[acediez]

Looks great! You went beyond fitting what was missing and managed to make it look better, the original looks a bit too dense... everything crammed together while wasting a lot of space.

[Zero Dozer]

Look at those people that think that Mega Man X is a game for speeders just because it's faster-paced than the Classic series. I mean, seriously? You guys don't seem to know Mega Man very well if you think the game's about racing into the boss room and them slamming them against the wall.

Mega Man X5 had serious pacing problems, indeed, hence the overly long boss fights caused by their excessive invincibility, lack of efficiency of their weaknesses (Especially when it comes to The Skiver and Dark Hold when X uses it) and huge life gauges. But removing the navigator just because such removal would benefit speedrunners? I find this a bullshit.

But it would be cool if Alia's hints were optional and her dialogue in certain parts would have been made more useful.

[Kallisto]

Depending how far you dig, and implement..I'm curious to see what else could be inside the data of X5 besides what is known to us on TCRF.

Playstation stuff holds a lot of interesting things.

[DarkSamus993]

Depending how far you dig, and implement..I'm curious to see what else could be inside the data of X5 besides what is known to us on TCRF.

The most interesting thing I've found is unused sprites for X and Zero (I programmed a graphics decompressor that works on X4-6, but never got around to optimizing it and writing a re-compressor yet). And of course there's the stray graphics leftover from X4 here and there (such as a tile from the boss health bars).

[futuretime23]

Look at those people that think that Mega Man X is a game for speeders just because it's faster-paced than the Classic series. I mean, seriously? You guys don't seem to know Mega Man very well if you think the game's about racing into the boss room and them slamming them against the wall.

Mega Man X5 had serious pacing problems, indeed, hence the overly long boss fights caused by their excessive invincibility, lack of efficiency of their weaknesses (Especially when it comes to The Skiver and Dark Hold when X uses it) and huge life gauges. But removing the navigator just because such removal would benefit speedrunners? I find this a bullshit.

But it would be cool if Alia's hints were optional and her dialogue in certain parts would have been made more useful.

Believe it or not, it would. Even 1 second can make the difference in a speedrun.
And no, MMX games can be played without speedrunning, but you DO realize the fast speed of the games is one the key aspects as to what makes the X series so different from the classic series? Doesn't mean you have to be Sonic and blaze through everything but it would be nice that Alia wouldn't stop me mid dash jump just to tell me extremely obvious stuff (like in Firefly's stage) If it was optional like X6 or alternatively, gone, this wouldn't happen.

Also invincibilities should remain as they are, otherwise you run the risk of the boss being too vulnerable to X's plasma shot (for the 2 armors that use it) as well as the Gaea's Giga attack, and dying very quickly (one example of lack of invincibility being detrimental to a boss fight would be X6's Final Sigma. Try using the Shadow Armor's saber and you'll know EXACTLY what I'm talking about)
The huge life gauges also only occur should you face the boss on Lv. 96...which you do on the rematch. The bosses are always at Lv. 96 there (except on Easy IIRC) otherwise, boss gauges aren't that long when you start out.
I already suggested to cut them down a bit.

Another thing, I think we should stop commenting about Alia. The solutions are pretty clear as to what to do with her, and it would be wise not to flood the thread with complaining about Alia and if she should be removed or not, and if it really benefits the game or not. Let's not ruin this project guys.

[RetroRain]

I was always puzzled about the quality dip in X5 myself.  Believe it or not, I had played X5 last.  I played X4, then X6, and then I bought X5.  X4 and X6 have almost the same level of quality, where-as X5 looked like a shitty rush job.

That being said, another suggestion (you may have already thought to do it), something that I believe desperately needs to be fixed in X5:

Dialogue Font of X4 --> JUST FINE



Dialogue Font of X6 --> JUST FINE



Dialogue Font of X5 --> UGLY



I would have the font of X5 use either X4's or X6's, but the font in the game is horrible.  And unfortunately it was used for both dialogue boxes and cutscenes.

And there are no dialogue avatars during gameplay, like in X4 and X6.

But the fact that you are hacking the actual PlayStation ROM is pretty fucking awesome.  I can't wait to do some PS1 hacking myself in the future.

[futuretime23]

I do agree that the lack of cutscene avatars sucks.
I mean, it's true that X4 didn't feature them at every conversation (like Mavericks, for example) but it did feature them. X6 featured avatars for everything, really.
That being said, disagree on X5 being the weakest/quality dip. X6 had way WAY more issues than 4 or 5. At least neither of those games had a section where depending on if you picked a certain armor (Shadow Armor or if you weren't using an armor in X6's case), you couldn't get past a level, in this case, Gate's Lab 2 (the leap of faith section) as X.
X4 was far better than X6, IMO.

