightmare is very close to the reploid. It is almost impossible to get to the reploid or attack that Nightmare without getting the reploid infected. You may need a Giga Attack, a charged Metal Anchor, or a charged Meteor Rain to attack the Nightmares before they can do any harm. Go through the door to fight the boss here. Minor Boss [RECYLAB - MINOR BOSS] You will be fighting the Compactor Mechaniloid on a moving conveyor belt. The conveyor belt always moves left. The enemy takes up the top section of the screen. First, the enemy will lower its arms on the side of the screen. These arms serve like walls, but at the end of each arm is a damaging spike. This spike will do damage if touched. It will then drop a bombs that roll along the conveyor belt and then explode jump over them. A rectangular unit consisting of 6 sensors, 3 on each side, will lower down from the compactor. If the unit lands on you, you will receive a lot of damage. The unit's sensors will shoot lasers horizontally or protrude damaging spikes. It is very difficult not to receive damage in this situation. To damage the compactor, attack the purple sensor (thanks to -twïg-, koonkii@hotmail.com for that tip). You can climb up the side of the unit and the arms to help you avoid lasers. At some point, the rectangular unit and the arms will retract. It will then try to come down and crush you like the compactor in the previous areas. Crouch down to avoid being fatally crushed. When the compactor rises, the arms will come down. Avoid getting fatally crushed by the arms. As it runs out of life energy, it will speed up. The rectangular unit is lowered and raised faster. Once the enemy is destroyed, you will be at the door to the investigator of the stage. X Strategy: As Shadow Armor X, use your Giga Attack on the sensors. Otherwise, use your charged saber. The shuriken shots do not inflict a lot of damage. As Blade Armor X, use the Giga Attack on the sensors to inflict damage. You can even Mach Dash at the sensors to inflict damage. As Falcon Armor X, the Giga Attack will inflict damage to the sensors. You can even air dash at the sensors to inflict damage. All weapons, except Guard Shell, seem to damage the sensors. Ray Arrow and Meteor Rain work well, because they can travel vertically, attacking an array of 3 sensors on each side. Yammar Option also works well, because they can shoot several shots. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: With X, the Meteor Rain seems to work nicely against that stupid trash compactor miniboss in the Metal Shark Player's stage. The CHARGED Guard Shell also works well. Sir Gustav (the_inconceivable_mongoose@hotmail.com) says: If you use the charged Metal Anchor (Storm Eagle attack) on the compactor in Metal Shark Player's stage, it does a lot of damage to it. ********* Zero Strategy: Ensuizan, Shoenzan, Kuuenzan (jumping somersault slash), and the 3-hit saber combo work well. You can use Rekkoha as well. Otherwise, Yammar Option will also help. Boss [RECYLAB - BOSS] Metal Shark Player will leap to the sides of the screen and float while tossing anchors at you. Those anchors can bounce really high, so watch where they are going. He can also dive vertically to the ground and "swim" along the ground. Dash jump over him when he does this. Once he is underneath you, he will stand up, which is why you need to jump higher than his height to avoid colliding with him. He can dive vertically into the ground and "swim" underneath it. While he is swimming, you can see his fin while junk will be thrown up. The fin can damage you, and he will try to rise up from underneath you, so avoid the fin. Once he loses a lot of his life energy, he will summon junk together to assemble past Maverick bosses in undead form. Sting Chameleon, Magna Centipede, and Blast Hornet are some of the Mavericks he can summon. Which Maverick boss he summons seems to depend on whether you are fighting him as X or Zero and the difficulty level. He remains stationary while the undead Maverick attacks you. The undead Maverick cannot be damaged, so focus your attacks on the investigator. X Strategy: Meteor Rain will do the most damage and stun the investigator. If the investigator is in the air, get next to him and shoot Meteor Rain. Without it, you can use charged shots and Z-saber slashes to do decent damage. Zero Strategy: Ensuizan will do the most damage and stun the investigator. If the investigator is in the air, jump up next to him and perform Ensuizan. Without it, you can use 3-hit saber slashes to do decent damage. If the investigator is in the air, double jump and perform Kuuenzan (jumping somersault slash) next to him. Reploids and Parts [RECYLAB - REPLOIDS] 01: HEIZER 02: QUAPPI 03: ZIGZAG 04: DALIHI 05: MALON 06: WRIGHT - ENERGY UP 07: LEINO 08: NAKADAI 09: MIECHA 10: EIJI 11: TOSHI - SHOCK BUFFER 12: INARIA - HYPERDRIVE 13: DEVILISH 14: KIKUTURK - LIFE UP 15: DAJANGO - SABER EXTEND 16: BAMBU Other Items [RECYLAB - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) Shadow Armor - Head Program GROUND SCARAVICH'S STAGE - CENTRAL MUSEUM [CENTMUSM] Enemies [CENTMUSM - ENEMIES] 1) Totem Pole Mechaniloid 2) Totem Stump Primary Area [CENTMUSM - PRIMARY] Ground Scaravich's stage is bizzare. You will see 4 phantom totem pole mechaniloids through this stage. As you go through each one, you will be teleported to a limbo area. Each phantom totem pole mechaniloid can teleport you to one of two limbo areas. Therefore, you may need to go through this stage several times to find everything. Also, try coming back here after traveling through Rainy Turtloid's stage. Some of the phantom totem pole mechaniloids take you to different limbo areas. Within the limbo areas, brown round and square rocks will try to collide with you. Brown rocks fly towards you. Round rocks fall to the ground and roll towards you. There are also spikes. Blue blocks obstruct your path. Destroy them to advance. If you came from Metal Shark Player's stage, metallic blocks also get in the way. A charged Metal Anchor will destroy them. Before the fourth phantom totem pole mechaniloid, there are spikes and two ropes. Be careful not to fall into the spikes. Note: One of the limbo areas that the second phantom totem pole mechaniloid has this very familiar setup. CEILING _______________________________ | | | | | | ---- | | | | # ---- ----% ---------- | *| PIT | Wall - Areas where you can stand _____ Ceiling As Falcon Armor X, you will need to slide down the left side of the wall, designated by # in the drawing, and then fall to the right. Right before you fall into the pit (before the X sprite completely goes off screen), air dash to cling to the right ledge's side wall, designated by *. Wall climb up the side wall to the ledge. As Blade Armor X, you can use the technique for Falcon Armor, except you use a Mach Dash instead. You can also just jump off the left ledge, designated by %, and then Mach Dash across the pit. drawing, and then fall to the right. As Zero, you will need to slide down the left side of the wall, designated by # in the drawing, and then fall to the right. Right before you fall into the pit (before the X sprite completely goes off screen), double-jump to cling to the right ledge's side wall, designated by *. Wall climb up the side wall to the ledge. As Shadow Armor X, I think you are stuck, since this armor has no air dash. No part seems to help Shadow Armor X traverse the pit. I think this is a design flaw by Capcom. Secondary Area [CENTMUSM - SECONDARY] The teleporter to the secondary area can be accessed by going through the third phantom totem pole mechaniloid. Because of the additional limbo areas you can go with each phantom totem pole mechaniloid, you may need to go through this stage a couple of times. Boss [CENTMUSM - BOSS] Ground Scaravich pushes a boulder at you. The boulder starts off small. If he goes off-screen. He will return with possibly a larger boulder. He keeps repeating this until the boulder is incredibly large, almost taking the height of the entire screen. While the boulders can be destroyed, the large ones will take too much time to destroy. You can use the ropes to help jump over the boulders Ground Scaravich pushes at you. X Strategy: If you have Yammar Option, shoot at him. The Yammar shots will go through his boulder to hit him. If the boulder is small, you can also get behind him and shoot him. The investigator will take damage, be stunned, and then run off screen. He may or may not push a large boulder. If the boulder he pushes becomes really large, get as close as you can and use Yammar Option. Although the dragonfly mechaniloids will eventually be destroyed by contacting the boulder, the shots will reach the investigator. Once Ground Scaravich has been stunned and damage, the Yammar Option will destroy the boulders quicker than with any other weapon. Without it, if you hit Ground Scaravich early on while he is pushing a small boulder, X's Z-Saber goes through the boulder to hit Ground Scaravich. It will often knock over Ground Scaravich, forcing him to run away to get another boulder. Zero Strategy: If you have Yammar Option, jump behind him and shoot at him. The investigator will take damage, knock him over, and run off screen. If the boulder he pushes becomes really large, get as close as you can and use Yammar Option. Although the dragonfly mechaniloids will eventually be destroyed by touching the boulder, the shots will reach the investigator. Once Ground Scaravich has been stunned and damage, the Yammar Option will destroy the boulders quicker than with any other weapon. Without it, Zero's 3-hit saber combo is the way to go. Reploids and Parts [CENTMUSM - REPLOIDS] 01: GOLD 02: ULTA 03: KOI 04: MEGAMI 05: PL 98 - LIFE UP 06: HEAVEN 7 07: TSUKI - SPEEDSTER 08: MAY 09: BRO - QUICK CHARGE 10: RYNO 11: DUNGAR 12: CHOP 13: HOME - ENERGY UP 14: REYHER 15: PHANTOM 16: MARS - OVERDRIVE Other Items [CENTMUSM - ITEMS] 1) Heart Tank 2) Blade Armor - Head Program GATE LABORATORY 1 [GATELAB1] Enemies [GATELAB1 - ENEMIES] 1) Wolf Mechaniloid 2) Red Four-Legged Slinky Mechaniloid 3) Bat Mechaniloid 4) Three-Cannon Missile Launcher Mechaniloid Primary Area [GATELAB1 - PRIMARY] You may wish to equip the Jumper and Speedster parts for this stage. Gate's Laboratory 1 is the first final stage that will test your acrobatic skills to the limits. I have never seen this many fatal hazards before. If you can navigate this stage without Shadow Armor X or dying once, you are one of the masters of this game. It is a good thing the game controls are responsive. Travel right, and you will see a huge pit. Drop into the pit. Then, travel right again and you will see a vertical passageway that looks like this picture (diagram based from Billy Cheng's drawing): REST OF LEVEL... > ----------- > < > < > < ---------- < > < > < ---------- < > < > < > < > ----------- > < > < > ----------- > < > < > < ---------- < > < > < --------------------- < # % < < ---------- < | < | * < | --------------------------------------- Legend: < or > Spike | Wall - Areas where you can stand _____ Ceiling * - Where Zero should stand. # Where Hydroga would position Zero % Where you want Zero to go In this section, all the side walls have spikes that are fatal when touched. The ceilings, however, have no spikes. As Zero: Position Zero near the edge of the ledge above, designated by * on the picture. Use Hydroga to high jump to the ceiling and cling to it. Now, press the dash button, and you will dash horizontally over the spikes and land on the horizontal ledge on the other side of where you were, designated by % on the picture. Repeat this process to you climb up this vertical passageway. As Shadow Armor X: This is a no-brainer. With this armor's ability to touch spikes without suffering death, you can wall climb the spikes directly. If you want to practice not touching the spikes anyway, use the Shadow Armor's high jump ability, and while on the ceiling, dash to safety. This will help get practice in navigating the same area with Zero. As Falcon Armor X or unarmored X: X will need the Jumper part and Ice Burst. Use Ice Burst at a distance such that the ice block lands near the edge of the ledges. Quickly jump on the block and then jump up. The Jumper part should give you enough vertical height to clear the spikes. When you can clear the spikes, air dash to safety, if you are Falcon Armor X, or push right to send unarmored X to safety. You will, however, have to be careful with your high jump. It is possible to jump straight up into the spikes sticking out of the ledges. ********* Art Siriamonthep (soythaininja@hotmail.com) says: As Zero, you can double-jump to the first ledge without hitting the spikes. To jump to all the other ledges, you have to let Zero get hit by an enemy. While invincible, you can double-jump to the next ledge, or wall jump off some spikes. Repeat the process. This works if you have collected most of the Heart Tanks for Zero. ********* At the top of this vertical passageway, move right. You will see an icy downard slope. There are laser batteries set up in the ceiling to shoot at various parts of the slope. They shoot in regular intervals, so move down the slope cautiously. You need to jump some pits along the downward slope. At the bottom of the slope, you will need to dash jump (anybody), mach dash (Blade Armor X), double-jump (Zero), or air dash (Falcon Armor X) over the pit to reach the ledge on the right. You now will see a vertical passageway. Laser batteries and red four-legged slinky mechaniloids will obstruct your travel. The laser batteries shoot at opposite sides of the wall to form a crossfire over the middle platform, so you may find it more convenient to wall jump the ledges instead. Climb to the top and head right. More laser batteries are installed on the ceilings and floors to hinder your travels. More enemies obstruct you way. Make your way to the right and you will reach what seems to be a boss door. Go through that and you will find yourself in a room with two ledges and middle platform over a pit. The game will stop, and magma will rise from the bottom and stop just below where you are standing. This magma is fatal if touched. Once you regain control, quickly make your way to the other side and wall climb the wall on the right side all the way to the top. Use dash jumps, mach dashes, or air dashes to cover more ground as you need to get to that side wall quickly. The magma will rise about 3/4 of the screen, but you will be safe at the top of the screen. The magma will rise and fall like an ocean tide, so get to the other door as carefully as possible. If you cannot get to the other side, you can try wall climbing the left side wall, but then you still need to make your way to the right. Go through this door. Travel right and the screen will stop once again. The fatal magma rises again and stops right below you. Once you regain control, wall climb the left wall and climb up quickly as the magma will rise. Zero can double-jump to the wall, Blade Armor X can mach dash to the wall, Shadow Armor X can use his high jump ability to reach the wall. Falcon Armor X and unarmored X should be equipped with the Jumper part to be able to reach this wall. Climb up to reach the large horizontal platform. The magma will not rise to here, so you are safe. Watch the magma rise and fall. As the magma falls, follow behind it carefully, climbing down the ladders and dashing to cover more ground. Climb down another ladder and dash right quickly. When you get to the next screen, you will see an icy upward slope. The fatal magma will rise once again and stop below you. Once you regain control, dash jump up the icy slope (or jump really fast) to stay ahead of the magma. Unfortuantely, the screen will not scroll faster than the speed of the magma's ascent. If you are pushing against the top of the screen, you are well ahead of the magma. Quickly climb up the ladder and dash jump across the gap to get to the left side. Climb up that ladder and move right. You will see a platform occupied by a wolf mechaniloid. While it is possible to destroy it before jumping to the platform, you may just want to collide with it and kill it on the platform to save time. Jump to the right ledge and enter the door. You are now at the boss. If you made it without Shadow Armor X and without dying, congratulations! ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: As Zero, you can double jump like crazy up the upward icy slope to stay ahead of the magma. Likewise, you can continue to dash jump through this section until you get to the door. ********* Boss [GATELAB1 - BOSS] These are two large square cells. In the center of each cell is a metallic nucleus. This is the weak point of the boss. It seems Gate was inspired by a familiar enemy from Megaman X5... These cells have various attack patterns. This will be a tough fight without some parts and weapons. While the nuclei are inside the cells, they cannot be damaged. Only when the nuclei are exposed outside of the cell to attack can they be damaged. When you do enough damage to the Twin Cells, one nucleus will be destroyed. The cell it was in will remain, and it will still do damage to you if you touch it. The cells will move along the perimeter of the room to collide with you. You will need to dash jump to the side wall and dash jump off the wall to get enough horizontal clearance to avoid colliding with the cells. For Zero, Blade Armor X, and Falcon Armor X, they can jump from the wall and air dash. While the cells generally follow each other around the perimeter of the room, they do not have to do so. Each can move independently around the perimeter. If the twin cells stop on the ground, one cell will shoot blue orbs at you while the other cell will call forth a fireball shower. If you are caught in between the cells, you have almost no chance of avoiding the attacks. