[Metalwario64]

Beetle PSX doesn't even show up when loading content, even though I already downloaded it.

Did you get the BIOS files?
September 24, 2019, 12:13:42 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

EDIT: Now it works... Looks like there's something with Falcon Armor that interferes with which character to play as in the Intro stage.

Oh, that explains why it always worked for me then.

[acediez]

RC7

Ok, I know what's preventing Zero from appearing in the intro stage for some of you. Nothing to do with the Falcon Armor specifically. Changing the character you start with uses code from the "new game status" section, so it would only work if you have some other change in there (as the sample patch and profile do). It's now fixed. It'll work even if "Cheat Code #2" is the only option you select in the entire thing.

I also changed a couple of lines in the original game's code so "Cheat Code #1" (either Ultimate or the modified Ultimate + Black Zero) doesn't add Falcon back.

If you have a profile saved, you may use it with this update, since nothing on the GUI side has changed.

As for the new mugshots not displaying in PCSX ReARMed... I suppose some of the code, or RAM addresses I used, doesn't work with that one emulator. It is working on everything else I through this hack at, including original hardware, so really I have no way to debug it and see what's causing it.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

Okay, so after doing things, now the profiles are working. I don't know if it's because of the BIOS file or because I updated the core properly via the Online Updater, but now everything's in working order.

So anyways, I had 3 thoughts in mind for the project:

Spoiler:

1. I feel like the main reason Shield Sheldon's stage is so annoying is because of the laser emmiters. Not only are they annoyingly slow and confusing to understand how to move, they also damage you, which kinda knocks you around. I feel like it would be a lot more comfortable if the lasers did no damage (or any sort of stun/knockback), and that you could shoot the lasers to change direction, like the reflection panels. I feel like the level would be a tad less annoying with that, though easier. I think another reason for the stage being annoying is how cramped the stage is, and how obscure the Body part is, so maybe some breathing room would help as well, though that might be stretching a bit.

2. There's literally no reason for the Crane enemies to respawn in Commander Yammark's stage. It adds literally nothing and means nothing as well. Just get rid of it honestly.

And last, but most important to me:

3. There's really no incentive at all to collect the EX Tank I feel, since continues are not punishing at all, so extra lives literally only means "you get to see the continue screen later". I feel like, in order to balance this out, I propose the following idea: the continue system would be somewhat like the X4 where you return to the very beginning of the stage/section you're in (so you'd just return to the beginning of a side level if you're in one or the beginning of the 2nd section of Gate's Lab 2), BUT, in return, the EX Tank gives you the option to continue from a checkpoint, rather than the stage beginning. Maybe there's other ways that the EX Tank can be given value, but that's just the one that comes to my mind.

Just in case it was missed.

Also I just noticed how abrupt the blinking animations are. There's a middle frame between open then closed but not closed then opened, so it kinda looks like every time they blink, they have a panic attack and open their eyes immediately, but eh, it's just a minor detail.

[Doomsday Forte]

I thought I was done with X6, but then you just had to drag me back.   

I should probably note all of my observations come from the sample hack, not using the Tweaker itself. 

[Script]

In the intro sequence: 

"The collision had been prevented, they said... 
...But look at this." 

'But' might need to be decapitalized, since it seems like the two lines are meant to go together and just are separated by the text boxes.  You can consider 'they said' as an appositive. 

"To hell with the goody-two-shoes facade... this is amazing!" 

I want to argue that 'this' needs capitalized.  I'm of the idea that ellipses in the middle of a sentence are 'long commas' since they still provide a pause but a longer one than a normal comma, and replacing the ellipses with a comma kind of makes the sentence awkward.  So for me, I'd either cap the word or use an em-dash. 

"No, no... I must contain myself... 
...If I am to set my plan in motion." 

The 'If' probably needs to be decapitalized since you can consider it being part of the first line and was only broken up in text. 

"...All those inferior Reploids shall submit to me!" 

I'd decap 'All' for the same reasons as above. 

Gate also says 'an utopia' twice here, and it needs to be 'a utopia' even though it flies in the face of the 'an' before words starting with vowels rule, because of the way it's pronounced (you-topia).  I don't have many other examples where something similar happens, other than 'unique' being the same way. 

High Max in Intro Stage as X: 

"So, this was Zero's doing... our suspicions were well founded, after all."  'Our' probably needs to be capitalized, going back to the 'long comma' thing I said above.  I don't really use semicolons much so I'm not sure if that'd fit better than the ellipses, but then you lose the...I guess, impact or pace of the text by using it instead. 

