Mega Man X6 Tweaks (v2.6) [on hiatus, pending code refactoring]

[Metalwario64]

I forgot to mention this but I think it is very obvious that the Ultimate Armor suffered from the rushed release of Rockman X6 and Mega Man X6, by not having a flashy background slow-motion effect Giga Attack as the rest does.

That would both render the Nova Strike useless (you couldn't tell where it would end up and it would take too long to start up), and would be inconsistent with every previous game it appeared in, since even in X5 with those flashy Giga Attack backgrounds, the Ultimate Armor still didn't have one.

It's very clear why the Ultimate Armor never had the same background treatment as the other armors in this game and X5, and it's certainly not that it was "rushed".

[pating]

  Ok dude maybe that was wrong on my part. So I might wait what will be implemented afterwards.  thanks I really love your mugshots

[acediez]

A fun thing I ran into:

https://youtu.be/S7Axhc7CS4o

[pating]

Monster kill  

Definitely that shouldn't be in the tweaks. It's too damn broken. I never got that in my playthrough. I just recently does the damage table and took your recommendation with regards to Blade and Shadow.

[RandomDood1337]

It can be destroyed by "Add custom options to the setting menu"
Just turn off the nightmare effects

I forgot to mention this but I think it is very obvious that the Ultimate Armor suffered from the rushed release of Rockman X6 and Mega Man X6, by not having a flashy background slow-motion effect Giga Attack as the rest does.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not.

Also, I don't know if its something I did by accident, but reploids kept respawning and not giving me parts.

[Aceearly1993]

Some opinions regarding Tweaks patcher V2.0 RC12.

-Ensuizan

--It would be awesome if the "Repetition" option is not bounded with the new "Air move mode" and can be adjusted individually.


-USA Custom (JPN Style Title)

--From what I can get, the "Rockman X6" graphic from PC version is the same as original JPN title graphic, just with the USA title background. Also it would be cool if the custom "Mega Man X6" graphic from "JPN Custom (JPN Style Title)" style could be implemented as optional replacement to "USA Custom" set group.


-The re-translated conversation when Sigma lost his mind after his first form

--I don't know if it's just me, but the word "Die" repeated too much times even when compared to original Japanese dialogue, which is a kinda strange touch.

[acediez]

-Ensuizan

Being able to do consecutive repetitions is part of the custom code I wrote for the air mode only (doesn't work well on the floor). To make it work on the original behavior of the weapon, that would be an entirely new hack...

-USA Custom (JPN Style Title)

It's a single image, the logo is not in a different layer. If you replace the logo, you have to fill the space left by the previous logo. That's why I said before, best way to do a "Rockman logo, USA background" is to find a clean rip of the one in the PC version.
Either way, I'm done working on title screen options myself, but if you or someone else wants to make on new option for me to add, here's a clean rip of the USA logo:

You would need to edit the assembled title screen (use a native res screenshot or VRAM dump), index colors to the same exact palette, and once you're done, "disassemble" it exactly how it's done in the raw rip. Ideally, you should use the raw rip as a base and replace only the tiles with logo pieces.

-The re-translated conversation when Sigma lost his mind after his first form

I'm gonna let this one slip 👀

[pating]

I guess the "USA Custom (JPN Style Title)" is not that much of a big deal. Just like what my last proposal about the opening intro the important however is having the Ultimate and Black Armor in-game by achieving UH Rank. And some re-translations.

Just lately I'm done trying to adjust the power of Blade Armor and Shadow Armor. I didn't adjust Zero's buster power for it can only be executed while Zero is standing. Thus I believe there's no point of having his Z-buster less power. And I am testing it on Xtreme Difficulty setting and for the very first time, I felt it is near complete game if wasn't from the bug where I can't unlock Blade and Shadow Armor because of the interference with the Ultimate and Black Armor. The patcher alone is very flexible as it already somehow made the game more enjoyable to play.

For me, if the armor system is fixed and the whole game is properly retranslated I can already consider this a finished product. If there were beyond this project is to have it also in NTSC-J but I honestly think it is on acediez hands whether if he wanted to do it or not.

The only thing that sometimes I prefer the Japanese localization of the game was because of the mistranslations of those who do the localization. Like in Final Fantasy VII the obvious, "THIS GUY ARE SICK" really makes me sick of reading. How much more in this game's English localization where they made Zero an old highly advance robot who'd say something really makes frustrated enough to ask Capcom for a refund because of the poor localizations or translations which Capcom USA is doing.

In X5, I was just shocked  when they named those 8 bosses from the band Guns & Roses. But yeah, I do find some mistranslated stuff but it wasn't that big as far as I can remember it is during the last battle with Sigma using X. Where the person in charge of translating it assumes that X and the original Mega Man are the same. Which technically we know it wasn't.

I am thankful for the people who made this project possible. I am just a Rockman X fan who stumbles upon this project and I was very thankful for the privilege of being one of the testers of this magnificent piece of art.

[Heaven Piercing Man]

You mean when Sigma says Wily was "an old comrade of yours" to X?

[pating]

  you got that one

[acediez]

Thanks for you kind words pating! I'm glad you're enjoying this.

[EDIT]

I think this is an improvement:

Infinity Mijinion: Someone has arrived...

X: Infinity Mijinion! You are one of the Nightmare Investigators, aren't you?

Infinity Mijinion: What a nuisance... Why must I be burdened with picking up the slack of the other Investigators? Wait... If you've made it all the way here, then... Don't tell me that you destroyed my precious Illumina...!

X: Your Reploid was a danger to me and everyone else! I had no choice but to destroy it!

Infinity Mijinion: No!! I still had some tests to run on her... I was going to use her to teach a lesson to all of those stuck-up fools who looked down on me! You're going to pay for this!!