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: When both cells are on the ground, they sometimes just shoot the blue orbs. ********* If the twin cells stop on the side walls, they can do one of the following: A) They will shoot blue energy orbs that fly to your current position. When the blue energy orbs land on the ground, they travel along the ground. B) One cell will shoot blue energy orbs that fly to your current position. When the blue energy orbs land on the ground, they travel along the ground. The other cell will shoot a single fireball to the ground. When the fireball hits the ground, it creates a flame blanket on the ground. You have no choice but to move to the side wall. The flame blanket does a lot of damage. If the twin cells stop on the top wall, they can do one of the following: A) They will shoot large blue spark orbs that travel horizontally in either direction. The blue spark orbs emit a vertical lightning bolt that will reach the ground. You need to stand between the lightning bolts to avoid damage, but it is very difficult. B) One cell shoot large blue spark orbs that travel horizontally in either direction. The blue spark orbs emit a vertical lightning bolt that will reach the ground. You need to stand between the lightning bolts to avoid damage, but it is very difficult. The other cell will shoot blue energy orbs that fly to your current position. When the blue energy orbs land on the ground, they travel along the ground. If the twin cells stop in opposite corners, one cell will shoot blue orbs at you while the other cell will call forth a fireball shower. If you are caught in between the cells, you have almost no chance of avoiding the attacks. Once you destroy one nucleus, the attack pattern changes. Occasionally, the coreless cell will stop and simply try to drop itself on you. The other cell, however, will still resume its attacks, although it can only use one type of attack at a time. This battle will be long. X Strategy: As Shadow Armor X, the Giga Attack inflicts significant damage on the nuclei. Once you exhaust the Giga Attack, use your charged saber slash to defeat this boss. As any other form of X, Metal Anchor does damage to this boss. A charged Metal Anchor works as well. Charged buster shots and Z-saber slashes will work as well. Zero Strategy: The twin cells seem to be built to resist Zero's attack. Rekkoha does no damage to this boss, but it can serve to provide you a couple seconds of invulnerability. Ensuizan does no damage to this boss. Hydroga cannot be used. Rakukojin will do damage to this boss as does regular saber slashes. Much of this fight will be attributed to luck as you will rely on the position of the twin cells and where they extrude their nuclei. Sentsuizan will do damage, but it is incredibly awkward to use. ********* Geito (cressx@edsamail.com.ph) says: It's possible to use Sensuizan's flight path to dodge the Twin Cells as they travel around the perimeter of the room. It's difficult but doable. PeteDC271655147@aol.com says: Shoenzan does not inflict damage to the Twin Cells boss. John-Paul Walton (jwalton@four09.org) says: It's possible to avoid the cells' movement around the room by using the "ceiling jump" which is higher than jumping even with the jumper part. You must ceiling-jump right as the cell start to move, and immediately afterwards start moving in the opposite direction from the cell on the floor. The jump will not make it all the way to the ceiling, but it will clear the cell, and it will move under you. Then, your fall will continue to move you to the other side of the cell. The timing is very precise, as you have to jump right when the cell starts moving. This is really just useful with the shadow armor, as it has no air-dash. ********* GATE LABORATORY 2, SECTION 1 [GATELAB2SEC1] Enemies [GATELAB2SEC1 - ENEMIES] 1) Blue Spherical Spark Mechaniloids 2) Three-Cannon Missile Launcher Mechaniloid 3) Totem Pole Mechaniloid Primary Area [GATELAB2SEC1 - PRIMARY] Gate's Laboratory 2 will test your acrobatic skills to the limits even more than Gate's Laboratory 1. I have never seen this many fatal hazards before. If you can navigate this stage without Shadow Armor X or dying once, you are one of the masters of this game. Gate's Laboratory 2 has two sections. You must beat both sections to end the stage. There is no opportunity to save in between sections. High Max is the boss of the first section. Gate will challenge you in the second section. When you begin this stage, there is a vertical passageway. The sides of the the passageway and ledges are rigged with fatal spikes. You must use the ropes to make your way up the passageway. Brown square blocks from Ground Scaravich's stage will materialize and try to collide with you on the ropes. Use either dash jumps or air dash to get from rope to rope. There are ledges on which you can stand safely, but they are very close to spikes on the side walls, so be careful. At one part of the vertical passageway, you must get from the rope you are grabbing to the next rope positioned to the right of you. The horizontal ledge below that rope has fatal spikes. As Zero, you can double-jump to the next rope. As non-Shadow Armor X, you will need to dash jump or air dash to that rope. You may need a high jump of hyper dash part. Shadow Armor X can walk on spikes with impunity. At the top of the vertical passageway, go right. The path divides to an upper and lower level. The upper level has fewer enemies. At the end, the upper level leads to a dead end with a lot of Nightmares. After defeating the Nightmares, you can pick up the maximum life energy container. Otherwise, stay on the lower path. You will reach a large area with totem pole mechaniloids and blue spherical spark mechaniloids. Defeat the enemies to reach to the ladder on the right. Climb the ladder and head to the left. Now you must jump to a metal column, like the ones in Rainy Turtloid's stage, moving horizontally. Jump on this and travel to the left to defeat the next totem pole mechaniloid. Be careful not to fall while next to the totem pole mechaniloid, because there are fatal spikes below. Also, the metal column can also fatally crush you against totem pole mechaniloid. Using Yammar Option or a well-timed Giga Attack can help you clear the heads on the totem pole. Note: As Shadow Armor X, however, you can immediately high jump to the upper side walls with spikes and defeat the totem pole mechaniloid to save you a lot of trouble and time. After destroying that enemy, jump onto the platform. To the left is another metal column, travelling vertically. On the other side is also a totem pole mechaniloid. Be careful not to fall while next to the totem pole mechaniloid, because there are fatal spikes below. Using Yammar Option or a well-timed Giga Attack can help you clear the heads on the totem pole. Also, the metal column can also fatally crush you against the ceiling. After defeating that enemy, jump to the left, climb the ladder, and head right. Dash jump or air dash over the spikes. You will reach a large open area. To the right is a spike pit with a totem pole mechaniloid on the other side. When you defeat that enemy, you can jump over the pit, climb the ladder, and head left. You can take a shortcut. Above the open area are two metal columns, one travelling horizontally and one travelling vertically. Those are the same columns you would see had you destroyed the totem pole mechaniloid and climbed the ladder. It is possible to reach the metal column moving vertically, with Zero's double-jump, Zero's Hydroga, Shadow Armor X's high jump, and Blade Armor's Mach Dash. If you do that, be careful not to be crushed fatally by the two metal columns. When you jump on that vertically moving metal column, you will see the entire ceiling above you is laced with fatal spikes. To the left is a spike-filled narrow passageway with a horizontally moving metal column. The situation looks like the following (based on information and diagram by Izlude613@Hotmail.com): VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV ! < > ! < > ! < > VVVVVV ^^^^^^^^^ # ----- > # > # * ------------------- > * < -------------- * < < ---------- | | | | ------- ------------------------------------------------------------- Legend: V or < or > or ^ Spike * Metal Column 1, travels horizontally; will hit metal column 2 # Metal Column 2, travels vertically; will hit ceiling ! Metal Column 3, travels horizontally - or | Wall If you are using anybody other than Shadow Armor X, you need to air dash from the vertically moving metal column (# in the picture) when it is halfway up to the side of the horizontal moving metal column (! in the picture) when its moving left at the farthest possible moment. If your timing is spot on, you will slide off that metal column as soon as it clears the spikes on the ground. If you jump too high, you will be killed by the spikes in the ceiling. This is perhaps one of the most challenging (or cheapest) sections in Megaman X6, because it will require your utmost skill and patience. Once you clear that last section, climb the ladder and head to the door to fight High Max. ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: If you want to defeat those totem pole mechaniloids that attack you while you are on the floating metal columns, get rid of the top two face heads, then jump into the poles themselves. Although it seems close to the spikes sticking out from the ledges, you will not get killed as long as you keep jumping and shooting. (Author's Note: I think it's because you keep taking damage.) There is also a part where you have to try to get past two floating metal columns with sides wall, ground, and ceiling full of spikes to make it to High Max. With the Blade Armor and some patience, it is not so bad. With Ultimate Armor and Falcon Armor, you need a lot of patience and practice. The idea is to try to get on the vertically floating platform and attempt to pass over the spikes when the last horizontally floating metal column is to the furthest left. That is the only way you can get through, or unless you are extremely good at controlling wall climbs on that metal column. Air dasing, nova striking, or dash jumping off of the vertically floating metal column will work, and the Hyper Dash part is recommended. Falcon Armor requires hyper dash because of the nasty jump in the section 2 of Gate Laboratory 2. Jskrenes@aol.com says: Another way to clear the tricky spike section just before High Max without the Shadow Armor is to lure a Nightmare near the intersection of the moving columns, have it hit you, and while invincible, dashing or running along the spiked floor. It takes a bit of timing to make sure the left-hand horizontally moving column doesn't push you back, but with the Speedster, High Jump, and D. Barrier parts equipped, it shouldn't be a problem. You may not need the D. Barrier, but if you have UH ranking, you should equip it anyway. You can also try to get a Totem Pole Mechaniloid to shoot its shots at you, and then try to pass through the spikes. ********* Boss [GATELAB2SEC1 - BOSS] High Max will stay in the air to execute his attacks. High Max will raise rectangular barriers in front and behind him. He can do several attacks from this position. 1) If he flies low over the ground after raising his barriers, he will fly along the ground to the opposite side wall, and fly upwards off the screen. Unlike your previous encounter with him, he flies too low for you to crouch or dash under this attack. You will need to climb the side wall opposite him and dash jump over him right before he flies up along the side wall you were positioned. It is tricky to do this, because you need to long jump over him. 2) He will launch his barriers off the screen. The barriers will reappear just above you to the left and right sides. They will follow you if you move. After a few seconds, the barriers come together and drop straight down on you. Therefore, you must stand still and wait for the barriers to begin to come together, and then dash away before they land on you. 3) He will launch his barriers off the screen. The barriers will reappear low and come together. You will need to jump out of the way or dash under them to avoid collision. 4) While protected by his barriers, he will create a massive spark sphere and drop it. The sphere will roll down the side wall, roll along the ground, and then roll up the opposite side wall. Dash jump to the wall opposite him, and dash jump over the energy sphere. 5) He will launch his barriers off the screen. The barriers will reappear together in front of him and then travel away from him. As the shields are traveling away from him, they will shoot blue spark orbs at you. You \ should dash to avoid the enemy projectiles. If he does not raise his barriers, he will create a massive spark sphere and drop it. The sphere will roll down the side wall, roll along the ground, and then roll up the opposite side wall. Dash jump to the wall opposite him, and dash jump over the energy sphere. X Strategy: With Shadow Armor X, stand next to High Max's front barrier and unleash a charged saber slash. Because of its range, the charged saber slash will penetrate the barrier and strike him. High Max will fall to the ground and take decent damage. He will then fly vertically off the screen. He will reappear on the other side and activate his barriers again. If you keep using this charged saber slash on High Max, he will continue to repeat this pattern. You should be able to defeat him. ********* Scyther247@aol.com says: For Blade Armor X, as soon as you have control of X, take to the left side wall and climb to the top. From here High Max has three attacks he can use. If he drops down to about mid-screen, he is going to fly at you. Jump off and quickly press and hold jump again to prepare a Mach Dash to go over him. Release the button when he comes toward you to clear him. As soon as you land, jump up to the same spot on the opposite side wall and prepare to repeat the process. If he says something and charges up energy in his hands, he will throw his large spark ball to the floor. It rolls on the ground, then climbs up the wall, so you need to do a well-timed dash jump off the wall to avoid. When it is gone, return to the same spot to get ready for the next attack. If he charges without saying anything, then he is going to throw his energy shields. Charge a buster shot and drop to the ground. Approach High Max and after he releases the walls, jump up and blast him to stun him. Then, shoot him from below with the Meteor Rain to damage and stun him, but he falls to the ground, so be careful to get out of the way. He will fly off screen and reappear on the opposite side. Scale the side wall and get ready for his next attack. If your Mach Dash comes flying a little low, you will notice it making contact with his barriers as you go above him. If you are really good at Mach Dashing, you can aim them to do this every time. Eventually, High Max's front shield will be destroyed. When it is destroyed, charge a buster shot and when he comes down during the end of the explosion, you can get a free hit at him. Stun him with the charged buster and hit him with the Meteor Rain, then wait for him to leave before you scale the wall. Again, he reappears on the other side. When High Max takes enough damage, his pattern changes: He will cast his barriers and combine them into a large block, then send it forward. It will start firing blue energy shots at you. To avoid this, you have to dash under the shots, but the timing is tricky: you have to dash under the first shot when you hear it firing and time your jump to go over the fourth shot. Charge a shot while doing this and shoot him while in the air to stun him, then get him with Meteor Rain while he is stunned. Again, he will retreat to the opposite wall and fly off screen. Whether he gets hit or not, his next attack is the giant spark ball, but without the barriers to guard him. Jump to the opposite wall and charge a shot to stun him, firing either while on the wall or while avoiding the ball, then use the Meteor Rain. He will retreat to the other wall and repeat this new pattern. This takes a long time, and it helps to have Quick Charge and Weapon Plus parts, but it definitely works. null_pointer (null_pointer@isp01.net) says: Using Ultimate Armor X, hit High Max with a charged buster attack, and then while High Max is stuned (flashing), immediately hit him with the Giga Strike. Alone, neither of these attacks seem to work, but together they drain around 40% of High Max's life energy with one combined strike. Hussaan Banday (ghoststalker7@hotmail.com) says: It's possible to defeat High Max with Blade Armor X without using special weapons. After stunning High Max with a charged up shot, if you jump and use the Mach Dash to go through the white portion of his feet, it will damage him. If you jump too high and then air dash, you might hit High Max and damage yourself without hurting him. sinkua@hotmail.com says: For Falcon, Ultimate, and Blade Armor X, energy shots from X's charged Guard Shell will do a decent amount of damage on High Max. Mike Britton (metalmage@yahoo.com) says: Defeating Highmax in the final stages with Blade Armor X: Wait for him to pause in the air with his shields raised. Position yourself just to the left (if facing the right side of the screen) of Highmax's forward shield. Jump and do the Blade armors charged saber slash (hold up and fire). This will stun High Max. While he is stunned, fire a metal anchor at him. It will hit him through his shield if he is stunned. Repeat as necessary. Without the weapon energy saver part, but with all +weapon parts collected, I had 3 extra metal anchors left to use, so the margin for error with them is rather small. Mew Seeker (cadieux_philippe@hotmail.com) says: I beat him with the Blade Armor X. While High Max comes down with his force field, hit him with a charged saber shot. You have to be near enough to hit him from the other side of the force field though. While he is stunned, shoot a Ray Arrow to hurt him. Then, he will appear at the other side of the screen flashing. Just wait for him to stop flashing and hit him with another charged saber shot and Ray Arrow. If, while doing this, you hit a massive spark sphere, it will split in four smaller sphere that will chase you. Usually High Max will then follow by his launching barrier attack so just dodge the 4 spheres (not too hard), wait on the ground waiting for him to get rid of his force field and hit him with another charged saber shot and Ray Arrow. Tootight4life@cs.com says: As Ultimate Armor X, you can stun him with a charged shot and then use the Giga Attack (Nova Strike) on him. It does a significant amount of damage. ********* Zero Strategy: Zero's Shoenzan is great for stunning High Max when his shields are up, as June DeArras mentioned. While he is stunned, you can use Ensuizan as well as a saber slash to stun him. Ensuizan does a little less damage than a jump saber slash. Zero's 3-hit saber combo does not work while High Max is stunned. ********* June DeArras (juneteal@hotmail.com) says: Here is how to beat High Max as Zero. In his first attack, he will likely try to to body slam you with his barriers up. I don't know anything I can do about this, but it is not enough to kill you in one hit, so... :) Then, he flies back down on the other side of the screen, and you need to be underneath him to use Shoenzan as he puts his barriers up. It stuns him as normal. Now, make a very small jump upward and attack normally, so that your sword slash hits High Max and knocks him down. He will retreat and come down on the opposite side, where you will be waiting to use Shoenzan the second he is vulnerable again. :) You can mostly repeat this process, but if he yells out, he is about to use his orb attack. Back up, double-jump over it, and in midair, use Sentsuizan to slam into him. It will have one of three outcomes, depending on how well you aim: 1) High Max is stunned and damaged, but you take collision damage. 