[Magma Dragoon]

I tried a small edit:

[futuretime23]

 
Looks awesome man, I hope Dark can implement that in the project.

[Atrushan]

I was always puzzled about the quality dip in X5 myself.  Believe it or not, I had played X5 last.  I played X4, then X6, and then I bought X5.  X4 and X6 have almost the same level of quality, where-as X5 looked like a shitty rush job.

That being said, another suggestion (you may have already thought to do it), something that I believe desperately needs to be fixed in X5:

Dialogue Font of X4 --> JUST FINE



Dialogue Font of X6 --> JUST FINE



Dialogue Font of X5 --> UGLY



I would have the font of X5 use either X4's or X6's, but the font in the game is horrible.  And unfortunately it was used for both dialogue boxes and cutscenes.

And there are no dialogue avatars during gameplay, like in X4 and X6.

But the fact that you are hacking the actual PlayStation ROM is pretty fucking awesome.  I can't wait to do some PS1 hacking myself in the future.

I would prefer X4 out of them all. Personally it looks the best from all of the pictures you have shown me, in both font, dialog boxes, and the avatars. The avatars aren't necessary and none of these changes are, but X4 seems like it has the best in terms of quality(which I never actually paid attention to, good on you Rockman).

I do agree that the lack of cutscene avatars sucks.
I mean, it's true that X4 didn't feature them at every conversation (like Mavericks, for example) but it did feature them. X6 featured avatars for everything, really.
That being said, disagree on X5 being the weakest/quality dip. X6 had way WAY more issues than 4 or 5. At least neither of those games had a section where depending on if you picked a certain armor (Shadow Armor or if you weren't using an armor in X6's case), you couldn't get past a level, in this case, Gate's Lab 2 (the leap of faith section) as X.
X4 was far better than X6, IMO.
 

I would like to direct you to this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvNv2E9k6Ic

[Zero Dozer]

Believe it or not, it would. Even 1 second can make the difference in a speedrun.
And no, MMX games can be played without speedrunning, but you DO realize the fast speed of the games is one the key aspects as to what makes the X series so different from the classic series? Doesn't mean you have to be Sonic and blaze through everything but it would be nice that Alia wouldn't stop me mid dash jump just to tell me extremely obvious stuff (like in Firefly's stage) If it was optional like X6 or alternatively, gone, this wouldn't happen.

Also invincibilities should remain as they are, otherwise you run the risk of the boss being too vulnerable to X's plasma shot (for the 2 armors that use it) as well as the Gaea's Giga attack, and dying very quickly (one example of lack of invincibility being detrimental to a boss fight would be X6's Final Sigma. Try using the Shadow Armor's saber and you'll know EXACTLY what I'm talking about)
The huge life gauges also only occur should you face the boss on Lv. 96...which you do on the rematch. The bosses are always at Lv. 96 there (except on Easy IIRC) otherwise, boss gauges aren't that long when you start out.
I already suggested to cut them down a bit.

Another thing, I think we should stop commenting about Alia. The solutions are pretty clear as to what to do with her, and it would be wise not to flood the thread with complaining about Alia and if she should be removed or not, and if it really benefits the game or not. Let's not ruin this project guys.

The hack is meant for every player, not just professionals and speedrunners (also, would professionals compete over a ROM hack? I walk around the Metroid community and not many guys do speedruns of its ROM hacks). I agree with making Alia's dialogues during the stage optional (such as it is in X6 onwards), but removing it is too much.

Also, no, invincibilities should not remain as they are. They last too long, they drag the fight for too long already, especially in cases like Mattrex when hit with a Wing Spiral. You also talk about it like I wanted to remove such invincibility altogether, which is bullshit. I would be quite happy if those invincibilities worked like the X1-X3 era. Also, the huge boss lifebars have to be shortened, they also make the fight unnecessarily long, and X5 is the only game to do that junk. (I don't recall if X6 does that or only gets close.)

[futuretime23]

I would prefer X4 out of them all. Personally it looks the best from all of the pictures you have shown me, in both font, dialog boxes, and the avatars. The avatars aren't necessary and none of these changes are, but X4 seems like it has the best in terms of quality(which I never actually paid attention to, good on you Rockman).
 I would like to direct you to this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvNv2E9k6Ic

Exactly. Perfectly exemplifies how rushed X6's development was as well. What's worse, is that it's very clear X should be able to make the jump normally, but the middle pillar/wall screws him over.
It's like the game was only playtested with the Falcon armor, seriously.