Isoc post Intro Stage: 

"And now, I would like to call on for any individuals willing to volunteer!"  Either 'on' or 'for' need to be removed here. 

Signas says: 

"The Nightmare... it's going to be a dangerous mission" and 'it's' probably needs capped. 

Defeated One Investigator as X: 

Isoc says "I've seen him myself" with regards to his needle in a haystack, and this threw me off at first since the rest of the conversation flows as though Zero was still missing.  I guess Isoc meant he's seen him himself at some point in the past and I didn't catch that at first.  I don't know if it tripped anyone else up, but it probably doesn't need to be edited or clarified given I don't know what the actual Japanese text says here. 

----

Anyway, I'll stop the update for now.  I'm going to try to focus my efforts on checking the X/Zero VS Zero Nightmare/High Max/Dynamo dialogs. 

I have a feeling I'm going to hate Central Museum even more than I do already. 

Edit 1: 

[Script] 

Central Museum as X: 

I didn't catch the line, but there's one where you get warped at a totem pole and he says "...where am I, anyway?" at the end.  'Where' needs capped. 

[Metalwario64]

Turns out the color of Dynamo's mugshot is indeed fine.

I'm also glad that the Falcon Armor was removed with the Ultimate code :p.

One thing that bothers me is that the Blade Armor's Mach Dash by default doesn't seem to be able to reach the Shadow Armor part in Metal Shark's stage. I always got it with the Ultimate Armor's Nova Strike back in the day, but I read that other than that you basically need a part to reach it. Therefore in my setup I increased the "hold" type Mach Dash's distance from 15 to 20, and with the metal platform, that's barely enough to make it by jumping off with a Mach Dash.

Maybe that should be set to the default distance, or at some point it would be nice to have the ledge extended slightly. It also makes it possible to reach Yammark's Sub Tank with a Mach Dash, whereas I couldn't pull it off with the default settings, and had to get it with Zero.

[SpringSonic9187]

Here's an up-to-date collection of all of the custom/cleaned up mugshots I made for this project:


I just now realized that Dynamo and Gate's background colors are slightly off. I guess it's no worse than the original in that regard, and it's surely too late to change them now.

At least, I'm mostly happy with how everything turned out.

Now for a bit of a breakdown of noteworthy decisions I made:

I completely reconverted Alia's mugshot from Suetsugu's original art, since it was available in high quality in the X Legacy Collection. The original version had oddly tinted colors and poorly redrawn details like the eyes and neck, while mine is completely true to the original art.

Since there's not much in the way of official art for the Ultimate Armor, I made mine mostly based on Keisuke Mizuno's modern art of it, since Haruki Suetsugu only had two drawings of it in X4, and there are no clear, unobstructed shots of it, let alone the detailed mechanics that can be seen through it. It's basically a bit of Suetsugu in the shoulder shape and the thicker trim around the neck and chest, but I based the crest on his head off of Mizuno's art and the highlights and mechanical details are based around Mizuno's portrayal. I am a bit torn between the heavy highlights, since that's a super Mizuno trait that Suetsugu rarely, if ever did, but without them the black versions of the Ultimate Armor has no real distinction between the shades of black, so the highlights convey a different material and make it clearer where the different segments begin and end.

The first Black Zero and Zero Nightmare mugshot colors are based on the original ones, and the second ones are based on the sprite colors, though my optional Zero Nightmare palette was made based on the original mugshot palette which is simply the red Zero, but hue shifted towards purple. Since the sprite was not done the same way, and instead given it's own shades of purple, I decided to make a sprite palette based on the original mugshot by shifting the hue of the red Zero sprites the same amount as the mugshot (-80 units in GIMP), then cleaning up the colors to look right on the sprite from that point.

Dynamo's was reconverted from the original X5 mugshot, since it somehow had messed up colors and dithering artifacts in the original X6, so even with the BG color flub, it's still a marked improvement.

The first Gate mugshot is just a cleaned up version of the original with more defined facial details, and redrawn animated tiles (they looked very rough in the original, and the blinking eyes didn't line up), and the second version is heavily modified to be symmetrical.