2) High Max is stunned, and you land underneath him. You can easily jump up to hit him. 3) High Max is stunned and damaged, and you land just at his feet, avoiding collision. Collision damage is not much, so I do not worry about it. After damaging him, he goes to the other side of the screen, where you will be ready to use Shoenzan on him again. If you just keep up the pace, he will never get a chance to do ANYTHING. Jean Louis Sibert (zell_31@hotmail.com) says: Use Zero's Sentsuizan on High Max. When High Max falls to the ground, use the Z-buster or a saber slash. If he doesn't fall, use a saber slash. Scyther247@aol.com says: Zero's Ensuizan hurts High Max and stuns him, and it can also destroy his barriers. When High Max creates his barriers, dash toward him. Stop underneath the close barrier and perform Ensuizan on the ground over and over. Eventually, the barrier will be destroyed, and High Max will get tagged with the saber. He will fall to the ground. Run to the other side and wait for him to reappear on the opposite wall, and then get in the same position and repeat. Eventually, he will float to the center of the room and throw rapid giant static balls at you. They can be hard to maneuver around but the trick is this: Stay close to High Max and listen to his words. If he yells a two-syllable word, he charges on the first and fires on the second. You can use what he is saying to time your dashes to evade the sparks. Just after one goes by, you can quickly jump and get in a slash, but you have to be fast to avoid the next spark. Eventually, this will finish him off. Geito (cressx@edsamail.com.ph) says: Zero's Z-buster can destroy High Max's barriers with a single shot each. Once High Max's barriers are gone, you can use Shoenzan followed by Ensuizan to stun and inflict damage to High Max. Jak the Yak (dimuziom@hotmail.com) says: With Zero, 1) You can destroy his barriers with sucessive strikes. It takes quite a few strikes, so Ensuizan works best. Stand at his front side and jam on Enzuisan to take it out in short order. 2) After the barriers are gone, you can either stun as normal (with some special attack) or just keep spinning that Ensuizan. This seems to stun and damage High Max, knocking him to the ground much in the way that a normal stun and hit combo would. 3) When I tried #2 above, he very quickly flew to the center of the screen and released a sucession of small and large energy balls of the sort he normally fires if you were to fight him at the end of a secondary area (i.e. the second form of High Max). These are easy to avoid by dasing along the bottom of the screen and jumping to either side, giving you ample opportunity to hit him with a normal jumping slash while avoiding all damage (the big energy balls REALLY hurt!) I recommend using mobility parts for this, (hyper dash, jumper, speedster) which is my usual setup anyhow, to facilitate avoiding his attacks and maximize your opportunities to hit the jerk after he goes nuts (i.e. #3 listed above). ********* GATE LABORATORY 2, SECTION 2 [GATELAB2SEC2] Enemies [GATELAB2SEC2 - ENEMIES] 1) Bird Aircraft Mechaniloids 2) Rolling Metallic Balls 3) Sumo Mechaniloid Primary Area [GATELAB2SEC2 - PRIMARY] Travel right and jump over the spike pit. Continue to the right and bird aircraft mechaniloids will fly through this stage to obstruct you. Rolling metallic balls from the introductory stage will roll towards you. Use the spaces in the ceilings or floors to dodge them or use your Z-saber to destroy them. Shadow Armor X's charged saber slash will destroy them in one attack. Zero can use his 3-hit saber slash combo or Ensuizan to destroy the rolling metallic balls. Continue right and jump into the teleporter. Depending whether you are X or Zero, the section after the teleporter is different. As X: Go right and fall downwards. Proceed to the right and fall down. Go left and slide down the side walls. You will see spikes on the floor and a safe ledge. Land on that ledge. Jump over the spikes on the floor. Continue right, and you will see an energy pod like the ones in Rainy Turtloid's stage. Acid rain begins to pour down the entire section as you approach the energy pod. To pass this section, you must find and destroy the 4 red sensors along. Then, you must destroy the weather generator at the end of the section. The energy pod works once, so do not use it unless you are low on energy. It is better to travel ahead a little, because there are two red sensors you can destroy immediately. After destroying them, come back to the energy pod. There are a bunch of suspended blocks and platforms in this area. There is a wide pit in this entire area. If you fall into the pit, you will die. There is a place in this section that looks like this: CEILING _______________________________ | | | | | | ---- --- --- | | | | --- # --- PIT Legend: | Wall - Areas where you can stand _____ Ceiling Since there is no footing below, it appears, at first, that only Blade Armor X can make it with the Mach Dash. With the Hyper Dash and Jumper parts, Shadow Armor X, Falcon Armor X, and unarmored X can jump this wide pit. As Shadow Armor X, position X so that he hangs off the left block (as indicated by # in the drawing). Only his arm should be grabbing the block. Now dash jump off the block. He should not hit the middle block and leap across to the right block, where you can grab it from the side. As Falcon Armor X or unarmored X, you do the same thing as Shadow Armor X. You will, however, slide down that side wall, so you will have to time the jump to the right block correctly. For anybody except Blade Armor X, this is not an easy jump to make. You may need a couple of tries at this. After you make it through, you will teleport to the next section, which is just a normal passageway with hills and valleys. Bird aircraft mechaniloids will pester you. Use this opportunity to fill up your energy and weapon tanks. Keep going to the right until you see the door to Gate. As Zero: As mentioned above, there are trash compactors on the ceiling. First, watch the compactor go down and find its lowest point. As you go over the first hill, you start crossing a bridge. The bridge is just shallow enough that you must crouch to avoid the compactor. Remember, the only safe attack while you are crouching on the bridge is your crouching saber slash. Dashing and Ensuizan will cause you to stand up, and you will be fatally crushed should the compressor be on its lowest point. Along the bridge, you can find trenches deep enough to avoid the compactor. There are some rolling metallic balls, but they usually get fatally crushed by the compactor before you have to deal with them. Eventually, you clear the first compactor. You now see the second compactor. Again, the ground you are on is not deep enough to allow you to stand when the compactor is at its lowest point. You must crouch and defend yourself from enemies with your crouching saber slash. You have to climb up a small hill, and then crouch in the trenches to avoid the compactor. Near the end of this piece of land, you will see a pit, and the next piece of land. If you cannot make it over the pit, cling to the side wall of the pit to stay away from the compressor. After the compressor starts to rise, jump over the pit and continue. Be very careful of the sumo mechaniloids in this area. If you are hit by the ground flame attack, you will stand up, and if the compressor is at its lowest point, you will be fatally crushed. The trick is to wait for the compressor to start coming down, then scroll over to the sumo mechaniloid. Since the sumo mechaniloid's first reaction is to defend itself, it will be fatally crushed by the compactor. Again, you will see a pit in the middle of this section. You must cling to the side walls to avoid the compactor. Eventually, you clear the second compactor. You now see the third compactor. It goes all the way to the ground initially, so when it goes up, go forward a little to see ahead and then run back to the clearing. You will discover that the compactor goes down to the ground for the entire section. There are many pits throughout this section. You have no choice but to cling to the side walls of the pits to avoid the compactor. The surface area you have to work with is very small, so be careful not to fall into a pit. As you get further in the section, the pits get wider. If you have the speedster part, making long jumps is not so bad. Without it, you will have to dash jump the longer pits to advance and to cling to the next side wall that comes along to avoid the compactor. After the last pit, there is a slightly long straightaway. Dash to cover the ground quickly before the compactor comes down. After you clear the third compactor, go to the right, and you will teleport to the next section. The next section is just a normal passageway with hills and valleys. Bird aircraft mechaniloids will pester you. Use this opportunity to fill up your energy and weapon tanks. Keep going to the right until you see the door to Gate. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: The Speedster part comes in real handy in this area. Izlude613@Hotmail.com says: There are three compactors here just like the ones in Metal Shark Player's stage. The first two compactors are easy to avoid, but the third one will require you cling to the side walls of the pits, so you do not get fatally crushed. Continue right to reach the door to Gate. ********* Primary Area [GATELAB2SEC2 - PRIMARY] Gate is invulnerable to all your weapons. Gate flies toward your location, and he will sometimes launch energy orbs at you. Otherwise, he will chase you again. Almost always, the orbs will fly out your current location and then stops to activate itself. You cannot damage an orb until it stops initial movement. When you destroy an orb, six small clouds fan out in a spreading direction, three to the left and three to the right. You can quickly destroy the small clouds with a charged attack, but you want the small clouds to hit Gate. That is the only way to damage him. If you do not do anything, the orbs eventually deactivate and disappear, but in this battle, that is too long. If you cannot send the clouds back at him, destroy the orbs completely. The orbs he throws have several colors. Each has a different function. 1) Red ones are perhaps the most severe. They reduce your speed and your controls. Occasionally, your jump button fails. 2) Green ones will follow you. 3) Orange ones will shoot little orange spheres at you. 4) Purple ones will produce Nightmares. 5) Blue ones will try to suck you towards it. Do not wall climb on the side walls or sides of platforms when this happens. You will get stuck in a wall climb animation, and if you try to let go, you may fall into the pit. Once Gate is hit by a cloud, all his orbs that are on the screen deactivate and disappear. When Gate has been reduced to 1/2 of his life energy, he will fly to your location and perform a vertical oval-shaped energy attack that will destroy any platform in its range. If you touch the attack, it will do significant damage. The platform will reappear after a few seconds. Be careful not to be in the area where the platform will reappear, or it will be instant death. You may have to fight him many times before you are able to defeat him. You will need some luck, as you are dependent on the position of him and his orbs. Generally, you want to be on the same horizontal plane with Gate. That way, Gate will throw his orbs horizontally. You willbe able to hit the orbs easier, and the resulting clouds will be more likely to hit Gate. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: When Gate is hit by a cloud, he starts flickering and is stunned. You can touch him without fear of getting damaged. Use this opportunity to walk past him. ********* X Strategy: For Shadow Armor X, you can use the high jump to give you extra maneuverability. Use the charged saber to strike one-half of Gate's orbs. That way, you destroy the 3 clouds coming your way and send the other 3 clouds going the other way. Even if you get hit by clouds, as long as Gate gets hit by the clouds, you should be ahead of life energy. ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: For non-Shadow Armor X, equip the Ultimate Buster part and the Shock Buffer (unarmored X only) before coming to this stage. When you fight Gate, bait him to certain areas and move quickly, and when he shoots those orbs at at you, let them hit you. When he moves towards you, shoot them with your buster and the clouds should fly when Gate is close, hitting him. If you have more than 14 Heart Tanks, you should beat him easily, that is if you do not keep falling into the pit first. null_pointer (null_pointer@isp01.net) says: Using Ultimate Armor X, there are a couple of things you can use to your advantage. First, with a little practice (which you'll get plenty of ;)), you can Giga Strike just over the middle platform, across the room. When doing so, you are immune to Gate, his orbs, their effects, and of course the clouds. Second, the Giga Strike can destroy the orbs before they finish their initial movement. When you Giga Strike them, you will hear a sound like they are not being damaged, but instead of finishing their movement and attacking they will just disappear. This is great against the red and blue spheres. Third, if you Giga Strike through an orb when Gate is hovering close to the orb, the clouds may damage him before they are destroyed by the Giga Strike. Also, the Giga Strike actually extends a little behind X. If you jump close to an orb, then face away from it and do a Giga Strike, you will destroy the orb but leave the clouds to attack Gate while getting safely away. You should also be able to skim the top of an orb with a Giga Strike, but keep in mind that you do not have much choice at what level you can fly. Nick Boom (nickboom2001@yahoo.com) says: I found another way to beat Gate in Gate Labs, section 2. A good way to destroy the balls of energy is to use the Yammar option. To prevent waste of energy, only use it as soon as the balls pop up. Shoot the balls. It's a good weapon to use since it does multiple shots and spreads around the place. It also does damage if the dragonfly touches the balls. If you run out, use a fully charged Guard Shell. Like the Yammar option, it will shoot in multiple areas, and it also bounces for an extra chance to hit the other balls. ********* Zero Strategy: For Zero, you can use the hydroga's high jump effect to give you extra maneuverability. Zero's Ensuizan will destroy the orbs quickly if they are near you, and you are conveniently standing on a platform. Position yourself so you strike only half the orb. The 3 clouds that would have gone towards you should be destroyed by Ensuizan, while the other 3 clouds will travel the other way. If an orb is below Zero, you may want to use Rakukojin to destroy it. ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: For Non-Black Armor Zero: When you fight Gate, bait him to certain areas and move quickly, and when he shoots those orbs at you, let them hit you. When he moves towards you, just do the same thing with your saber, and it is probably easier with the saber, but you will need the Energy Tank, but one should be more than enough. Author's Note: If you are using regular Zero, equip the Shock Buffer part on him before entering this stage. The strategy described by Tootight4life@cs.com will work better if you have this part to reduce damage. ********* SIGMA STAGE [SIGMASTAGE] Enemies [SIGMASTAGE - ENEMIES] 1) Bat Mechaniloid 2) Three-Cannon Missile Launcher Mechaniloid 3) Sumo Mechaniloid Primary Area [SIGMASTAGE - PRIMARY] Go right and you will see a vertical passageway downward. Fatal spikes are installed on the side walls and the sides of some platforms and ledges. Slide down the sides of the platforms and ledges to be able to see down below and to drop onto safe ledges and platforms. The vertical passageway eventually forks into two passaways. The left passageway is a dead end. The right passageway leads to a large chamber where there are 8 teleporters. You must fight the Nightmare Investigators all over again. There are two large life containers to fill up your energy. Each time you return here after defeating an investigator, the two large life containers will be there again. The placement of the teleporters are as follows: Left Column Middle Column Right Column ---------------------------------------------------------------- Commander Yammark Blizzard Wolfang Blaze Heatnix Metal Shark Player Ground Scaravich Rainy Turtloid Shield Sheldon Infinity Mijinion After defeating all 8 investigators, a ninth teleporter will appear between the two large life containers. Jump into that teleporter. In the next area, go right, jump over a few pits, jump to a horizontally moving metal column over a larger gap and jump over to the door. Watch out for the fatal spikes high above the door. Go through the door and fight Sigma. Boss 1 [SIGMASTAGE - BOSS 1] Sigma drags his feet as he slowly walks toward you. When you knock him down with Metal Anchor or Rakukojin, he will release a few purple clouds and several electrical spheres. These electrical spheres will home in on your current location, so dodge them. The Metal Anchor or the Metal Anchor from Rakukojin can destroy the electric spheres. Other times he will erect a green oval-shaped barrier that takes up the height of the screen and launch purple crescent beams like in Megaman X5. Dash under or jump over them. He may also open his mouth and shoot green energy balls at you. He may throw his green oval-shaped barrier at you. Because it is the height of the screen, it cannot be avoided. ********* Scyther247@aol.com says: X can shoot the barrier back, and Zero can slash it back as it heads toward them, eventually destroying it. It just takes good timing, since they can only hit it when it is approaching them, especially with Zero. Jamie Duncan (morpheus125@hotmail.com) says: All you have to do is repeatedly shoot the barrier. If you use Shadow Armor X, that's even better, since his shots are so rapid. I'd recommend that you go into battle with the Buster Plus part, the Full Recover limited part, and maybe the Speed Shot part to help you destroy the barrier. ********* X Strategy: You should try to use Metal Anchor, as that does the most damage to Sigma. Otherwise, you should use a charged saber or buster. ********* Anthony Nagata (dragon_wing27@msn.com) says: 1) Charge up Ray Arrow. 2) Use charged Ray Arrow close to Sigma. 