To Zero Dozer:
Yes, the hack is meant for every player (I even mentioned other changes, like weapon changes for X to make his weapons more viable) and secondly, the Alia change isn't just for speedrunners: it's for everyone who thinks (not just me I assure you) that she breaks up the pace of the levels. I stated this like 2-3 times now.
Dozer, there's no need to argue over this again. If you want to argue with me about that, we can do so in PMs. The possible solutions as to what do to with Alia have been posted here, no need to fill up the thread about this.

Also, to argue your two points about Boss lifebars and invincibilities:
If you meant just shortening their invincibilities a bit but not remove them, then I'm sorry for having misunderstood you earlier. Thing is, I'm kind of worried that altering some of the invincibilities could lead to some boss fights becoming almost pointless but it could be done: in the case of something like Dinorex with the Spiral, if anything, his animation should be sped up when he gets hit by the Spiral, and then cut his invincibility so that it matches the new animation speed. That way, you cut down on his invincibility a little and speed up the fight without severely altering the difficulty. (Then again, Dinorex isn't tough, with or without the Spiral) But I will state that you (in theory) can't cut down on them that much, because you run the risk of making the fights too easy, and possibly making bosses too susceptible to certain attacks (like X's Plasma shots, or his Gaea Armor's Giga attack)

As for the boss lifebars, keep in mind that they only get really long after they get to a certain level, and on Easy, at least the rematch Maverick ones, since they don't get buffed to Lv. 96.
If anything, the higher level lifebars should be cut down, so while the levels do give extra life to bosses, it's not to an absurd degree like the rematch Maverick ones.
The initial boss lifebars (and they stay for a good chunk of the game) are hardly that long. These ones shouldn't be altered or you run the risk of making the game too easy.

[Atrushan]

Exactly. Perfectly exemplifies how rushed X6's development was as well. What's worse, is that it's very clear X should be able to make the jump normally, but the middle pillar/wall screws him over.
It's like the game was only playtested with the Falcon armor, seriously.

To Zero Dozer:
Yes, the hack is meant for every player (I even mentioned other changes, like weapon changes for X to make his weapons more viable) and secondly, the Alia change isn't just for speedrunners: it's for everyone who thinks (not just me I assure you) that she breaks up the pace of the levels. I stated this like 2-3 times now.
Dozer, there's no need to argue over this again. If you want to argue with me about that, we can do so in PMs. The possible solutions as to what do to with Alia have been posted here, no need to fill up the thread about this.

Also, to argue your two points about Boss lifebars and invincibilities:
If you meant just shortening their invincibilities a bit but not remove them, then I'm sorry for having misunderstood you earlier. Thing is, I'm kind of worried that altering some of the invincibilities could lead to some boss fights becoming almost pointless but it could be done: in the case of something like Dinorex with the Spiral, if anything, his animation should be sped up when he gets hit by the Spiral, and then cut his invincibility so that it matches the new animation speed. That way, you cut down on his invincibility a little and speed up the fight without severely altering the difficulty. (Then again, Dinorex isn't tough, with or without the Spiral) But I will state that you (in theory) can't cut down on them that much, because you run the risk of making the fights too easy, and possibly making bosses too susceptible to certain attacks (like X's Plasma shots, or his Gaea Armor's Giga attack)

As for the boss lifebars, keep in mind that they only get really long after they get to a certain level, and on Easy, at least the rematch Maverick ones, since they don't get buffed to Lv. 96.
If anything, the higher level lifebars should be cut down, so while the levels do give extra life to bosses, it's not to an absurd degree like the rematch Maverick ones.
The initial boss lifebars (and they stay for a good chunk of the game) are hardly that long. These ones shouldn't be altered or you run the risk of making the game too easy.

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video or not, but there is a point where the player MAKES the jump as plain X without doing anything other than getting to the lowest point. I think he might have had speedster powerup or something. This is around 1 minute in. Someone in the comments said this was easy to do with speedster/hyper dash. Please watch the entire video first. As for the invincibility frames and such, the normal bosses are not a challenge at all really that I remember, but they never seem to be. Personally I wouldn't mind them reducing the increased life bars and invincibility frames so long as with each level they increased the rate of using more difficult to dodge attacks or something.