I won't fault Haruki Suetsugu for his drawing here being a bit lopsided, since he was rushed for X6's art (it can be seen throughout most of his pieces, like X having simpler, completely round shoulders and generally less detailed shading and sometimes wonky proportions), but when cropped in a box, having his left shoulder and left side of his face be wider than the left was very noticeable, so I made a custom version that looks perfect when mirrored, just for the sake of looking better in the mugshot.

Lastly, the new Sigma mugshot is a traced version of Suetsugu's X6 art of Sigma that I made (and removed the collar of his cloak that partially covered his face), then filtered to be purple, and overlaid VHS noise on it and made his eyes glow slightly. It's clearer than the original (which was based on the X5 Sigma stage select icon), and still conveys the Sigma Virus feel of the original, while being truer to the established style of Suetsugu throughout the rest of the game.

They're all an excellent job from you, but I'm gonna stick with the Custom B option for Zero Nightmare. The green shadings on Custom A carried over from the original thing on plain, snow white surfaces... They just ain't natural.

[Metalwario64]

They're all an excellent job from you, but I'm gonna stick with the Custom B option for Zero Nightmare. The green shadings on Custom A carried over from the original thing on plain, snow white surfaces... They just ain't natural.

Yeah, that's why I made multiple versions of everything. I made the "A" versions of the Black and Nightmare Zero's to be faithful to the originals, but cleaner and more accurately drawn, but made alternate versions with colors truer to the sprite palettes.

[injoon84]

Turns out the color of Dynamo's mugshot is indeed fine.

I'm also glad that the Falcon Armor was removed with the Ultimate code :p.

One thing that bothers me is that the Blade Armor's Mach Dash by default doesn't seem to be able to reach the Shadow Armor part in Metal Shark's stage. I always got it with the Ultimate Armor's Nova Strike back in the day, but I read that other than that you basically need a part to reach it. Therefore in my setup I increased the "hold" type Mach Dash's distance from 15 to 20, and with the metal platform, that's barely enough to make it by jumping off with a Mach Dash.

Maybe that should be set to the default distance, or at some point it would be nice to have the ledge extended slightly. It also makes it possible to reach Yammark's Sub Tank with a Mach Dash, whereas I couldn't pull it off with the default settings, and had to get it with Zero.

Good point. Maybe should have put a note to tell the user how much value is needed to reach these next platform without the need of Parts. Set the 'Duration' value to 19 and default 'Speed' 'with mid-air stop'. Blade will barely make it to the Recycle Lab Hidden Area. Also, I notice this hybrid default value Mach Dash will not travel further even with the Hyper Dash Part. Original game Mach Dash will travel further when equip with Hyper Dash Part. Coincidentally, by setting the value to 19, it actually has the same Mach Dash length travel with the original game equip with Hyper Dash Part.

Same goes to Shadow's jump height. Maybe you should put another additional note telling the minimum figure needed in Magma Area to reach the hidden area if there's no metal block. If not, Shadow is impossible to reach the hidden area with or without metal block. The 'Jump height' to barely reach the hidden area is 198. 214 will stick to the ceiling where the metal block appears.

Another suggestion:
Right now, Falcon has the weakest air dash.
It's really bothers me to think that the air master is now the weakest in the air.
Maybe you can include only Falcon to have unlimited air moves. I have done that with Gameshark.
#If Falcon = Infinite Air moves
E00CCF2E 0001
30097126 0000

[Metalwario64]

I found another typo, this time in the cutscene after Zero defeats the Nightmare Mother:

Gate:
Since we're approaching our grand finale, I'll let you on a little secret."

It should be "in on a little secret".

[acediez]

Thanks again! 

I'm gonna take the lack of bug reports in the last two days as a good sign. Once I fix that remaining typo (and take one last review of all text casing after ellipses), I think I'm good to release the current version on the site. Whatever bug is still waiting to be found, it's probably not that bad and can wait to be addressed on a future v2.1

As for the other suggestions, we'll see about those later 

[Doomsday Forte]

Okay, I finally went through each secondary area with both characters three times each to check out the dialogs.  I assume Zero VS Zero Nightmare uses the same script for all eight locations?  I only did Amazon Area and Inami Temple before just moving onto High Max. 

[Script] 

- Amazon Area -

Zero VS Dynamo:  "And here I was thinking I'd show you some of these Nightmare Souls right here with you" sounds kind of awkward.  Maybe "show you" would work better as "share"?  "I'd share some of..." 