3) When he is going to shoot several fireballs at you, run REAL fast or dash real fast. This will be easier if you have the U. Buster part and X's Ultimate Armor. If your using Zero, use Rekkoha close to Sigma. This will be easier if you have Black Armor Zero. ********* Zero Strategy: Rakukojin does the most damage to Sigma. Hitting him with the blade works best, so use this move while next to him, but not above him. If you do it abovehim, you will collide with him. If you cannot get close enough, just perform this move and let the metal anchor bounce over to him. ********* Geito (cressx@edsamail.com.ph) says: It's possible to use the Z-buster on Sigma here. If you shoot him as fast as possible, you can destroy Sigma in about a minute. (Author's note: you may want to use the Speed Shot part and Overdrive for this battle.) ********* Boss 2 [SIGMASTAGE - BOSS 2] Sigma now changes form for the second fight. Sigma is now a large stationary robot. He will deploy green gelatin-like blobs of his head likeness. They either move on the ground or float in the air, but both will shoot green orbs at you. There is also a floating green gelatin-like hammer that tries to land on you. If you see a circle on the ground underneath you, dash away. He is trying to hit you with a green laser column. He will try to lock on to you several times, so just keep dashing. If he opens his mouth, he will shoot a wide laser that will destroy all his green blobs. Crouch to avoid the laser. You can destroy the blobs and hammers. If you or Sigma destroys the blobs and hammer, they may drop life containers, energy containers, and one-ups. When Sigma has 1/3 of his life energy left, he will launch a small blue orb. The orb can go to the top section or the bottom section of the room. If it goes to the top section, the orb will change into two large orbs that go horizontally in opposite directions along the ceiling. Crouch to avoid. If it goes to the lower section, the orb will change into two large orbs that go horizontally in opposite directions along the floor. Jump to avoid. Getting hit by these orbs will cause significant damage to you. You can only damage him when he opens his mouth to expose the cannon that is in the front of his cannon. You can also hit the jaw area to do damage, since that is where the cannon is. There is a spot right underneath his head where he cannot readily hit you. You can use that for safety, but it will not help you if he creates the two large orbs that travel along the ground. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Unlike other bosses, Sigma does not have invincibility after the first hit, which means that you will be able to hit him multiple times with a fully-charged saber, or Zero's saber. You can wear Sigma down pretty fast, if you use Zero's jump attacks, with the Guard Shell turned on. ********* X Strategy: As Blade Armor X, the only useful weapons seem to be his charged saber slash, charged X-buster shot, and Guard Shell. Use the charged saber slash and X- buster shot on the blobs, the hammer, and Sigma. Use the Guard Shell to block enemy projectiles from the blobs. You have to get in front of Sigma's face to hit him with the saber or buster. You cannot hit him from underneath his head with those two attacks. ********* Jean Louis Sibert (zell_31@hotmail.com) says: If you are using X, use Ground Dash on Sigma when he opens his jaw, and he will receive damage, and this will also destroy all the green blobs and stops his attack. When he wants to use that "optic-blast" laser, go right in front of him and use Ground Dash, and he will shut his jaw and not do anything, and then he continues by launching his green blobs. Wildy Candra (wildyc@hotmail.com) says: You have to charge the Ground Dash weapon, and wait until Sigma opens his mouth. Make sure you stand on the left side of the screen and as soon as Sigma opens his mouth, release the charged Ground Dash, it will do a lot of damage to him. All enemies such as blobs and the hammer will be destroyed when the charged Ground Dash hits Sigma's mouth. Gospel X (cschinke@mail.com) says: If you use Shadow Armor X, the Giga Attack against will do an immense amount of damage to Sigma. ********* Zero Strategy: Stand underneath Sigma's head. Jump lightly and perform Ensuizan in the air to strike his head. You can also do two double jump and perform a Kuuenzan (jumping somersault slash) to hit Sigma's cannon (jaw area), but you have to be in front of his head for that to work. ********* June DeArras (juneteal@hotmail.com) says: Although Kuuenzan (jumping somersault slash) is no longer a special technique, equipping Master Saber increases its power. Since Kuuenzan hits multiple times, this attack can do some serious damage. Jean Louis Sibert (zell_31@hotmail.com) says: You can perform Hydroga to jump really high and as you fall to the ground, use Kuuenzan to hit Sigma's cannon (jaw area). If you keep doing Kuuenzan as you fall past Sigma's cannon (jaw area), you can inflict a lot more damage, up to half of Sigma's life energy. Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: Normally, Kuuenzan spins in one direction for about one full revolution. If you push in the opposite direction as you were originally spinning, you will spin the other way for another revolution. If you do this on Sigma's weak point, you will do a lot of damage. ********* REGULAR ENEMY ROSTER [ENEMYROS] Bat Mechaniloid: These bats fly to you carrying bombs. They will attempt to drop the bomb on you and then fly away. Bird Aircraft Mechaniloids: These aircraft with a bird's head fly in a squadron of five from the left or right side of the screen. They fly in a horizontal V formation. The center one is red while the others are green. They will fly past you and then shoot green bullets from the rear of the aircraft as they fly away in a scatter pattern. Assuming you are below the lowest aircraft, a well-placed Meteor Rain bubble can destroy all five of them. Otherwise, destroy the whatever you can and use the clearing for you to maneuver. Blue Spherical Spark Mechaniloids: These enemies travel along the ground. They emit a electrical spark around themselves. When they stop, they stop emitting the electrical spark, open up part of their shell to reveal a hole, and fire an energy shot at you from that hole. Then, they close the hole, regenerate the electrical spark, and continuing travelling along the ground. You can only attack them when they stop to fire at you. Butterfly Mechaniloid: These butterflies remain stationary until you approach them. They will try to fly above your current location. Once they arrive above you head, they will drop purple pixie powder on you. The powder descends very slowly but cannot be destroyed. It disappears after descending a certain distance. While this attack is normally easy to dodge, the butterflies appear mostly in the green cavern where the spikes are, where your safe spots are limited. Drilling Machines: These are machines with drill bits attached to them. They move vertically trying to strike whatever is in their path. The drill bit is not fatal but will inflict decent damage on you. They cannot be destroyed. Gnat Mechaniloid: (Information about destroying this enemy contributed by Jean Louis Sibert) You may encounter small gnats in certain stages. They fly in from the sides and may collide with you. They fly to the left or right of you and hover around you. They will follow you as you go. You can drive them away by shooting at them or slashing them with you saber if they are close enough. To destroy them permanently, use Yammar Option and shoot at them with those or ram the dragonflies into them. It takes about 2-3 hits, and they sometimes drop small life energy containers. Large Broken Green Mechaniloids: These are large metallic robots that are stationary. They lost their legs and are leaning on their only arm. They open their mouths to shoot little pieces of junk horizontally. You can crouch to avoid the projectiles. They are not much of a threat. Large Flying Shield Mechaniloid: These enemies hover in the air with their large red shields in front of them. While their shield is in front, you cannot attack them. When they want to shoot at you, they will raise their shields. This is when you can attack them. You can also jump behind these enemies and attack them from behind. If you delay for too long, they will turn around and face you. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: Zero's Shoenzan will pierce through their shields. Shadow Armor X's charged saber will pierce through their shields. ********* Metools: These are heads with feet. They have a brown helmet on their heads. They walk back and forth within a small area. When under attack, they will hide underneath their helmets. They are invulnerable when they are underneath their helmets. Praying Mantis Mechaniloid: These insects wait for you to be in range and try to throw its blue scythe claws at your current location. They can throw up to two at a time. They can also drop little copies of themselves on the ground. These copies travel along the ground until they hit a wall, where they explode. Whenever you destroy the insect, its outer skin breaks off, leaving a wire frame of itself. You can pass through this. After a few seconds, it regenerates itself. Use Yammar Option at close range to destroy this insect permanently. It may take two killings. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: If you are X, it will shoot its claws that will not return but follow X around. If the claws miss X on the first pass, they will fly in a wide arc and make a second attempt at you. If you are Zero, it will shoot its claws that will act as boomerangs. ********* Red Four-Legged Slinky Mechaniloid: You saw these enemies in Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. These enemies stick to walls and move along the wall with their legs in a slinky-like fashion. They stop moving to shoot small energy shots at you. Zero's Shot Eraser can destroy these enemy projectiles. Rolling Metallic Balls: They roll towards you. If there is room available, you can jump over them. They are impervious to buster shots. You need to use the Z-saber or a charged saber slash. Seahorse Mechaniloid: These enemies are in the water and shoot red projectiles. The red projectiles rise up to line up with you on the same horizontal plane and then fly horizontally towards you. Because the enemy is over a pit, it may be difficult to attack it. They may also rise up from the pit, curl into a ball, and line up with you on the same horizontal plane. Then, they fly horizontally towards you, trying to collide with you. If you try to crouch, they may fly straight down on you when they are overhead. They do this in the early part of the stage. Small Flying Laser Probe Mechaniloids: These enemies are the 3 laser probes for Illumina. They are positioned with two on the left side of the screen and one on the right side of the screen. Since they follow you as the screen scrolls, you must hit them with projectile weapons. Illumina will shoot a red targeting beam near the ground. If it gets a lock-on, all three probes will fire their lasers at the location. If you are in their crossfire, you will take damage. Small Flying Mechaniloids: These are slow-flying robots. They fly horizontally or vertically only. They approach you, stop, and then shoot some round balls at you. You can destroy the round balls. Small Flying Shield Mechaniloid: These enemies hover in the air with their silver shields in front of them. While their shield is in front, you cannot attack them. When they want to shoot at you, they will raise their shields. This is when you can attack them. Zero's regular saber slash sometimes has trouble connecting with the enemy. This is probably because the computer thinks you are hitting the raised shield. You can also jump behind these enemies and attack them from behind. If you delay for too long, they will turn around and face you. Snail Mechaniloid: These are green snail-like robots with a silver horizontal platform on its back. They travel bakc and forth within a small area. You can jump on its back and ride on them. This will be necessary to travel along the floor spikes in the green cavern. If you collide with the mechaniloid from the side, you will take damage. If you attack the mechaniloid, it will take damage, then curl into a ball and roll in your direction to try to collide with you. You cannot damage it while it is curled into a ball. After rolling a short distance, it will uncurl itself and resume its normal behavior. While it is possible to destroy this enemy, it takes too much time and effort to make it worthwhile. Soul Body X or Soul Body Zero: You may encounter soul bodies of X or Zero in certain stages. They first teleport into the area and remain motionless for a second. Then, they fly to your current location to try to collide with you. They deal quite a bit of damage, so you should avoid them. If you have Guard Shell, you can turn it on, and let the soul bodies run into the Guard Shell. The Guard Shell will disperse the soul body. Sumo Mechaniloid: These enemies remain stationary. When you get close, they raise one of their arms up to protect themselves. You cannot damage them while they are guarding. You must stop attacking and wait. Eventually, they lower their guard to attack you. At this point you can attack them. It may take a couple of tries to destroy them. If you dash quickly as you approach them, you can strike them before they raise their arm to block. After blocking for a few seconds, they can attack in the following ways: 1) They can launch a missile at you. This missle has some vertical tracking ability, so you cannot simply crouch under the missile. 2) They raise their arms above their heads and slam the ground with their fists. A blue flame travels along the ground in front of them. 3) They can punch you if you are up close to them. Three-Cannon Missile Launcher Mechaniloid: You saw these enemies in Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. They are completely stationary, but they shoot indestructable small missiles or destructable large missiles at you in intervals. The destructable large missiles have vertical tracking ability, so you cannot simply crouch to avoid them. They may launch one or two missiles at a time at you. Totem Pole Mechaniloid: There are four humanoid heads and an bird head in the center. The four humanoid heads will turn their heads between facing you and facing away from you. When they face you, they will shoot energy orb projectiles or missiles at you. The missiles can be destroyed with Zero's Z-buster or Kuuenzan. They are vulnerable when they attack you. If they turn their faces away, you cannot damage them. When two of the four humanoid heads are destroyed, the bird head will fly out of the totem pole. It will chase you slowly. It will fly to your last location, stay stationary for a moment, and fly to your current location. If you destroy the bird head before the two humanoid heads, the remaining two humanoid heads will turn their heads faster. Once all heads are destroyed, the pole will be destroyed, allowing you to pass. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: The totem poles in Gate's Laboratory can be hit with Zero's Giga Attack in an area below them, around 1 screen's distance. Doing so will ensure that most of the pole's heads destroyed: 2 at most, since they aren't turning, so it will stay vunerable. You can also try any of X's wide screen attacks, as most of them will work. ********* Totem Stump: These are in the limbo areas of Ground Scaravich's stage. They are stationary and do not attack. You must destroy them to exit the limbo area. Wolf Mechaniloid: These enemies breathe out an cloud of frigid air or will launch mortars at your current location. The mortars fly in an arc, so you will have some opportunity to avoid them. You can destroy the mortars. Worm Mechaniloid: These worms inhabit the silver rectangular bases installed on the floor and ceiling of this stage. The orange- and blue-striped worm appears from the base when you get close. They wiggle back and forth and then stop to shoot at you. Then, they will withdraw into the base. You cannot destroy the base, nor will the base damage you if you touch it. Only the worm is vulnerable. The base will be destroyed when the worm is destroyed. SECONDARY AREA BOSSES [SECNDAREABOSS] Nightmare Zero Nightmare Zero has three his attacks from Maverick Zero in Megaman X5. He has a powerful Z-buster shot. He has a Rekkoha attack where he pounds the ground with his fist, and fireballs rise up from the ground, evenly spaced apart. He has a regular saber slash that acts like a projectile. Lastly, he has the large crescent slash attack that was fatal in Megaman X5. It is not fatal in Megaman X6, but it inflicts quite a bit of damage to you. After an attack sequence, he will teleport to another area on the ground. You have to jump the Z-buster shots. When he does Rekkoha, you must stand where the fireballs will not rise. You have only a moment to look at the floor and position yourself. The crescent slash covers 2/3 of the height of the screen, and he can slash twice. If he slashes high, you can dash underneath it. If he slashes low, you can climb the wall and jump over it. If he does a low and a high slash (or vice versa), you will probably get hit, as they are close enough to each other that you may not have time to avoid both. X Strategy: The Z-saber slash will do the most damage and stun him in most cases. You might find it helpful to dash jump behind Nightmare Zero when he appears to attack. You may avoid some of his attacks. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: Dash jump to and from the walls in such a way that you're doing something similar to Chun-Li's triangle jump. When Nightmare Zero starts his Giga Crush, you can go for a good midair position and let him have it with the charged Metal Anchor. The resulting Storm Eagle attacks do SIGNIFICANT damage to him. It's advised to have U. Buster, Energy Saver, and maybe Powerdrive parts, as well as having Rapid Fire activated in the config menu, so you can just hold the button. You'll stay there in midair, and if Nightmare Zero goes into his repeated Giga Crush pattern, he can't hit you at all. The damage to Nightmare Zero is wicked enough, but if you take the time to go into the menu to turn on Powerdrive, it could potentially kill him. The uncharged Magma Blade is just as good as the plain beam sabre, if you hit Nightmare Zero from close range. Ultimate Armor X's Giga Attack does poor damage for each attack, and you risk colliding into Nightmare Zero afterwards. -twïg- (koonkii@hotmail.com) says: You can use Guard Shell to block Nightmare Zero's buster attacks. ********* High Max High Max will stay in the air to execute his attacks. He can bring his hands together to charge up an blue energy ball. Two attacks can follow from this windup: 1) He will create a large blue spark sphere in front of him. He will fly vertically down to the ground, stop just short of it, and then fly horizontally at you. He will smack the wall with the energy sphere and then fly vertically up and away. When he is flying horizontally, you can crouch or dash under him. 2) He will create a massive spark sphere and drop it. The sphere will roll down the side wall, roll along the ground, and then roll up the opposite side wall. Dash jump to the wall opposite him, and dash jump over the energy sphere. High Max may extend on of his arms and shoot 4 small spark spheres at your location. Dash or jump to avoid them, but he will adjust each sphere to target your current location, so you need to keep moving. He may raise two ring force fields around him. He will fly vertically down to the ground, stop just short of it, and then fly horizontally at you. He will fly to the opposite wall and then fly vertically up and away. When he is flying horizontally, you can crouch or dash under him. You cannot hit him at all in this state. When you injure him to about 1/3 of his maximum life energy, he will fly to the center of the screen. He will create a large blue spark sphere around him. From him, smaller blue energy spheres will hover around him first, then fly to your current location, and finally fly off screen. You need to keep moving, so the spheres do not collide with you. High Max is immune to X's normal buster shot and X's Z-saber. X Strategy: Do not fight High Max without a special weapon, except Yammar Option and an uncharged Guard Shell (see Reader Contributions below). Otherwise, you will be unable to win. Capcom made a design oversight. Fire a charged X-buster shot to stun him. He will flicker white while stunned. While High Max is stunned, use any special weapon to damage him, except Guard Shell. Meteor Rain and Ray Arrow inflict decent damage. When High Max flies to the center of the screen and starts to shoot blue tracking orbs at you, you can use Meteor Rain. There is no need for a charged shot at this point. You will need to dash to avoid the blue orbs High Max uses on you. You can also jump and shoot at him with Ray Arrow, because it shoots in a straight line. ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: As Ultimate Armor X, you can stun him with a charged shot and then use the Giga Attack (Nova Strike) on him. It does a significant amount of damage. Michael (mpcarey@attbi.com) says: As Shadow Armor X, the charged slash will damage him without any special weapons. If you have the U. Buster part, charging will be much easier. sinkua@hotmail.com says: For Falcon, Ultimate, and Blade Armor X: Energy shots from X's charged Guard Shell will do a decent amount of damage on High Max. Use this especially when High Max is in the center of the screen shoot blue tracking orbs at you. ********* Zero Strategy: Do not fight High Max without a special saber technique, except Guard Shell and Yammar Option. Otherwise, you will be unable to win. Capcom made a design oversight. You are supposed to stun High Max with a special saber technique and then damage him with a regular saber slash. If you have Ensuizan or Sentsuizan, hit High Max with that and then follow-up with a saber attack. Most often, High Max will be damaged directly by the special tehnique. ********* Izlude613@Hotmail.com says: Zero must stun him with a special saber technique, and then attack with a regular saber slash. Stand near High Max and use Shoenzan to hit High Max. While High Max is stunned, use a regular saber slash to damage him. Rooks_Tepes@godisdead.com says: High Max is quite a sissy when pitted against Zero. All you have to do is wait for High Max to descend from off-screen, and when he charges up anything, nail him with Zero's Shoenzan that you got from Blaze Heatnix. This will stun him like a charged shot from X would have. Then, attack him with Kuuenzan (spinning crescent saber slash in the air) or your regular saber and move quickly to avoid him falling on you. If he gets annoyed and stays in the middle of the screen blasting you repeatedly with blue orbs, attack him with Rukukojin from the side of High Max. Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: Zero's saber techniques (except Yammar Option and Guard Shell) stun Hi Max. Zero's saber techniques (except Yammar Option, Guard Shell, Shoenzan, and Rekkoha) damage Hi Max when he is stunned. The metal anchor from Rakukojin does not stun or damage High Max, although the metal sword does on both counts. Mew Seeker (cadieux_philippe@hotmail.com) says: Zero's Shot Eraser can destroy his 4 small spark spheres. ********* Dynamo Dynamo has variations of his attacks from Megaman X5. He will throw 4 sabers at your current location. They stay there momentarily and then come back to him like a boomerang. You will have to jump and dash to get out of the way of them. He may jump into the air but stay close to the ground. If he does this, he may try to slash you with his saber, which has a wide range. Lastly he has his lightning pillar attack (like Zero's Rekkoha). He will always perform this from the sides of the screen. To avoid this, you must jump to the wall above him and wait for him to finish his attack. If you can position yourself right above him, you can hit him with your saber or a weapon that has vertical trajectory. ********* Dinobot (dinobot@dinobot.org) says: Dynamo carries 3 green souls worth a total of 600 points (200 points each). Once he drops all 3, you have to either leave the stage or defeat him before he replenishes them. To earn 9,999 souls for a character easily, just obtain Dynamo's 3 green souls and defeat him 17 times. ********* X Strategy: If you use Meteor Rain, Dynamo becomes stunned and takes damage. After Dynamo's invincibility wears off, but while Dynamo is still in the stunned animation frame, hit him again with a Meteor Rain bubble, and he may drop a green Nightmare soul, which is worth 200 soul points (the same as if you beat a boss). Once he is stunned, walk to the center of the screen and crouch. After getting hit by the attack, Dynamo will leap to the other side. It is possible to cause him to drop a green Nightmare soul without this technique. Use your saber and strike him after he retrieves his 4 boomerang sabers. ********* Chris Matthews says: With Blad Armor X's charged slash (Hold Up on the control pad and press the attack button), you can deflect Dynamo's sabers. ********* Zero Strategy: If you use Ensuizan, Dynamo becomes stunned and takes damage. After Dynamo's invincibility wears off, but while Dynamo is still in the stunned animation frame, hit him again with Ensuizan, and he may drop a green Nightmare soul, which is worth 200 soul points (the same as if you beat a boss). Once he is stunned, walk to the center of the screen and crouch. After getting hit by the attack, Dynamo will leap to the other side. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: When fighting Dynamo, X's charged Ray Arrow can hurt him, but Zero's version, the Rekkoha, cannot! This is pretty odd, since Zero's Rekkoha is his Giga Attack. However, it has its uses: if you can't get to a wall in time to avoid Dynamo's wanna-be Rekkoha, just whip this out. You won't damage Dynamo at all, but you won't take any damage, either. ssj5vegeta72@hotmail.com says: With Shadow Armor X, charge up for a charged slash and jump near Dynamo. As you descend from the jump, strike Dynamo with the charged slash. Dynamo should be stunned. After Dynamo's invincibility wears off, but while Dynamo is still in the stunned animation frame, hit him again with a slash. Dynamo will drop a soul. joecool1788@zoomtown.com says: You only have to use Meteor Rain once to stun him, and then you can hit him with any other attack that does damage, and he can drop a Nightmare soul. Zero's Ensuizan special attack will knock away the sabers Dynamo throws at you. ********* SPECIAL WEAPONS CHART [SPCLWEAP] Nightmare Investigator X's Power Zero's Power ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainy Turtloid Meteor Rain Ensuizan Commander Yammark Yammar Option Yammar Option Ground Scaravich Ground Dash Sentsuizan Infinity Mijinion Ray Arrow Rekkoha Blaze Heatnix Magma Blade Shoenzan Metal Shark Player Metal Anchor Rakukojin Blizzard Wolfang Ice Burst Hydroga Shield Sheldon Guard Shell Guard Shell X WEAPONS [XWEAPONS] X-buster This is X's buster. Without any armor, X can charge it two levels. Z-Saber X has this weapon to start. He can only do this attack standing or jumping. X will slash the saber in the same way as Zero's last slash in his 3-hit combo from Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. X's Z-saber, however, is not as powerful as Zero's saber. There is an unusual quirk in the controls. If you are holding a rope and do a jump saber slash, you fail to grab the rope again on your way down, even if you hold up. ********* ChaosSword741@cs.com says: X's saber slash can go faster. To do it, you must set Rapid Fire and Auto Charge in the configuration menu. As X, hold the slash button then press the dash button as he is slashing. If you rapidly press dash, he will swing his sword really fast. Use this to help defeat bosses and sub-bosses faster. Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: With the exception of the Shadow Armor, X, in any form, can cancel a standing normal saber, with a crouch, jump, or dash. ********* Meteor Rain Normal: X will shoot a bubble straight upward. When the bubble hits the ceiling, it will come back straight down. Charged: Multiple bubbles rain from the sky in a diagonal trajectory, like a typical meteor storm. The bubbles will damage whatever it touches. Yammar Option Normal: Three dragonflies encircle X and rotate about him. When you press the attack button or the special weapon button, the options will also fire in the same direction X is facing. In addition, the dragonflies serve to protect X. An option will be destroyed if it comes in contact with an enemy or enemy projectile. If you have 1 or 2 dragonflies, pressing the special weapon button for the Yammar Option will make the remaining dragonflies appear. Charged: The dragonflies turn orange and shoot constantly on their own while they continue to rotate around X. ********* Mew Seeker (cadieux_philippe@hotmail.com) says: About the Yammar Option, you probably noticed that while charged, it constantly fire shots around the screen. However, you can also use the invincible dragonflies to ram into enemies, namely the giant totem poles and Illumina's power cables. Using this trick, it's easy to meet Dynamo in Infinity Mijinion's Stage as long as you don't fall into holes! ;) You might take damage while using this trick, but the Illumina battle won't last a long time. ********* Ground Dash Normal: X throws a small rock in a small arc that does not go very far. You can destroy the dark red blocks with this weapon. If you shoot Ground Dash at point blank range from those blocks, it does not cost any energy. With Ground Dash, you can push black and blue blocks with this weapon. If you shoot Ground Dash at point blank range from those blocks, it does not cost any energy. Doing this move counts as standing, so do not perform this technique in the areas of Metal Shark Player's stage where you must crouch to avoid the compactor. Otherwise, you will be fatally crushed. Charged: X throws a metal rock similar to Ground Scaravich's metal rock in an arc that goes further. The rock flies a lot faster. Guard Shell Normal: Press a direction simultaneously with the special attack button to make a shield appear in that direction. Enemy projectiles will be blocked by the shield. Each time an enemy projectile is blocked, the weapon's energy decreases by 1. To turn off the shield, press the special attack button again. You can use this to destroy the soul bodies of Zero that fly around certain stage. Charged: X throws four clam shells into the 4 corners of the screen. Pressing the special attack button will cause the shells to fire at the shell opposite themselves. The firing paths cross at the center of the screen. The 4 shells moves with you as you run through the stage, allowing you to hit enemies. Ray Arrow Normal: X shoots a small orange laser beam. If the beam hits an obstacle, it travels upwards by default. If you press down as it hits the wall, the beam travels downwards. Charged: X jumps up a little and 4 laser arrows, evenly spaced apart, fly straight from the floor in the area surrounding him. The instruction manual speaks of using Ray Arrow as a rope in some stages, but nobody seems to know where this can be used. It could be an error in the manual, or the feature was removed. Ice Burst Normal: X shoots an ice block that flies in a small arc. Chunks of small ice particles fly from the ice block. The ice block and the particles can damage enemies. If the ice block lands on ground, it stays there for a few seconds, allowing X to jump on it to reach higher locations. Charged: The screen flashes white briefly. X starts flashing white on and off. Dashing causes 4 icicles to appear above and below him. These icicles fly to the ceiling or ground. You can use this to destroy the ice nightmare effect on Metal Shark Player's stage. ********* Geito (cressx@edsamail.com.ph) says: Equip Falcon Armor X with the Hyper Dash part. Now, activate the charged Ice Burst and perform the air dash. Obviously, the air dash travels faster, but the charged Ice Burst should do more damage. Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: A full Charged Ice Burst will work with a Mach Dash. If you dash up or dash down with the Blade Armor, icicles will appear to the left and right of X. Aquastone7@aol.com says: You can use Ice Burst blocks to cross spikes. Fire the first ice block on the spikes, and jump on it. Then, wait for the block you're standing on to start disappearing. At this point, jump up and shoot the next ice block when the first one disappears. You can't shoot two Ice Bursts at once. While X is still airborne, air dash to that second ice block. If you have enough vertical clearance, you can use any X armor, except Shadow Armor, to do this. For spike passages with low ceilings, like the one in Blizzard Wolfang's secondary area, you need the Blade Armor so you can Mach Dash across your ice blocks. ********* Magma Blade Normal: X swings his flaming saber and two fireballs are shot. The fireballs travel off the screen. Doing this move counts as standing, so do not perform this technique in the areas of Metal Shark Player's stage where you must crouch to avoid the compactor. Otherwise, you will be fatally crushed. Charged: X jumps up a little and several large phoenix-like fireballs slowly fly from off-screen towards the direction X is facing. The fireballs fly to the other side of the screen. The fireballs tend to cover the middle area of the screen. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For the charged Magma Blade, if you change directions soon after you use this, some of the firebirds will fly with you, not your original firing directions. ********* Metal Anchor Normal: X fires a metal anchor like the one Metal Shark Player uses. It bounces around, hitting enemies in its path. It can be used to damage and destroy the metallic blocks that may appear in certain stages. It can be used to damage and destroy the large ice boulders that tumble down slopes in Blizzard Wolfang's stage. It won't affect the ice boulders that fall in avalanches. Charged: X summons Storm Eagle. Many copies of Storm Eagle fly from the upper left corner of the screen to the lower right corner of the screen. It will destroy the metallic blocks in various stages. If you get hit while this attack is occurring, the attack is cancelled. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: The Storm Eagles come from the upper corner of the screen behind X, which is the area that hits the most. ********* ZERO WEAPONS [ZWEAPONS] Z-Saber Zero retains his three-hit saber combo, but it is slower. The last slash has recovery time. ********* -twïg- (koonkii@hotmail.com): Psycho attack with Zero: Rapidly tap dash + attack with Zero on the ground. Zero slashes really fast. It will defeat most stationary bosses VERY quickly as their invincibility shields won't activate. Mohamar Rios (meteor_x777@hotmail.com) says: [Editor's note: Extension of the above tip] If you alternate between the dash and attack buttons, you can set up an infinite saber combo. Press dash first, then immediately press the attack button and then repeat the button sequence. ********* Z-buster This is Zero's buster weapon. It has been improved over his Z-buster in Megaman X5. The Z-buster shoots faster and has shorter recovery time than his Z-buster in Megaman X5. Zero cannot shoot as fast as X can, but the Z-buster is about as strong as X's semi-charged shot (the shot between normal and fully charged shots). Zero can only shoot his Z-buster while standing. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Zero's Z-Buster, when fired at close range, will deal multiple hits. To test this, go to a metal block created when you came from Shark's stage. Go close, than fire a Z-Buster. You will notice that a lot of hits are registered. This indicates that many hits were dealt. Benjamin Wiser (ben_kitsune@yahoo.com) says: As you know, Zero's Z-Buster can provide multiple hits from up-close. However, you do NOT have to be exactly right-up in the enemy's face for it to register. You can be maybe two to four body lengths away for it to work. With the above trick you can take out a few things with only ONE Z-Buster Shot instead of three Saber slashes. Examples of use: The Insect Mechaniloid, you know the praying mantis lookalike? The one with the boomerang choppers it flings at you? You can stand right next to it and just blow it away with one shot. In the Inami Temple, for example, the first area where you see those little shield generators can be destroyed with the Z-Buster. The first one you just stand on the ledge and fire at it, the second one you just stand next to it and blow it away, the third and fourth ones can be destoryed by standing next to them and hitting them with a Z-Buster shot. In the second part, the first one near the Sumo Mechaniloid can be destroyed with one Z-Buster shot, and so can the second on the ledge to the right. The third one next to the other Sumo can be destroyed with a Z-Buster shot. The final one, however, is hanging in the air and requires attacks via the Z-Saber, as the Z-Buster will not work in the air. The third area is the easiest, as you just see the shield generators as they come and all you have to do is just stand next to each one and let loose with a Z-Buster shot. The final area is kind of like the first. All you have to do is just stand next to each one and blow it away. If you have not rescued any other Reploids from this stage whatsoever yet, a couple of Reploids will be standing in front of the shield generators. It looks kinda weird, but go ahead and fire anyway, since the shield generator will be blown up, but the Reploid will be unharmed. The rain generators can be destroyed by standing next to them and being blown up. Except for the third one, however, you'll be too far away. However, you canjumpand land on the ledge right next to the generator. Though, you might receive some damage since it'll be really close. For the Ring-shaped Mechaniloids in Blaze Heatnix's stage, the first one cannot be destroyed completely by Zero's Z-Buster. You need to use the Z-Saber for the top two crystals. The second one, the one that keeps going around in a square pattern, can be destroyed. You'll need to time it right so the blast just hits the crystal. In the third area, it doesn't matter if you take the top OR the bottom, you won't be able to destroy it completely with the Z-Buster. The Z-Saber is required for the top two crystals. In the area with the rising purple magma, it is possible, but it is very difficult. You'll either have to wait until you get to the top of the area, because you have to use spot-on timing to strike the bottom crystals if you don't. This really shouldn't be tried unless you're a Mega Man Expert, looking for a challenge, or just plain crazy. It would be a wiser decision to just Rakkouha the thing away. The final area, though, is much easier. You still need good timing though, since you need to jump out of the way before the donut thing rises, and then get close and blast it before it falls it the lava again. Not only that, if the timing's off, it won't destroy the crystal (but it WILL still deal a heck of a lot of damage). It easier than it sounds, actually. You have to be careful, though so you don't take damage from the Mechaniloid itself. ********* Ensuizan Press Special Weapon button + Down Zero will perform a somersault with his Z-saber. This looks very much like Kuuenzan (jumping somersault slash), except it is faster. While Zero is on the ground, you can perform this move repeatedly. It is very good right next to an enemy where you need to deal damage quickly. You can perform Ensuizan in the air, but you can only do it once. Doing this move counts as standing, so do not perform this technique in the areas of Metal Shark Player's stage where you must crouch to avoid the compactor. Otherwise, you will be fatally crushed. ********* The LIM's brothers (lim_861020@yahoo.com) says: You can execute Ensuizan while clinging to the wall, but not the ceiling. Actually, Ensuizan can be done in the air twice repeatedly by pressing the special weapon button twice while holding the down button in the air. You cannot see it clearly, because Zero is spinning too fast. I tried playing the game with an emulator and made everything slower by changing the configuration. I can see that Zero is spinning twice or sometimes thrice while being stationary in the air, depending on how fast you press the weapon button. Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Ensuizan has a disadvantage. If you use Ensuizan, your invincibility from having taken damage will disappear. This means that you should not use this move in an enemy barrage, or else you will be hit multiple times. You will lose the invincibility even if you have the Double Barrier part equipped. ********* Yammar Option Note: Unlike X, Zero must press the special weapon + up buttons to activate the Yammar option. You also need not select the weapon beforehand to activate this weapon. Three dragonflies encircle Zero and rotate about him. When you press the attack button or the special weapon button, the options will also fire in the same direction Zero is facing. In addition, the dragonflies serve to protect Zero. An option will be destroyed if it comes in contact with an enemy or enemy projectile. If you have 1 or 2 dragonflies, pressing the special weapon button for the Yammar Option will make the remaining dragonflies appear. Sentsuizan Press Attack button + Up while in the air. This is a typo in the game. Jump in the air, and press Attack + Up. Zero will dash diagonally downward toward the ground and slash with his saber. Upon landing, the floor will shake. This special attack cannot be cancelled, so be careful where you use it. Otherwise, you may accidentally collide with another enemy or projectile. You may also accidentally fall into a pit or collide with spikes if you do not watch where you are going with this special attack. Unfortunately, this control scheme causes a huge problem on any stage with ropes, particularly Infinity Mijinion's stage. Since up is used to grab onto the rope, if you accidentally do this special technique, you will probably collide with an enemy, die from spikes, or die from falling into a pit. Guard Shell For Zero, the Guard Shell only appears in front of him. Enemy projectiles will be blocked by the shield. Each time an enemy projectile is blocked, the weapon's energy decreases by 1. You can use this to destroy the soul bodies of X that fly around certain stage. For some odd reason, you can only activate this from the menu for Zero. There does not seem to be a shortcut command. There seems to be another glitch. If you use another special technique that consumes weapon energy, you no longer can activate Guard Shell again until you die or leave the stage. ********* Geito (cressx@edsamail.com.ph) and Gamefaqs forum say: Apparently, Zero's Guard Shell allows Zero's saber slashes to hit more times. Try doing a combo with Zero while using the Guard Shell. You'll notice that his slashes hit more times and does more damage! This best works with that Slash + Slash + Shoenzan combo, because it will increase the damage of the Shoenzan and add more hits to the regular slashes! Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Actually, there is a way to keep using the Guard Shell. When the Guard Shell disappears (due to fighting a boss or entering a doorway), first, enter the menu. Put the cursor on Z-Saber. Press "X". You will automatically exit from the menu, with no weapons highlighted. Enter the Menu again. This time, put the cursor on Guard Shell, then press "X". The Guard Shell will reactivate. ********* Rekkoha Press the button assigned to the Giga Attack. This is the Giga Attack for Zero. When used, the background turns flaming red, and Zero will pummel the ground with his fist and blue laser ray arrows streak down from the sky to the ground destroying normal enemies and damaging stronger enemies. Hydroga Press Up + Jump button Zero leaps to the ceiling and clings onto the ceiling, upside down. He stays there for a few seconds. While on the ceiling, pressing the normal attack button will cause Zero to slash and drop 3 icicles vertically to the ground, evenly spaced apart. The width of the attack path is about 2 body lengths. An interesting bonus effect of Hydroga is that while he is on the ceiling, pressing the dash button will allow him to dash on the ceiling, just like Shadow Armor X. This bonus effect has a very important use on Gate Laboratory 1. You can use Hydroga to destroy the ice nightmare effect on Metal Shark Player's stage. Shoenzan Press Attack button + Up Zero will swing his saber upwards (like the last of his 3-slash combo) while flames trail the end of the saber. The flame whips in a sharp arc in front of him, so the attack range is extended into the air a little (about two of Zero's head height), so it can hit airborne enemies. Zero has slow recovery time after doing this, and it cannot be cancelled. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: Shoenzan's range also extends to a small portion below Zero and to the ground slightly in front of Zero. Thus, some enemies below Zero might blow up or get hit if you do this. ********* Rakukojin Press Attack button + Down buttons while in the air Zero draws a wide metal blade and stabs downward. When he lands on the ground, a small explosion appears at the impact area and an anchor bounces away in the direction that Zero is facing. MAVERICK HUNTER RANKING [RANKING] The hunter ranking system returns to Megaman X6. Unlike Megaman X5, the hunter ranking in Megaman X6 is solely based on the number of Nightmare souls you collect. Destroy the Nightmares throughout a stage, and they will drop a blue orb. They will shrink over time, and then the Nightmare will re-materialize, so be sure to get them quickly. A large blue soul is worth about 8. A small blue soul is worth about 4. Dynamo has green souls. If you can get him to drop green souls, they are worth 200. ********* Contributed by SaviourV and Technomagus of Gamefaqs and Cockroach: When you beat an investigator with plenty of life energy left, you get a green Nightmare soul worth 200 souls. If you beat an investigator with only minimal life energy left (i.e. you took a beating), you get a red Nightmare soul. This red Nightmare soul is worth less than the green one, approximately 50 to 100 souls. You can also get a red Nightmare soul if you take too long to beat the Nightmare Investigator, approximately 1 minute, 40 seconds. ********* The ranking system is as follows: (beginning) D, C, B, A, SA, GA, PA, UH (best) To reach C requires approximately 200 souls. To reach B requires approximately 300-400 souls. To reach A requires approximately 400-500 souls. To reach SA requires approximately 900 souls. To reach GA requires approximately 1500 souls. To reach PA requires 5000 souls. To reach UH requires 9999 souls. At A, you can equip 1 normal part. At SA, you can equip 2 normal parts. At GA, you can equip 2 normal parts and 1 limited part. PA allows you to equip 3 normal parts and 1 limited part. UH allows you to equip 4 normal parts and 1 limited part. The best place for Nightmare Souls is Ground Scaravich's stage. You can obtain over 300 souls by going through the stage. ********* null_pointer (null_pointer@isp01.net) says: With Ultimate Armox, X can earn nightmare souls quickly by getting to Dynamo quickly. Go to Infinity Mijinion's stage (weapons factory). You can skip all enemies by dash jumping and using the Giga Strike, when necessary. To defeat Illumina's cables, simply stand in the middle of the screen, face the cable, and Giga Strike. Do not jump, but just press the R2 button. That should take you to the edge of the screen, just face to the left and repeat. Three or four hits should do it. Beat both cables, and directly after the second cable, there will be a portal. Just go through the portal and through the secondary area until you reach Dynamo (provided you beat High Max or unlocked Gate's Labs. ********* HEART TANK LOCATIONS [HEARTS] The Heart Tank will apply only to the person who picks it up. Ground Scaravich's Stage This is in one of the limbo areas accessed via the phantom totem pole mechaniloid. It is on the ground in plain sight as you progress uphill through this section. As there are several limbo areas per phantom totem pole mechaniloid, it may take you a few tries to get to this limbo area. Infinity Mijinion's Stage The heart container is to the left of the capsule for the arm program of the Blade Armor. It's in plain sight. Commander Yammark's Stage After the second drop from the the rain forest, you'll reach a green cavernous area. Take the rope down at the first drop in this cavern to reach the next lower level in the cavern. You will see the first pit with a set of green "arrows" going into the pit. It is not really a bottomless pit. You can drop down and go over to the left. There is a Heart Tank in the left corner, two Reploids to be rescued, and a Nightmare. You must quickly kill the Nightmare or rescue the Reploids before they are infected. The tank is in plain sight. Rainy Turtloid's Stage When you get to the inside of the tree trunk, there are 5 narrow passages with spikes on the ceiling and floor. 3 are on the left side of the trunk, 2 on the right side of the trunk. The middle left one has the Heart Tank. You will need the Blade Armor and use the Mach Dash to get through the narrow passageway. You can also obtain the tank by get hit by the large "sumo" robot next to the passage. While your invincible, dash through to get the tank. You will probably die, because you may not be able to get hit by an enemy to leave the area. Metal Shark Player's Stage In the second area where the conveyor belts are moving and the compactor has spikes attached to parts of it, a heart tank is next to a Reploid that needs to be rescued. It is in plain sight. Shield Sheldon's Stage The Heart Tank is on a bed of spikes on the ground before the teleporter to the secondary area. Use the Shadow Armor to get the tank. You can also get hit by an enemy and while invincible, get the tank. Blizzard Wolfang's Stage First, go to Blaze Heatnix's stage. Complete it or exit it if you beat it already. Afterwards, go to Blizzard Wolfang's stage. After the vertical avalanches over the numerous pits, there are two openings to the right side after a downward slope where ice boulders tumble downward. You should see fireballs falling from the sky in this area. Those two openings used to be blocked by ice. Once you reach this area, rescue the Reploid dogs in the area. The Heart Tank is next to the two Reploid dogs in a small chamber that you have to jump to reach. Blaze Heatnix's Stage You will need the Blade Armor's Mach Dash ability to get the Heart Tank. After the second mini-boss Mechaniloid, you will get to a vertical area with an upper and lower gate. You will notice the ceiling is quite high above the upper gate. You must climb either the left or right sides. Once you see the left or right ledges, you must dash jump off the wall then Mach Dash upwards and land on the ledge. Continue to climb up and it is in plain sight as you go along your way. ***** megamanzero66@hotmail.com writes: "I'd just like to say, in Blaze Heatnix's area, to get to the secondary area, you CAN use X's Ultimate armor to get up to where the heart is on the top-left side. All you need to do is slide down the wall about halfway, and if you jump and [use X's Giga Attack], X kinda leaps a wee bit higher [than normal]. You just have to try to aim for X to be under the edge closest to you and Giga Attack. It took me an hour to get it right, but X WILL hit the edge of the other side and all you need to be aware of is that you don't have much time to hit the X Button and wall jump up. It will take a few tries, but you can get up with X's Ultimate Armor." ***** ENERGY TANK LOCATIONS [ENERGY] Energy Tanks apply to both Zero and X. Every time you pick up a life energy container, a little bit of life energy is stored in the Energy Tank. The Energy Tank works by refilling a percentage of your life energy. The percentage is based on how much is in the Energy Tank. A full Energy Tank will restore 100% of your life energy. A half-full tank will restore life energy equivalent to 1/2 of your maximum life energy. Using an Energy Tank consumes its entire contents, even if you only lost a little life energy. In Command Yammark's stage, before the second downward drop, if you look in the upper left hand corner, you can see a ledge with an Energy Tank and a Reploid to be rescued. As Blade Armor X, you can reach this ledge from a ledge on the opposite side with the Speedster part and the Mach Dash. Jump on the green platform mechaniloid and jump again to reach the right ledge. Then, walk as fast as you can and jump off the right ledge. While in the air, press and hold jump to start the Mach Dash. Press left on the control pad, and X will Mach Dash to the left ledge. As Zero, you should equip at least the Speedster part. Walk as far as you can on that right ledge and jump at the last minute. As you begin to descend, double-jump. You should just barely make it to the other side. As X in any other armor, you will need the Hyper Dash part. Walk up to the edge of the right ledge and dash jump. You should be able to hyper dash over the the wide gap. In Blaze Heatnix's stage, the tank is in the secondary area of this stage. You can access the teleporter that goes to this secondary area using the Blade Armor. Otherwise, you need to come here after completing or exiting Metal Shark Player's stage. There should be a metallic block just before the upper door to the third battle with the red ring-shaped mechaniloid. Please see Blaze Heatnix's stage information for more details. As you climb up the vertical chamber in the secondary area, the Energy Tank is in plain sight and is easy to reach. WEAPON TANK LOCATIONS [WEAPON] The Weapon Tank applies to both Zero and X. Every time you pick up an weapon energy container, a little bit of weapon energy is stored in the Weapon Tank. The Weapon Tank works by refilling a percentage of your current weapon's energy. The percentage is based on how much is in the Weapon Tank. A full Weapon Tank will restore 100% of your current weapon's energy. A half-full tank will restore weapon energy equivalent to 1/2 of your maximum weapon energy. Using a Weapon Tank consumes its entire contents, even if you only lost a little weapon energy. In the secondary area of Shield Sheldon's stage, the weapon tank is on a bed of spikes Use the Shadow Armor to walk on the spikes to get it. You can also get hit by a gnat mechaniloid or a Nightmare. While invincible, you can get the tank and jump out of the spikes. ********* Aquastone7@aol.com says: Tips on filling the E-Tank and W-Tank If you fill your E-tanks and W-tank before you save and turn off your console, they will be empty when you reload it. If you want to quickly fill your E-tanks and/or W-tank so you can take on bigger enemies, there are two good ways to do so. (1) Go to Rainy Turtloid's Stage. Follow the level until you reach the area with all the health that is outside in the rain (after the moving platforms) and get all the pick-ups. Continue on until you reach the big tree you walk inside of. Destroy the rain device cores, refill your health on the blue platforms, and kill the Bat Mechaniloids that drop bombs on you. They give you either life energy or weapon energy. I wouldn't bother trying to destroy the Sumo Mechaniloids, they waste time, health, and only give weapon energy. (2) I prefer this way MUCH more. Go to Blizzard Wolfang's level, be sure you have Metal Anchor and that you're able to charge it up. In the very start, zoom up the rope and onto the ice. Have Metal Anchor fully charged. When you go up a bit more, the ground will shake and the avalanche will come down soon. Quickly get to the pit you evacuate in. Once the Ice Boulders have rolled down over you for about a few seconds, fire the charged Metal Anchor, and the copies of Storm Eagle that come down will destroy the boulders, giving you a varied supply of health energy and weapon energy (3-7 parts). The first time I had done this I got 6 energy capsules, the second time 3, so it works randomly. This will quickly fill your tanks. This also works on the Boulders that fall vertically, but is pretty useless because you can't collect energy from them. ********* EX TANK LOCATIONS [EX] The EX Tank gives you 4 lives in reserve when you start a game, instead of the default 2 lives in reserve. Blizzard Wolfang's Stage First, go to Blaze Heatnix's stage. Complete it or exit it if you beat it already. Afterwards, go to Blizzard Wolfang's stage. After the vertical avalanches over the numerous pits, there are two openings to the right side after a downward slope where ice boulders tumble downward. You should see fireballs falling from the sky in this area. Those two openings used to be blocked by ice. Once you reach this area, rescue the Reploid dogs in the area. You will notice a drop with spike on the sides. The bottom of that drop is a bed of spikes where the EX Tank sits. You need to get damaged by a Nightmare, and then fall down the drop quickly. Pick up the EX Tank and dash to safety. Climb up the ladder to continue. You can also use X's Shadow Armor to do this as well. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For the spike pit with the EX tank, you can jump into the pit, and if you time it JUST right, Ultimate Armor X's Giga Attack (Nova Strike) and Blade Armor X's Mach Dash can grab both it and the reploid! It is hard, but it can be done. ********* PARTS [PARTS] NORMAL PARTS [NORMPARTS] Normal parts may be equipped by either X or Zero. Speedster This increases walking speed, but not dash speed. It looks like double or triple the normal walking speed. This will allow X or Zero to make jump further. If combined with the Mach Dash, X can cover a lot of ground. Speedster can help you partially overcome Rainy Turtloid's wind and rain on some stages. Energy Saver For special weapons or techniques that consume energy, it provides additional ammunition for them. Shock Buffer When X or Zero collides with an enemy or get hit by an enemy projectile, he is knocked backwards a small distance (half a body length). This can be hazardous as X or Zero could be knocked into a pit or a set of spikes. The Shock Buffer negates the backward movement. X or Zero simply stays where he is for the length of time it would have taken to get knocked backwards. Shock Buffer also reduces damage by about 1/2 for unarmored X and Zero. It seems to have little effect for armored X or Black Armor Zero. Shock Buffer helps unarmored Zero greatly. He seems to suffer a lot of damage from enemy collisions and attacks than unarmored X does, so equipping the Shock Buffer part on Zero is of great benefit. Jumper This allows X or Zero to jump about 50% higher. This part can be bad in places with a low ceiling, as you can jump too high and collide with an enemy or a fatal hazard. D. Barrier This is the Double Barrier. This extends the amount of time your invincibility will last when you take damage. This can help you get into position to attack an enemy, or stay in a fatal hazard a little longer. D. Converter This is the Damage Converter. As you take damage, you currently equipped special weapon recovers weapon energy. You still lose life energy. Zero's Rekkoha from Megaman X4, Megaman X5, and Megaman X6 have a built-in Damage Converter for itself only. Hyper Dash This increases the speed of the dash. It looks like double the normal dash speed. Unfortunately, it shortens the air dash distance by a small, but noticeable, length. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Hyper Dash will shorten the distances which the Falcon Armor air dashes. However, it lengthens the Mach Dash of the Blade Armor. ********* Buster Plus The X-buster and Z-buster inflict more damage. Speed Shot This makes the buster shots travel faster. If the buster shots leave the screen sooner, the sooner you can fire the next buster shot. The increase in shot speed is more dramatic on Zero, since his buster shot is slower than X's buster shot. Super Recover Life and weapon energy containers give you a lot more energy back. This may be more useful on extreme difficulty, as life and energy containers appear less frequently. X PARTS [XPARTS] These are parts only X can equip. Charge Plus X takes less time to charge his X-buster fully. This is very useful. Rapid 5 X can shoot 5 normal buster shots instead of 3. The shots are green. Weapon Plus X's special weapons inflict more damage. U. Buster This enables the Ultimate Buster for X. X will always fire the fully charged shot. Depending on which armor X is wearing (or none at all), the buster will vary. Shadow Armor X will always perform his charged saber slash. This may not be a good thing, as Shadow Armor X may need to shoot at a distance. Blade Armor X will shoot his charged buster shot. If you press the up button while you press the attack button, Blade Armor X will perform the charged saber slash. Falcon Armor X will shoot his charged buster laser. Ultimate Armor X will shoot his plasma shot from Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. This is the most powerful buster shot. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Ultimate Buster has some effect on your gameplay. When you fire a fully charged shot, you will be unable to use any form of attacks for a short duration. However, if you use a full charged saber on the ground, there will be no delay on any attacks. You can only use one full charged saber in each single jump. However, using the Blade Armor, you can, in the air, use a charged saber, then a charged shot, in one single jump. ********* ZERO PARTS [ZEROPARTS] These are parts only Zero can equip. Shot Eraser Zero can destroy certain enemy projectiles with his saber. His saber becomes purple. Saber Plus This makes Zero's regular saber slash inflict more damage. His saber becomes light blue. Master Saber This makes Zero's special saber techniques inflict more damage. His saber becomes light red. Saber Extend A red crescent slash appears in front of each saber slash. On the third slash of the 3-hit combo, the red crescent slash goes a little further. If you equip Master Saber and either Saber Plus or Shot Eraser, Zero's saber stays light red. LIMITED PARTS [LIMITPARTS] Limited parts are activated like special weapons. You must access them from the menu screen when you are in a stage. Limited parts can only be used once per stage. You will have to clear the stage or exit the stage to be able to use the limited part again. If you used the limited part and then use up all your lives, continuing the game does not restore the limited part (i.e. you did not leave the stage). If you have reached GA, you can equip 1 limited part. You can never equip more than 1 limited part. Life Recover This is just like an extra Energy Tank. Hyperdrive You will see a Hyperdrive icon in the lower left corner. You take less damage from enemy collisions and shots. It lasts for a few seconds, making it not particularly useful unless it is a boss battle and both you and the boss are near death. Chen Guojun, in his contribution, disputes this assertion. I cannot readily confirm this. To be safe than sorry, don't try to collide into enemies with Hyperdrive activated. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com): Hyper Drive does nothing to increase defense at all, regardless of using armor or no armor. What it simply does is that it actually makes you invincible to enemy shots (not enemies), for a short duration. Try it against Illumina's Fireballs. ********* If you have armored X or Black Armor Zero, this part seems to have little effect. I think it increases the defense of unarmored X and Zero. Powerdrive X's and Zero's weapons do more damage. You will see a Powerdrive icon in the lower left corner. It lasts for a few seconds, so make the most of the situation with the few seconds you have. Weapondrive This allows X or Zero to use their special weapons for free. You will see a Weapondrive icon in the lower left corner. It lasts for a few seconds, so make the most of the situation with the few seconds you have. It lasts long enough to use X's charged special weapons once, so it may be more worthwhile just to shoot normal special weapons. W. Recover (Weapon Recover) This is just like a super Weapon Tank as this refills all of X's and Zero's special weapons, including the Giga Attack! This is almost totally useless for Shadow Armor X, since it will only refill his Giga Attack weapon. Overdrive (Description corrected by Marx on Gamefaqs) This will temporarily give X or Zero the ability to shoot powerful charged shots rapidly. X can fire green charged shots that look like unarmored X's fully charged shots. Zero can shoot streams of Z-Buster shots. You will see an Overdrive icon in the lower left corner. It lasts for a few seconds, so make the most of the situation with the few seconds you have. ARMORS [ARMORS] ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: All of X's armors have a Giga Attack. Normally, you must be damaged for the Giga Attack meter to increase. Strangely, when X picks up the large life containers, a little bit of his Giga Attack meter is restored. This does not work for Zero. ********* Falcon Armor X starts with this armor. It has some altered abilities from Megaman X5. 1) You no longer have the flight ability. 2) You can use special weapons and charge them. 3) You can air dash. At the beginning of the air dash, you are invincible and can damage enemies. 4) The charged buster shot is still the laser buster shot. 5) The Giga Attack causes the screen to turn blue while charged laser buster shots attack every enemy on the screen. ********* Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: You can air dash with the Falcon Armor by pressing jump button, or dash button in the air. There is a difference between the 2 dashes. The Air Dash which uses the Jump button, is noticeably shorter, than if you had use the Dash Button instead. (Pressing forward twice in this case, counts as pressing dash button.) ********* BLADE ARMOR [BLADEARMOR] Arm: With X's weapon fully charged, hold the Up button and press the shot button. X will release the charged blade. You can find this program in Infinity Mijinion's stage. Defeat Illumina by destroying the Illumina's two power cables, and a teleporter will appear in the center of the screen. Go into it. When you reappear, go left first and the capsule is in plain sight. Leg: This allows X to perform the Mach Dash. Press and hold the jump button while in the air, and X will freeze in the air. Press a direction and let go of the jump button, and X will dash in the direction. You can dash upwards. The Mach Dash will go a little further than the normal dash, enough to reach certain places that a normal dash would not be able to do. You can find this in Commander Yammark's stage. When you make the first drop from the jungle surface, there will be a praying mantis robot. Instead of going left, go right into a closed chamber. The capsule is there. Body: This allows X to take less damage from attacks and enemy collisions. This also allows X to perform the Giga Attack, which is a saber slash that shoots out two blue crescent slashes. As you take damage, the Giga Attack meter builds up. You can unleash a Giga Attack when the meter is full. You can find this in Shield Sheldon's stage. You must access the special area first. In the special area, look for a red wall on your left side after you fall down from the floor above with the lasers and mirrors. The area where this wall should be is full of floor spikes. X or Zero will say something about a draft somewhere. The left wall is an illusion. Walk through it and there is a small invisible ledge extending from the illusionary wall you can stand. It is about one body length. Dash jump to the other side. You will barely make it to the ledge where the capsule is. You can also try finding the invisible ledge approximately in the middle of the pit (see contribution below by Tootight4life@cs.com). ______________________________ | | | | | | -- |[] | | -- |------ = =| -| -- | | |-- |^^^^^^^^^ | | PIT | | Legend: [] Capsule ^ Spike | Wall - Areas where you can stand = Invisible ledge _____ Ceiling ********* Tootight4life@cs.com says: This one will drive you mad. In Shield Sheldon's stage, there is an invisible platform right smack in the middle of the pit between the illusionary wall and the armor capsule. Believe me, I tried killing myself, and I just landed on it and starting saying, "What the heck?!" So, no, you do not need a long dash jump. You just need a nice jump to the middle of the pit, and you will land on an orange platform. Mew Seeker (cadieux_philippe@hotmail.com) says: The invisible is in the middle of the hole, slightly to the right. If you don't want to lose a life, use a weapon like the Metal Anchor, Ice Burst or Ground Dash to have a much better idea of where the invisible platform is. You can tell where the platform is by how the weapon reacts in the seemingly invisible area. Otherwise, if you don't want to bother, a medium jump should do the trick. ********* Head: This allows X's weapons to consume less energy, i.e. more ammunition for each special weapon. You can find this in Ground Scaravich's stage. It is located in the limbo area when you go through the fourth phantom totem pole mechaniloid. The Blade Armor has the following abilities. 1) A charged shot is a small blue plasma fireball that will inflict damage multiple time on enemies. It is still not as powerful as the Ultimate Buster shot. 2) Holding up while letting releasing a charged shot will cause X to slash with a charged Z-saber instead. It hits more times than the normal Z-saber slash, for slightly more damage. It can destroy certain enemy projectiles, but it appears to be far less versatile than Zero's Shot Eraser part. 3) You can perform the Mach Dash. While you are in the air, press the jump or dash button. Blade Armor X will remain motionless in the air. Press a direction you want to dash and let go of the jump or dash button. Blade Armor X will dash in that direction. The Mach Dash covers more distance than the normal dash. 4) The Giga Attack is a charged saber attack. X will do a green saber slash and create two blue crescent slashes that will travel a moderate distance from X, damaging enemies in their path. The first blue crescent slash appears about 1.5 body lengths from X and the green saber slash appears to be cosmetic, so do not use this at an ememy at point blank range. It is possible that the enemy will not be hit by any of the blue crescent slashes if they are at point blank range. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: A) Holding down the dash or jump button does not increase the Mach Dash distance. The distance is fixed. B) You cannot cancel a Mach Dash unless you get hit or reach a wall. C) If you jump in the air and perform a charged saber slash, you cannot execute a Mach Dash until you land on the ground again. ********* SHADOW ARMOR [SHADOWARMOR] Body: X will take less damage. Energy absorbed will build up the Giga Attack meter. When the Giga Attack meter is full, X can launch the Giga Attack. In Rainy Turtloid's stage, when you get to the inside of the tree trunk, there are 5 narrow passages with spikes on the ceiling and floor. 3 are on the left side, 2 are on the right side. The upper right passage leads to the Shadow Armor body program. You will need the Blade Armor and use the Mach Dash to get through the narrow passageway. Jump and press the jump button just before you touch ground, press right and dash through the first set of spikes. Be sure to let go of the right direction or you will walk into the 2nd set of spikes. Repeat to go through the second set of spikes. You can also lure 2 bat mechaniloids nearby and have the first bat mechaniloid drop a bomb on you, making you invincible for a few seconds. Dash through the first spiked corridor. Then, let the second bat mechaniloid drop its bomb on you. Dash through the second spiked corridor. It may be difficult to get to the capsule. You can also try air dashing through each spiked corridor. This is very difficult. You have to air dash at the right height, much like the Mach Dash. Leg: Press the jump button while holding up to jump high and stick to the ceiling. Once on the ceiling, X can dash on the ceiling. You find this in Blizzard Wolfang's stage. Shortly after passing the area with vertical avalanches and pillars of ice you have to stand, you will reach a downward slope to a ladder. Above the ladder is a ledge. Zero can double jump to that ledge. X with the Blade Armor can Mach Dash straight up and land on the ledge. Arms: This allows X to fire shurikens in three directions like Slash Grizzly's crescent claw slashes in Megaman X5 and use a striking charged saber. You find this in Blaze Heatnix's stage. After the second mini-boss donut Mechaniloid, you will get to a vertical area with an upper and lower door. You will notice the ceiling is quite high above the upper door. If you have not come from Metal Shark Player's stage, you will need the Blade Armor's Mach Dash ability to get to the armor capsule. You must climb either the left or right side of the vertical chamber. Once you see the left or right ledges, you must dash jump off the wall then Mach Dash upwards and land on the ledge. Continue to climb up, and you will see the capsule. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For Blade Armor X, use Ice Burst as a stepping stone. Jump from the ice block and use Mach Dash to go straight up. ********* If you did come from Metal Shark Player's stage, you will see a metallic block materialize and them move up and down near the upper door. Jump on it and before reaching the top, have X dash jump to the sides of the ledge and climb up. Zero can double jump. Be careful not to wait too long or the metallic block will push you against the ceiling causing significant damage. As you climb up you will see a metallic block obstructing your way to the capsule and the secondary area. You must use a charged Metal Anchor to destroy it and get past it. ********* Hussaan Banday (ghoststalker7@hotmail.com) says: You can get the arms part with just Zero and Ultimate Armor X. You don't have to go to Metal Shark Player's stage first. KEY (for both diagrams): | wall - or _ a place where you can stand [] [] The gate to the sub-boss [] [] With Ultimate Armor X | | | | |________ _______| | | | | | | | | |________|+ |_______| | | | * | | | | | | | | | | #| | | | |_ | [] | [] | [] | ______________[] | | Jump from # and do the Giga Attack (the invincible air dash) at around the point *. You must do this in such a manner, so that when you do the Giga Attack, your head does touch the ledge above, or you will not be able to cling to the ledge on the other side at +. With Zero | | | | |________ _______| | | | | | | +| | |________| |_______| | | | | | * | | | | #| | | | | | | | |_ | [] | [] | [] | ______________[] | | Jump from # (note this is a little higher than the place from which you jump with Ultimate Armor X) and the double jump from * and you should be able to get to +. ********* Head: This allows X to swing his saber faster. This is in Metal Shark Player's stage. Whene you get to the second ladder going down, go left instead. The path is longer than usual, so you must dash to get through before getting crushed. Take the next ladder down you see. For X, you need the Blade Armor and the Speedster part. Run to the edge and jump. At the height of your jump, activate the Mach Dash and you'll dash to the other side and barely make it. For Zero, you need the Hyper Dash and Speedster part. Get a small walking start and dash leap across. Hold the dash down for maximum dash time. You will barely reach the other side and might have to jump out of the pit. You can also try the Hyper Dash and Jumpster part, and dash jump over the pit. Without the parts for either X or Zero, you have to finish or exit out of Ground Scaravich's stage and then come to Metal Shark Player's stage. There will be blue and black blocks you can push to create a small extension over the ledge to allow you to jump the wide pit before the capsule. ********* Megaman X (shinkuu_hadouken@hotmail.com) says: For X, just set up the Ice Burst so that it is on the edge of the platform, hop on it, hop off it toward the ledge, and use Blade Armor's Mach Dash or Ultimate Armor's Giga Attack (Nova Strike) to cross the pit! Aquastone7@aol.com says: To make this jump with just a dash jump, here is what needs to be done. I moved forward step by step towards the pit until the Ice Burst block actually fell down the pit. I got to the point where the Ice Burst block was actually levitating above the pit, with its slightest corner scraping the edge of the wall. Here is where the Ice Burst block should be: (X) _ (enemies) (capsule) ------------------------|_| -------- | | | | (ice ^) I went to the VERY corner of the Ice Burst block, did a dash-jump, and made it barely across, WITHOUT any parts. This works fine with Falcon Armor. Grady Low (aznsmallfries@hotmail.com) says: For X, equip Magma Blade. You dash jump first, and when you are in front of the ledge on the other side, keep using Magma Blade. Each Magma Blade moves you forward, so once you get close enough to the ledge, climb up the wall, and get the capsule. Godofcowfish2@aol.com says: X should have Ice Burst. Go to Ground Scaravich's stage and then come to Metal Shark Player's stage. Push a black block to the edge of the platform. Then, fire the Ice Burst so the ice block lands on the edge of the black block. Using this method, it is obtainable with normal X and Falcon Armor X without any extra parts. ********* The Shadow Armor has the following abilities. 