[futuretime23]

I'm not sure if you actually watched the video or not, but there is a point where the player MAKES the jump as plain X without doing anything other than getting to the lowest point. I think he might have had speedster powerup or something. This is around 1 minute in. Someone in the comments said this was easy to do with speedster/hyper dash. Please watch the entire video first. As for the invincibility frames and such, the normal bosses are not a challenge at all really that I remember, but they never seem to be. Personally I wouldn't mind them reducing the increased life bars and invincibility frames so long as with each level they increased the rate of using more difficult to dodge attacks or something.

He did use parts, didn't you read the description? He used Hyper Dash and Speedster at one point.
I can even speak out of experience: the only 2 ways the Shadow Armor can make that gap are with parts (Hyper Dash + Speedster, which while not shown on the video, is the easy way of doing it, it's also possible to do it with Hyper Dash only, but it's much harder IIRC. I always did it with those two parts) or cancelling a charged slash with Giga Attack: and let me tell you, it's not easy to pull off. (also this last one requires Speedster, as stated on the description)
Unarmored X can only cross with parts or by exploiting a glitch with the Magma Blade and Scaravich's weapon. Slightly easier to do, but you gotta be careful, since you only have a tiny margin for error.
Again, this points out how badly the development was because nothing in the game ever suggests you need those parts for Shadow or Unarmored X for that level and worse, you have to go out of your way to get these parts: the Dash is on the Inami Temple 2(when you go in the portal to fight NZ/HM/Dynamo) while the Speedster is on the Central Museum (and remember that stage can be completely random, so you may not even encounter that part)

As for X5 Bosses:
There are several bosses that don't really have that difficult to dodge attacks, like Grizzly, or even Dinorex (with some practice), Necrobat.
In those cases, you would have to buff up the speed of their attacks, and possibly increase the damage of their attacks as well in order to make them harder. Necrobat's animation when he gets hit by the weakness could definitely be shortened (it's even longer than Dinorex IIRC)
Kraken and Rosered had a pretty short animation when they got hit by their weakness, so they are an exception, and Pegasus is completely different from the rest of the bosses due to the nature of his weakness.

[Magma Dragoon]

Looks awesome man, I hope Dark can implement that in the project.

I'll try making the remaining names.

[futuretime23]

I'll try making the remaining names.

Good luck!
Btw, how are you gonna spell Kraken's first name?
Here's the thing, I can't find one definitive translation of his name: I always find Volt Kraken or Bolt Kraken. Either one can technically apply (Volt applies because it relates to his electric power, and Bolt also works since his projectiles are bolts of electricity that turn into balls that travel along the ground/wall)
Or maybe there is one definitive translation of his original name, IDK, can anyone clarify this?

[Magma Dragoon]

Good luck!
Btw, how are you gonna spell Kraken's first name?
Here's the thing, I can't find one definitive translation of his name: I always find Volt Kraken or Bolt Kraken. Either one can technically apply (Volt applies because it relates to his electric power, and Bolt also works since his projectiles are bolts of electricity that turn into balls that travel along the ground/wall)
Or maybe there is one definitive translation of his original name, IDK, can anyone clarify this?

It is likely "Volt" is the right translation. There's a boss in X3 named Volt Kurageil who uses the same katakana for his name (ボルト). I'm using "Volt" anyway, since I think it sounds better.

I'm almost done with this by the way, only missing two names.

[SpiffSpoo]

Very cool  .

Is there data for the Force Armor's 4 shot charge still?
I always got that in X4 instead of the Plasma shot since I could just get the other one with the Ultimate Armor if I wanted too.

[DarkSamus993]

Is there data for the Force Armor's 4 shot charge still?
I always got that in X4 instead of the Plasma shot since I could just get the other one with the Ultimate Armor if I wanted too.

The Fourth Armor has all the same graphical and palette data present in X5; it is currently unknown to me if the sprite assembly & the actual code that make the quad-shot/nova strike function is still present within the game or if it has been removed completely.

@Magma Dragoon That boss name edit looks nice! I'll look forward to seeing the rest.

[futuretime23]

It is likely "Volt" is the right translation. There's a boss in X3 named Volt Kurageil who uses the same katakana for his name (ボルト). I'm using "Volt" anyway, since I think it sounds better.

I'm almost done with this by the way, only missing two names.

Oh ok, thanks for the clarification!

Btw, Dark, I know this is highly unlikely, but is there any chance of restoring the original X4 soundset for the Dragoon fight in the training stage?
Even less likely, but does Dragoon keep the sprites for his other X4 attacks that he doesn't use in X5? (I believe the attacks he doesn't use in X5 are summoning a fireball to create a lava pillar, and summoning a storm of fireballs that descend from above) If he does, is there any chance of restoring his unused X4 attacks?