- Inami Temple -

Zero VS Dynamo:  "in hopes of matching up tothe best of the best..."  Split 'tothe'.  I don't think X's version had that error. 

- Laser Institute - 

X VS High Max:  "High Max! You and Isoc won't proceed further with yout plans!" should be 'your plans'. 

- North Pole Area -

X VS Dynamo: Should there be a comma after the 'huh' in "you sure play rough, huh X"? 

Zero VS Dynamo:  Post fight:  "No worries, we'll be seeing eachother again sooner or later."  Split 'eachother'. 

- Magma Area -

X VS High Max:  "Leave, at once" may not need the comma.  I guess you can say it puts emphasis on the 'leave' part, but "leave at once" works just as well here. 

"Funny... That's what I should be saying." probably needs 'that's' decapitalized. 

X VS Dynamo: Post fight:  "Well... 'till next time!"  Should be ''til next time' since it's shortening 'until'. 

Zero VS Dynamo:  "'till next time" needs to be "'til next time" as above. 

- Weapon Center -

X VS Dynamo:  "...but hey, since we're here, why don't you show me YOUR Souls?"  'But' probably needs to be capitalized (Dynamo mentions there not really being 'many trees left anyway' before this). 

Zero VS Dynamo:   "...but hey, since we're here" needs 'but' capped as above. 

- Recycle Lab -

X VS Dynamo:  Post fight:  "Bye, X!!"  Does it need two exclamation points here?  Zero's version only had the one. 

- Central Museum -

Zero VS Dynamo:  "Dynamo!  What are you doing here?"  "Nah, I just thought I'd get myself some Nightmare Souls."  This is pretty awkward.  Zero probably needs to ask something that Dynamo can deny. 

"The stuff's too dangerous, especially in the hands of numskulls like you."  I actually looked it up and it seems that numskull and numbskull are both valid spellings of the same term, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, but it says numskull is 'less commonly' used.  This one's up to you.  As are...uh, all of these, actually. 

[Script]

- Magma Area -

Encountering Nightmare Snake as X:  Alia says "I'm not seeing anything, on my end."  Unnecessary comma. 

- Central Museum -

Capsule room as X:  "This area seems larger than the other ones, but it's still swarming with Nightmare... they sure aren't making this easy."  Shouldn't it be 'the Nightmare' or 'Nightmares'?  And 'they' needs capped. 

That's all for now, again. 

[injoon84]

Can you wait for my report in another few hours?
I have plenty to report in grammar and ellipsis on remaining X part.

So far, I didn't detect anything unusual except than the thing I mention in my latest post.
But I actually prefer this hybrid than the original Mach Dash length when equip with Hyper Dash.
Travel too far easily resulted instance death. I just need to set the value to 19 for the Mid-Air Stop.

[acediez]

Yeah, I'm not doing it immediately. Go ahead.

About the jump and dash lengths, I don't think optional collectibles need to be made easier to reach, definitely don't need to be reachable with any and all armors and characters. I did make an adjustment of this kind for Secret Lab stages, but those are mandatory obstacles, not optional collectibles.

The "Jumper" part is enough to reach all of these, and that part is not misseable, even in the original game. And even if you can't find it, most things can be reached with Ice Burst + Blade Armor. The game points out in the weapon description these are "ice blocks you can step on" for a reason. In Tweaks you don't even need to get the whole armor to use the Mach Dash, you can get it almost immediately. I think that's enough of a help...

Here: no Parts, default Mach Dash values.

[Metalwario64]

The "Jumper" part is enough to reach all of these, and that part is not misseable, even in the original game. And even if you can't find it, most things can be reached with Ice Burst + Blade Armor. The game points out in the weapon description these are "ice blocks you can step on" for a reason. In Tweaks you don't even need to get the whole armor to use the Mach Dash, you can get it almost immediately. I think that's enough of a help...

Thanks for the heads up! I've played through X6 a few times, but I usually did with the Ultimate Armor back in the day due to its inherent design flaws, so all of the little tricks and stuff didn't register for me. Sorry for that!

Now that you brought that to my attention, I want to replay again and go through the game, starting with beating Wolfang and getting the Blade Armor legs and taking advantage of that.

[acediez]

1. I feel like the main reason Shield Sheldon's stage is so annoying is

Or you can adjust the laser route in reverse (adjusting the "movable corner" things from last to first), and not deal with the laser until the very last step?
This is the kind of thing I feel the game doesn't necessarily do wrong, it's just not obvious at first glance.