1) The normal shot is a set of shurikens. They shoot in alternating patterns: they fly horizontally, a little upwards, and a little downward. This is much like the crescent shot from Megaman X5. 2) A charged shot will release a charged saber slash. It has a little more range than the Blade Armor or normal saber attack. It is the most powerful saber slash, excluding the Giga Attack for the Shadow Armor. 3) The Giga Attack is a charged double crescent slash attack. Two crescent slashes will appear from Shadow Armor X. They will arc forwards, then loop backwards behind X (one above, on below), and then return to X. The attack is done twice. This is the strongest saber slash available to X. 4) You can cling to walls without sliding. 5) Pressing up and the jump button will cause Shadow Armor X to high jump. He will jump much higher than a jumper part would provide. If you do this maneuver, and he hits the ceiling, he will cling to it and hang upside down for a few seconds. While on the ceiling, he can throw three shurikens out in a conical direction. In addition, he can dash on the ceiling. 6) You can walk on MOST spikes or cling to spikes (see reader contributions below). 7) You have no air dash. 8) You cannot use special weapons. That is probably the tradeoff for having the ability to touch spikes, much like the Gaia Armor from Megaman X5. 9) Contrary to some reports, Shadow Armor X does not appear to make X faster. You still need Speedster and Hyper Dash parts. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: A) When Shadow Armor X does a ceiling grip, he cannot shoot the shurikens anymore if you have the U. Buster part on him. B) The longer an enemy or boss is in the arc of slashes in the Giga Attack, the more damage it will take. It is not 4 individual slashes as previously noted. null_pointer (null_pointer@isp01.net) says: Shadow X is not immune to all spikes. Take him into Metal Shark Player's Stage and play and go through the first portal to the second area. Then, play through that stage until you find a section of the compactor ceiling with spikes on it, pointing down. If you touch those spikes in any way (try jumping into them), you will die. This is most likely just a bug in the game. Hussaan Banday (ghoststalker7@hotmail.com) says: Shadow Armor X's charged saber slash can erase certain enemy projectiles. One type projectile is the one that the Bird Aircraft Mechaniloids shoot in Infinity Mijinion's stage. Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) says: Shadow Armor X's normal saber slash is indeed faster, as the head part's description stated. However, there is one disadvantage. Whenever you use any other armor's saber slash, it is slower, but you can cancel it with a dash or jump. Shadow Armor X's orange saber, despite being faster, cannot be cancelled. ********* ULTIMATE ARMOR [ULTARMOR] This can only be accessed by a code given to you when you beat the game. This armor is very much like previous ones appearing in Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. The Ultimate Armor has the following abilities. 1) You can perform unlimited Giga Attacks (Nova Strikes). X will jump into the air and air dash like a comet. He is invincible while air dashing and will damage anything in his path. Be careful not to fly into a fatal hazard or cause yourself to fall into a pit. Nova strikes are very powerful against everybody except Gate, so this is somewhat of a cheat. 2) Unfortunately, you cannot use special weapons an infinite number of times. ********* J. Scriba 5 (senkojin05@yahoo.com) says: The Nova Strike has the following uses besides being a weapon: A) It is used to reach some high places, since X jumps before performing the attack. B) It is used as defense when an enemy came rushing towards you, since you can inflict damage and be be invincible while flying (you are not invincible when you jump into the air to start the Nova Strike). C) You can easily save reploids and destroy Nightmares near them. This is a lot faster than dashing or air dashing. A Nova Strike has a travelling distance equal to about 2-3 ground dashes or air dashes. ********* To get this, put the cursor "Game Start" in the title screen. Then, press the following button combinations: Ultimate Armor X: Left, Left, Left, Right Only one code may be used per save file. If the code is done correctly, you will hear a confirmation sound. You get these codes when you beat the game. BLACK ARMOR [BLACKARMOR] This can only be accessed by a code given to you when you beat the game. This armor looks very much like previous ones appearing in Megaman X4 and Megaman X5. Black Armor has the following abilities. 1) Zero has a built-in Shock Buffer, Saber Plus, Energy Saver, and Shot Eraser. There is no need to equip those parts. To get this, put the cursor "Game Start" in the title screen. Then, press the following button combinations: Black Armor Zero: L1, L1, L1, R2 Only one code may be used per save file. If the code is done correctly, you will hear a confirmation sound. You get these codes when you beat the game. NIGHTMARES AND RESCUING REPLOIDS [NIGHTMARE] These enemies have a head, a torso, and tentacles for a lower body. The slowly fly around the screen. They will try to fly near you, stop, and then fire four red energy balls at your current location. Each red energy ball does decent damage. If the whole screen is filled with them, you could get slaughtered. If you defeat a Nightmare, they give up a blue Nightmare Soul orb. Picking up Nightmare souls will improve your Hunter ranking. The Nightmare soul starts off large but will shrink to a smaller size if you do no pick it up fast enough. If you leave it alone for too long, the soul will disappear and the Nightmare will reform itself. If you defeat the Nightmare a second time, you get no soul. The Nightmares are annoying, because they can infect the reploids you are trying to rescue. Once they latch onto a reploid, and the reploid starts flickering white, you have lost that reploid. You can destroy the reploid, which is marked as "killed," or you can run away and scroll the infected reploid off screen. The reploid is marked as "missing." In either case, the reploid is permanently lost. Since 5 reploids per stage have parts, it is imperative that you rescue as many as you can. The reploids that have parts in each stage never change, so you can concentrate on the ones that have parts. Rescuing reploids gives you an extra life (maximum of 9 stocked) and some life energy back. Nightmares will attack the closest target on the screen, whether it is you or a reploid. Sometimes, as you scroll the screen, you find Nightmares really close to reploids. You have no choice but to rush into the situation and rescue the reploid before the Nightmare gets to that reploid. Therefore, one strategy for dealing with Nightmares is to scroll the screen slowly. If you can see only the Nightmares on the edge of the screen, they will come after you instead of the reploids. Let the Nightmares come to you, and then destroy them before moving forwards. Any Nightmares you destroyed along the way will reappear if you backtrack, so do not backtrack as much as possible. Simply stay where you are and let the Nightmares come to you. ********* Elven Warlock (paromin@hotmail.com) says: If the Nightmares start heading towards a reploid, and you can't get to them in time, go back a screen's distance. Most of the time, the Nightmare's location will reset to where it was orignally, so you could try to save that reploid again. Aquastone7@aol.com says: A good way to collect soul was explained (the Dynamo topic), but an even BETTER way would be to go to Ground Scaravich's stage equipped with Shadow Armor, plus auto charge and/or rapid fire. Destroy nightmares as much as possible, collecting nightmare souls, and when you get to the secondary portal, you can fight Dynamo and get even more nightmare souls. Playing in Ground Scaravich's stage will usually give you at least 325 nightmare souls. After you finish playing the stage, be sure to go to Metal Shark Player's level for just one second, exit, so that Ground Scaravich's level is affected again, so the nightmares will now carry souls again. Otherwise, they will give you nothing. ********* NIGHTMARE SYSTEM [NIGHTSYS] (Some information provided by Kryptech and Magna Centipede on Gamefaqs) Like Megaman X1, changes can occur to certain stages by beating certain Maverick bosses. Unlike Megaman X1, you have to go through them in a particular order. The stage alterations are not permanent. You must trigger them. If you have cleared a stage, you need not go through the entire stage to make it count. Just exit and the affected stages will be highlighted in red. Only one stage-altering effect can be present on a stage at one time. A stage that is affected by the Nightmare System is highlighted in red on the stage selection screen. It will, however, remember the last effect that was on it, even if it is no longer designated red. To change the effect, you need to go in and out of another stage that will affect the destination stage. Then, go in and out of a stage that will not affect your destintation stage. The only time you will get a neutral state of all the stages is really at the beginning of the game, before you enter ANY of the stages. Once you enter a stage and exit, the Nightmare system activates. In other words, the first stage you enter will have no Nightmare stage-altering effects. Commander Yammark -> Shield Sheldon ----------------------------------- A lot of pesky gnat mechaniloids appear in the stage. You can drive them away by hitting them several times. You can destroy them by blasting them with Yammar Option. Commander Yammark -> Blaze Heatnix ---------------------------------- A lot of pesky gnat mechaniloids appear in the stage. You can drive them away by hitting them several times. You can destroy them by blasting them with Yammar Option. Rainy Turtloid -> Commander Yammark ----------------------------------- In areas where there are block-like platforms with green moss on top, it is raining to the left side (the wind is blowing to the left). Travelling against the rain's path (the wind) will reduce X's or Zero's walking speed. If X or Zero is equipped with the Speedster part, travelling against the rain's path (the wind) will give you normal walking speed. Rainy Turtloid -> Ground Scaravich ---------------------------------- In some of the limbo areas accessed by traveling into the totem poles, it is raining to the left side (the wind is blowing to the left). Traveling against the rain's path (the wind) will reduce X's or Zero's walking speed. If X or Zero is equipped with the Speedster part, traveling against the rain's path (the wind) will give you normal walking speed. Blaze Heatnix -> Blizzard Wolfang --------------------------------- (Contributed by Magna Centipede on Gamefaqs) After the vertical avalanches over the numerous pits, there are two cracked walls on the right side after a downward slope where ice boulders tumble downward. If you came from Blaze Heatnix's stage, you should see fireballs falling from the sky, and the cracked walls will be gone. Blaze Heatnix -> Infinity Mijinion ---------------------------------- Fireballs rain down from the sky in certain parts of the stage. Infinity Mijinion -> Commander Yammark -------------------------------------- In certain parts of Commander Yammark's stage, the screen will get very dark, and a diamond-shaped spotlight will surround X and Zero. You can only see the immediate area around you instead of the entire screen. The entire secondary area of this stage is covered by this type of spotlight pattern. Infinity Mijinion -> Rainy Turtloid ----------------------------------- In certain parts of Rainy Turtloid's stage, the screen will get very dark, and a diamond-shaped spotlight will surround X and Zero. You can only see the immediate area around you instead of the entire screen. This spotlight appears in the areas where you have to find the red sensors to allow you to destroy the weather generator. Shield Sheldon -> Blizzard Wolfang ---------------------------------- Soul bodies of X or Zero will appear in various places and try to collide with you. Colliding with the soul bodies does noticeable damage. If you go through the stage as X, you will see Zero soul bodies. If you go through the stage as Zero, you will see X soul bodies. You can destroy the soul bodies by touching them with your Guard Shell. Shield Sheldon -> Rainy Turtloid -------------------------------- Soul bodies of X or Zero will appear in various places and try to collide with you. Colliding with the soul bodies does noticeable damage. If you go through the stage as X, you will see Zero soul bodies. If you go through the stage as Zero, you will see X soul bodies. You can destroy the soul bodies by touching them with your Guard Shell. Blizzard Wolfang -> Metal Shark Player -------------------------------------- Certain parts of junk embedded in the ground in Metal Shark Player's stage to have ice covering them. You will slide on the ice, so be careful you do not run into spikes or be fatally crushed by the compactor. ********* Paromin on GameFaqs: Use Hydroga or Ice Burst to destroy the ice. It does not make sense, but it works. ********* Metal Shark Player -> Blaze Heatnix ----------------------------------- Metallic blocks will appear throughout the stage. They remain motionless, then move up and down, and finally remain motionless again. This process repeats. If you collide with a moving metallic block, you will take damage. Metallic blocks can be destroyed by several normal Metal Anchors or a charged Metal Anchor. After the second mini-boss donut Mechaniloid, you will get to a vertical area with an upper and lower door. You will notice the ceiling is quite high above the upper door. You will see a metallic block materialize and then move up and down near the upper door. Jump on it and before reaching the top, have X dash jump to the sides of the ledge and climb up. Zero can double jump. Be careful not to wait too long or the metallic block will push you against the ceiling causing significant damage. Taking that path leads to a capsule and the secondary area. Metal Shark Player -> Infinity Mijinion --------------------------------------- Metallic blocks will appear throughout the stage. They remain motionless, then move up and down, and finally remain motionless again. This process repeats. If you collide with a moving metallic block, you will take damage. Metallic blocks can be destroyed by several normal Metal Anchors or a charged Metal Anchor. Some metallic blocks will appear over pits. While this will protect you from falling into the pits, it will make it harder for you to rescue any reploids positioned in the pits. Metal Shark Player -> Ground Scaravich -------------------------------------- In the areas accessed by going into the totem poles (they act as teleporters), there will be Metallic blocks strewn about the levels. They remain motionless, then move up and down, and finally remain motionless again. This process repeats. If you collide with a moving metallic block, you will take damage. Metallic blocks can be destroyed by several normal Metal Anchors or a charged Metal Anchor. Ground Scaravich -> Metal Shark Player -------------------------------------- Brown, Black, and blue blocks appear throughout the stage. Brown blocks can only be destroyed by Ground Dash or Sentsuizan. Black and blue blocks can be pushed with X or Zero by standing next to them and using Ground Dash or Sentsuizan. Some blocks are positioned to hinder you. Other blocks are positioned to help you. It is possible to get the Shadow Armor Head program without parts or the Blade Armor. There will be blue and black blocks you can push to create a small extension over the ledge to allow you to jump the wide pit to the capsule. Ground Scaravich -> Shield Sheldon ---------------------------------- (Contributions by Chen Guojun (guojun83@hotmail.com) in addition to FAQ author) Red blocks appear throughout the stage. Red blocks can only be destroyed by Ground Dash or Sentsuizan. Red blocks, however, explode when destroyed. Red Blocks can damage you if you try to destroy them while you are standing very close to them. You have to destroy them by standing very far away. They simply damage you if you are too close when you try to destroy them. Some blocks are positioned to hinder you. Other blocks are positioned to help you. FIND ZERO [FINDZERO] Zero can be found by going to the end of a secondary area for the first time. In every stage, there are two paths. One path goes to the stage boss. There is a second path in every stage that leads to a teleporter. Going through that teleporter brings you to another section of the stage. At the end of this section is another boss room, where you will fight Nightmare Zero. Defeat him, and Zero will be playable. Not all secondary areas can be reached directly. Some of these secondary areas require Nightmare effects to be activated to be reachable. Other secondary areas require parts or armors for X. Yet, some secondary areas are very easy to reach. The secondary areas that can be accessed without special parts, armors, or Nightmare effects are Shield Sheldon, Ground Scaravich, Infinity Mijinion, and Rainy Turtloid. Infinity Mijinion's secondary area is easy to access. Just defeat Illumina and jump into the teleporter. Rainy Turtloid's secondary area will be tricky as the passageway to the teleporter has spikes. You can get hit by the nearby enemies and use the invincibility time to dash through the passageway. If you defeat High Max in the secondary area before finding Zero, you will lose the opportunity to find Zero. OPENING THE FINAL STAGES EARLY [OPENFINAL] When you defeat High Max in the secondary area, you will automatically open up the final stages. If you defeat High Max in the secondary area before finding Zero, you will lose the opportunity to find Zero. SECRET CUTSCENE [SECRETSCENE] (Originally discovered by JH Lee on Gamefaqs and confirmed by this FAQ author.) There is a secret cutscene that appears when you fulfill the following conditions: 1) You do not defeat High Max in the secondary area. 2) You must not defeat all 8 Nightmare Investigators. 3) X must collect 3000 Nightmare souls for himself before Zero does to get the secret cutscene from X's perspective. 4) Zero must collect 3000 Nightmare souls for himself before X does to get the secret cutscene from Zero's perspective. After you go through this cutscene, the final stages will be available. If you do not find Zero before this cutscene, you will lose the opportunity to find Zero. ENDINGS [END] There are three endings. Here are the three conditions to get them. -Finish the game with X without finding Zero -Finish the game with X after finding Zero -Finish the game with Zero (requires that X finds Zero first, of course)