Mega Man X6 is what happens when developers throw too many ideas at a wall, and a publisher doesn’t give enough time for those ideas to materialise into something worth playing. It’s a self-destructive mix of overambition, laziness and greed. A cacophonous concoction of criminally convoluted mechanics, level design, enemy placement and boss encounters. A combination that ultimately became one of the least enjoyable experiences I have had to endure in recent memory. After 16 back-to-back Mega Man games, it truly hurts to review a title in such a negative light. But let’s put aside the introductory doom and gloom for now, and jump right into the review.
First things first, regardless of what negativity may come after, Mega Man X6 controls like a dream. X6 is a Mega Man game through and through, and therefore it’s tighter than a jar of peanut butter at a squirrel convention. Moving, jumping, dashing and shooting are all on point, and feel great. The addition of the Z-Sabre gives X a nice melee option, albeit a limited one, and the return of the crouch adds a strange new dimension to dodging. Zero makes a return, bringing all the flashy flair he always has. Each of the unlockable armours feel unique and powerful. Most of the core elements that make up Mega Man X are undeniably here, and function fantastically.
X6 also opens with an admittedly great introductory stage. You are given a relatively safe environment to fiddle with all the game’s mechanics, and even get to beat up a traditionally paper-like boss. Whether you’re new, or old to X6, this level is perfect. You get to skip cutscenes, ignore your radio companion, Alia, and even experience the (somewhat nerfed) Falcon Armour straight away. These are all great changes and additions. The Falcon Armour in particular, gives you the all important air-dash from the get go, making X6’s rendition of X the most mobility diverse X in series history.
It’s a shame then, that every stage after the introduction ranges from bad, to irredeemably awful. Levels fail to deliver interesting, or even fair, platforming challenges. Enemies are placed in such a way that it is a struggle to gain any momentum, or flow. They even come with just enough health to be tedious – quite literally body blocking you with walls of gears and dials. It feels like the game has been coated in a thick layer of adhesive, that artificially extends your experience in any given area. If you are not falling into a death-pit, you are running into an enemy you couldn’t see, or standing around spending too much time killing a roadblock. One stage literally has you fighting a Robotic-Donut-Snake mini-boss five times in a row. The game even expects you to slog through these fights twice if you want all of the upgrades. It’s just lazy game design.
Stages become even worse when you factor in X6’s biggest gimmick – the ‘Nightmare’ system. Every now and then, a stage will become a Nightmare stage, radically increasing the level’s difficulty. This could be by throwing anything from unavoidable damage at you, to making you certifiably blind, to awkwardly removing platforms to make collecting upgrades more difficult. The game will highlight which stages have been randomly selected to be Nightmare stages, which is handy. What the game doesn’t tell you, is that defeating certain bosses will trigger a seemingly permanent Nightmare state on certain levels. In short, if you do things in the wrong order, you are going to be dealing with this system a lot. What little balance X6 had in its level design is quite literally shattered with this inclusion.
As with any Mega Man game, X6 is jam packed with collectables. Health and weapon recovery returns in the form of Sub Tanks and Weapon Tanks, and X can collect parts for two new suits of armour – the Blade Armour and the Shadow Armour, both which are awesome additions and provide unique ways of tackling Gate’s cronies. Had the game stopped here, then I would be singing its praises. Naturally, the game did not stop there. No, X6 decided to bring back the parts system from X5, and somehow make it worse. Parts are locked behind rescuable Reploids. These guys are scattered throughout each stage and merely touching them, will result in their safe return. Two things ruin this system. Firstly, these reploids can permanently die if certain enemies touch them. Secondly, to use parts you need souls, which require the killing of specific enemies to obtain. In short, that means grinding.