2. There's literally no reason for the Crane enemies to respawn in Commander Yammark's stage. It adds literally nothing and means nothing as well. Just get rid of it honestly.

I'm not entirely against having annoying enemies... At some point you're just making the game too easy.
In this case (and assuming you mean the Nightmare Mantis) you can kill them permanently with Yammar Option.

3. There's really no incentive at all to collect the EX Tank I feel,

The thing is, the game SHOULD send you back to checkpoint 0 if you lose all lives, that's the whole point of having extra lives on top of infinite continues. The only reason it doesn't is because the game loads a second set of stage tilesets to VRAM after the first checkpoint, and if you move back to checkpoint 0 after this, the graphics are messed up.
I did try to make this work, reseting checkpoints on continue is an easy single-line modification. But then you have to code a way to re-load the right set of graphics to VRAM, and that's another story.
"Maybe in the future"™

[Metalwario64]

The thing is, the game SHOULD send you back to checkpoint 0 if you lose all lives, that's the whole point of having extra lives on top of infinite continues. The only reason it doesn't is because the game loads a second set of stage tilesets to VRAM after the first checkpoint, and if you move back to checkpoint 0 after this, the graphics are messed up.
I did try to make this work, reseting checkpoints on continue is an easy single-line modification. But then you have to code a way to re-load the right set of graphics to VRAM, and that's another story.
"Maybe in the future"™

Would it be easier to instead add an option at some point in the future to remove continues upon a game over altogether? That might swing too far in the opposite direction, but just allowing either selecting a new stage (or selecting the one you were on) and quitting as the only options certainly would make lives more precious.

[acediez]

You know what's even easier? To make the "Continue" button send you back to the initial loading of the stage. I just thought of it, and ran a quick test. Seems to work ok
There would be exceptions, as Hidden Stages and other split stages (Recycle Lab Area 2, Secret Lab 2-2) are loaded as separate stages entirely, but maybe that's for the better. Sending you back to the very beginning on those would be way too much of a punishment anyway.

Let's give it a go.

RC8

- Added "Continues take you to the start of the level" option. Turned on by default in sample profiles 
- Added an "Unlimited Repetitions" option for the Falcon Air Dash to round the section up.
Warning: (again) as the patcher's controls have changed, previous versions' "x6tweaksprofiles" files might not work correctly (unless you update them manually to include changed controls. You can use a fresh "default" file as a template)

Any typos/bugs reports are welcome as always.

[Metalwario64]

You know what's even easier? To make the "Continue" button send you back to the initial loading of the stage. I just thought of it, and ran a quick test. Seems to work ok
There would be exceptions, as Hidden Stages and other split stages (Recycle Lab Area 2, Secret Lab 2-2) are loaded as separate stages entirely, but maybe that's for the better. Sending you back to the very beginning on those would be way too much of a punishment anyway.

Let's give it a go.

X6 Tweaks (v2.0 RC8)
X6 Tweaks Patcher (v2.0 RC8)

- Added "Continues take you to the start of the level" option. Turned on by default in sample profiles 
- Added an "Unlimited Repetitions" option for the Falcon Air Dash to round the section up.
Warning: (again) as the patcher's controls have changed, previous versions' "x6tweaksprofiles" files might not work correctly (unless you update them manually to include changed controls. You can use a fresh "default" file as a template)

Any typos/bugs reports are welcome as always.

You're awesome! Just wanted to thank you for adding another great feature!

[injoon84]

Lol. These 2 new features is a failure.

- Continue take you to the start of the level.
What's the point of this? Now it works the same as 'Stage selection' after 'GAME OVER'.
Well, maybe not for gamer who loves challenge.

- Falcon's unlimited repetition.
It doesn't turns out as we hoped.
Now all characters can have unlimited air dash except for Blade who use Mach Dash.
If Zero used double jump, then no more air moves.
If Ultimate used hovers, then no more air moves as well.

But, on the good side, I see some improvement on the grammar and ellipsis.
And I think you should include the extra note I mention about Shadow's jump height and Blade's Mach Dash.
It can serve as additional guideline for the new users to tweak to their liking.
Also, I'm still checking on the X's script. Please wait. Probably in another few hours if I'm free.

[Thirteen 1355]

The "send back to start of stage except in some stages" feels a bit inconsistent, especially since the two stage halves construct has been a thing since X4.