The issue with grinding, is that it is almost mandatory if you want to beat with any sort of player agency. Default X and the Shadow Armour X are unable to overcome the last few stages due to the game requiring specific abilities those armours do not provide. Alternatively you could use a combination of parts that require a significant amount of soul investment to equip. It is entirely possible for players to reach the final stages, beat multiple bosses and then hit an impassable roadblock, simply because they weren’t aware. It wouldn’t surprise me if players assumed you couldn’t overcome that part of the game with those armours. After the nonsense X6 puts you through, it’s almost expected at this point. Such a scenario should not exist, and it is a testament to the horrendous design of X6 that such a thing slipped through testing.
Thankfully the bosses in X6 are actually interesting to fight – to some degree. Like in X5, Mavericks have scaling health, and different attack patterns based on what order you do them in. This keeps the challenge somewhat level, regardless of how powerful you become. It’s a great system that’s been well refined between entries. The Mavericks themselves are also pretty darn cool, with the roster containing a Necromantic-Robo-Shark, a Falsely-Labelled-Nonconformist-Clam, and even a Magma Dragoon knock-off. Even the weapons you obtain after killing them are awesome, giving some nice variety to the gunplay. Unfortunately, like so many things, the ball does inevitably get dropped. You encounter a number of extra bosses throughout your journey, most of which are easily beaten with a bit of practice. That being said, one of them is potentially unbeatable should you encounter him too early – High Max. This monstrosity has an incredibly ponderous, and random, attack pattern. Additionally, he cannot be hurt by conventional means, thus can force a game over if you don’t have the right weapons. His inclusion at all is baffling, but he is not the worst offender.
No, that honour goes to Gate. This guy was clearly designed by someone who not only hates gaming, but clearly humanity as a whole. Like High Max, Gate has a completely random attack pattern, and is immune to all attacks, but this time, his arena is suspended over a giant death-pit. It’s not uncommon for this guy to do nothing for minutes at a time, destroy platforms, alter the fabric of reality, more-or-less remove your ability to jump and generally frustrate you to an unfathomable degree. It took me hours to beat him, and the time I did finally beat him, was entirely down to chance. He just so happened to do the one thing that hurts him, repeatedly, and he died in about 40 seconds or so. Thankfully he is immediately followed up by Sigma, who goes down if exposed to a light breeze.
What kept me fighting till the bitter end, was actually the plot. After the successful destruction of the Eurasia Space Colony, a Reploid known as Gate becomes infected by recurring villain: Sigma. In a virus related madness, he goes about his villainous ways, once again bringing chaos to the world of Mega Man. X jumps into action once more, brandishing his former partners Z-Sabre, and the cycle begins anew. To anyone familiar to the X series, none of this should be surprising. It’s a cheap and cheery way to get you into the fight, and it does it’s job. Typical Mega Man.
Outside of the opening crawl, Mega Man X6 does actually manage to deliver an almost compelling story. It continues to build upon the concept that X, despite his limitless freewill and potential, is a slave. A mere tool used to commit mass murder in the name of justice. It’s compelling stuff that really develops the X universe, X as a character, and many of the Mavericks in a satisfying way. As with X5 however, the localisation here is dreadful. Dialogue is painful to read, killing any emotional weight the story could have. Entire sentences devolve into nonsensical, garbled gibberish by the end, reducing the games plot, to nothing more than comedic claptrap.
Graphically, X6 is a surprising step back. Whilst it retains the stellar sprite work found in the rest of the PS1 trilogy, everything feels a little bit messy, almost overcrowded. I often found myself feeling overwhelmed with the amount of ‘stuff’ on screen, losing track of projectiles and the like. That being said, character models as a whole look great with a special mention going to the bosses, as per usual. This isn’t an ugly game, merely an unpolished one at times.
Despite my dislike for X6, I cannot deny that it has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. I would go as far as saying it is one of the best the series has ever produced. Top quality rock and metal accompanied by some bopping techno and electronic pieces hit all the right notes, even as the rest of the game is having a fit atop a broken drum kit.
Mega Man X6 is a low point in the series that I simply cannot recommend. Every minor positive is vastly overshadowed by an endless tyrade of substandard, unsatisfactory and thoroughly unacceptable negatives. Mega Man X6 is a game for the hardcore Mega Man fan – those of us who willingly want to suffer at the hands of their Lord and Saviour. It’s little more than self flagellation, delivered through the medium of gaming. Do yourself a favour and give this one a miss…or cheat. I wish I had.
Have you played Mega Man X6? Do you intend to? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below
Follow me on Twitter @gameswithtoasty, or join the Games With Toasty Facebook page here for exclusive updates on the future of the blog, as well as notifications for when the latest articles drop. Happy gaming.
Games With Toasty 
dude you get 600 nightmare souls from dynamo you fight him 18 times and your at 9999 uh level took me 2 hours to get both x and zero at 9999. and in x6 both characters can end up equiping 5 items each. in x5 zero coulnt equip anything and x ultimate armor could only equip 2 parts. x6 has such a better replay value and makes you have to earn what you get. if you only have to play a level one time ands can get everything or only takes 3 deaths before you complete a level. personaly id like longer levels where the upgrades really come to use.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s the thing though – I get that some people are fine with doing all of that, but I’m not grinding 2 hours and killing a boss 18 times in a mega man game. That doesn’t appeal to me at all. That’s busy work in a series that is a straight to the point action romp.
Each to their own of course
LikeLike
use zero spin attack against dynamo and he drops a soul worth 200. he will drop up to 3 per encounter thats 600 souls per fight. for X use shadow armor with ultimate buster part equipped and its just as easy as zeros spin attack.
LikeLike
I think it’s a good game. It’s really unfriendly to the beginner, but I’d like to address a few of your issues: to get past the final stages with armorless X or Shadow Armor you will need Jumper or Hyper Dash, both equipped at once if you want but it’s fine with having one for the first and one for the second. To get two slots unlocked, you need just 900 souls: you get 200 souls from each of the 8 main bosses beaten, so to have both, you need to beat 5 bosses or get enough souls another way: if doing it through Dynamo, you can get 600 from fighting him once with Meteor Rain and 200 from beating Turtloid to get it, meaning that you have to beat 1 more boss or just get souls from enemies to get enough slots. At minimum, you just need 500 for 1 slot: this would require beating three bosses normally. I usually find myself with two slots + limited slot (1200 souls), and getting more slots unlocked is optional. Along with that, High Max isn’t really random in his behavior: both of his fights are pretty consistent and can be done without any issue, so I don’t know what you mean by him being as random as Gate, who is actually a bit too random, but I personally enjoy his fight since it’s pretty intense and is a nice break from pattern-based fights, instead being more reaction and planning-focused.
I’dsay that level design is mostly great and allows for far more interesting skilled play than most other X games: where in X1-X2 (or X3-X4 in particular) I find most enemies to be outright avoidable or easy to kill, with the stages themselves at best flowing well despite how basic they can be and at worst just being filler, I feel like most of X6 is elevated by enemies and obstacles being placed in interesting ways: each armor is almost like a unique playstyle specifically because of how each has to handle various obstacles and how it’s influenced by it’s method of attack or the damage they deal. For example, my favorite stage is Mijinion’s, as while it might seem like a basic straight line, each enemy has a very meticulous placement once I focus on getting through the stage more efficiently: I have to keep in mind the timings at which the bird enemies come out and from what side they will come (As it is dependent on player movement), how that will influence the rest of the obstacles and what equipment I come into the stage with. That latter part is what I feel makes X6 shine: in the previous games, it was often that there was an efficient stage order, more tedious, less efficient ones and the option to ignore all of that if you don’t care about items. X3 in particular is just that: most of the game is pretty easy, so I don’t really need items, and if I do want to get items, if I don’t want to waste time, I am limited to one stage order with just one-two alterations being possible at best. And if I don’t go for the items, I can just handle stages in any order, so there isn’t any reason to plan a route once you know how to deal with each boss well without needing the weakness, and even if you do need a certain weapon, it will usually be just to get through more efficiently, rather than to get any items. In X6, the Nightmare Effects mean I can’t just go around without thought, but if I am going for 100%, I will need to revisit most stages once, so I have more freedom as the game has various neat sequence-break esque ways to get certain items early, and I can plan out a route that both requires me to know which effects might be needed for the character I use, and which I just want because they’re preferrable to others. When playing without 100% in mind, I usually outright skip certain stages by beating High Max early, and instead try to purely focus on having the preferrable Nightmare Effect stages beaten early just in case I want to reactivate them. And on top of that there’s things like the parts themselves going into routing and helping heavily with making things a bit easier if needed. Because of that and the overall stage design, I revisit X6 far more often than say, X1, as X1 doesn’t really focus on such flexibility and is instead more of a smooth game, but that comes at the cost of many of the stages being boring from my experience when I revisit it, and when X1 does bare it’s fangs (such as Launch Octopus’ fight) it becomes odd. I think X6 is better compared to games such as the late arcade releases of the 90s (shoot em ups and run’n’guns), which are similarly niche and completely unforgiving, usually requiring the player to go through great lengths to even beat them, let alone master. It won’t have many fans and if it wasn’t for the Mega Man name, I doubt it would even be acknowledged much, but I think it does work really well if one enjoys games like that, even if they could be argued to be unfair by others.
LikeLike
They really screwed up with the Shadow Armor in Gate’s Lab. Imagine if they’d allowed you to choose between Nova Strike and Giga Attack so you could cross the leap of faith gap. Then the Shadow Armor would be perfect. You’d be immune to the spike wallpaper and you could have a fair fight against the bosses – even Gate.
The Gate fight was the one moment – in all of the Mega Man X games – where I needed to turn down the difficulty. It’s ridiculous that you can’t hurt him with the sword attacks.
They had a chance to make the last level feel like Mega Man (or Zero) are NINJAS and they’re penetrating and destroying the enemy. The developers could have given the player a true feeling of accomplishment and power from the moment they step in the lab till the moment Sigma gives his death yell.
They also screwed up having Gate as the penultimate boss. Why is Gate before the boss rush? Why is Gate before Sigma? It was established GATE is behind everything.
LikeLike
Mega Man X6 is probably the worst in the series. X7 has some really bad parts to it, but X6 should have been near perfect considering what they learned from X4 and X5. X6 feels like it was rushed, poorly (or not) play tested and then released as quickly as possible without properly evaluating it.
I think the true measure of how badly this game was designed comes down to Gate’s Laboratory. There’s essentially NO REASON to open the level up to you after beating just 4 mavericks. You don’t have enough items or weapons yet. As the reviewer points out, HIGH MAX is nearly undefeatable. Then there’s the “leap of Faith” located in Gate’s Lab part 2. With the Shadow Armor – which you’d need to not get destroyed by the wallpaper of spikes – you can’t get past the gap unless you know a way to cheat. Why was the Nova Strike and Giga Attack not both included for all high-end armors? I actually used the Ultimate Armor to get through X6 and the game was still ridiculously difficult. It’s the Shadow Armor that allows you immunity to the spikes and gives you an edge against bosses.
Where they really screwed up was missing a chance to flip the gameplay and make Mega Man a “NINJA” in Gate’s lab with the Shadow Armor. Instead they make progression as difficult as possible and give you randomized attacks from Gate that make him ridiculously hard to beat. Cheating and using the Ultimate Armor as you begin the game actually balances the game (slightly) in your favor. But: then you’re dealing with bad camera angles and control issues.
Say what you will about Mega Man X7 but I ended up playing through it 10 times to collect everything. After the first 3 playthroughs, it’s easy. X6 is unrelentingly difficult for all the wrong reasons.
I nominate X6 for WORST OF THE SERIES.
LikeLike