I took a few cues from the existing retranslation for the lines in Zero's dialog that were similar to X's dialog in the original.

I went back to look for these, and this is the one I picked. Looks about right next to Zero's version.

RC13

Fixes and improvements:
- Script: revamped X's dialogue with Infinity Mijinion, as suggested here.
- Patcher bugfix: "Rank UH unlocks..." options will no longer break armor completion when "Activate Incomplete Armors" option is not active.
- Incomplete Armors: while the "player" saber animation of the Shadow Armor was correctly associated to the Head Parts, the "saber" itself remained faster with or without the part. This was fixed.
- Animation Timming (Zero): now the Zero's Saber cooldown timming will carry over to all three parts of the combo (before, it only affected the third slash).
- Animation Timming (X): now the animation of the saber itself will also adjust to your changes, so you can set the startup frames to whatever you want without causing a desync in the animation.
- Damage Tables: Added a fourth, uncommon hit detection type, used by a few obstacles. While making way for this, I swapped the checkbox symbols in the GUI to something that seems more intuitive. It's explained in the GUI's notes.
- Mugshots: One last, minor tweak to the Shadow Armor mugshot. Ultimate Armor option C fixed.

New stuff:
- Zero/Yammar Option: Added an option to make Yammar Option work for Zero the same as X. This disables the input combo (↑ + △) and instead you'll have to select the weapon and activate it with "△". Previously, this option was activated automatically under the hood if you selected "↑ + △" in either Ensuizan or Sentsuizan. Now you can select it separately.
- Damage Tables: Added a bunch of obstacles, included all Nightmare Effects related objects (iron blocks, colored cubes). These are usually only destroyable with the weapon from the stage that triggered it, which leaves out the Shadow Armor entirely. Now you can set them to be destroyable with almost any attack.
- Guard Shell Bug Fix option. I haven't tested it much, but so far so good. Zero's saber deals normal damage while the enemy is in contact with Guard Shell, very noticeable on bosses' health bars.

An attempt was made to add an option to use Guard Shell as Zero with X's behavior (being able to use it in different directions, and making it activable directly instead of only through the menu), but unfortunately this crashes the game. Probably related to missing (compressed) weapon graphic files, so, nothing I can do about it atm.

[pating]

Thank you very much for the update time to do some testing...       

[fianovale]

wow!! i can wait to try this new stuff! Thanks for all the work!
One question, the guard shell it can be activated with the triangle button or it has to be done like always from the menu?
Im raaly glad that ours prayers have been listened! jaja

[pating]

Done with my initial test I finished the game using X. Tomorrow I'll be doing Zero.

Then I'm going to promote it in YouTube by showing how it works... And do a playthrough...

Thank you very much. I never thought that this is going to be a reality.

It is already 12mn here need to sleep and hope as I do the playthrough tomorrow that I get a good call from one of the companies that I applied to in last couple of days.

[Zero Dozer]

Wow, I turn my eye away, and suddenly the patch evolves at a monstrous pace.

Downloading the newest patch.

[G061]

Just absolutely excellent work, bringing in metalwario's art really pushed up the quality even further, seeing the other reploid's face and Dr. Light's is a little detail that helps a lot for me.

I'll say this as originally a big hater of X6 who has played it not so much but enough to be familiar but still more or less a noob when it comes to this game, the stuff metalwario complained about in shark player's stage and the jungle stage about not being able to reach anything I think is really valid.

I naturally thought I needed the blade boost part to reach those sections and I didn't know about the ice block from ice wolf stage.
I didn't know about the ice block because I never have time to experiment with it because I usually would do that level last and here's where the game fucks with people like me; what I do remember about the ice wolf's stage is it's one of the bigger pains in the ass to start with due to the avalanches, slopes and nightmares/wolves that spawn in the avalanche safe pits making it super unfriendly right at the start. This, combined with Alia telling you as soon as you spawn in the level about finding a certain normal part that would help you a lot here, makes me want to bail from the level immediately in hopes of finding that part so the ice level won't be such a pain.

And so inevitably while playing other levels instead I run into the jungle and shark player stages and run into those impossible jumps I can't do and it really adds to the frustration/makes me want to quit.
Not necessarily saying you should change anything, maybe I'm being a bit sore idk, just adding my two cents.

[acediez]

I agree, the game does a very poor job at inviting you to interact and experiment with what's in there... most people end up missing on some legitimately fun stuff you can do.
Compare that to X1, which is a master class of starting with nothing, ending up with everything, and feeling great the whole way through.

The saddest part is that the Ice Block method is not even the intended way to get those items either... Once you visit those areas with weird unreachable spaces with Nightmare Effects activated, you'll realize the "blocks" Nightmare Effects ("Iron" and "Cube") both help you and stop you. You're supposed to interact with them with the weapon from the stage that activates each Nightmare Effect.

First example, Recycle Lab...

Once you reach the end of the second floor (where you either go down for Area 2 or left for the Hidden Area), the Nightmare Cubes will extend the long stretch you normally can barely reach without getting crushed, making it impossible to go through. Well, you're supposed to destroy those...



... Then, what you'll find below is a bit of a puzzle, you need to destroy these in a certain way to get to move one of the blocks to the right end (some blocks are destroyable, others movable).



... And then, you can use that to reach the other side. Again, no extra Parts needed.




Second example, Magma Area...

Again, you have a set of blocks that help you to get above, but once you reach the top, a second set of blocks that block your way. If you don't know you can destroy them, you'll think the game is trolling you (I thought so too the first couple of times I played this).



... So, in conclusion, I applaud the game for giving you many ways to reach hard to reach collectibles (Nightmare Effects, Ice Burst, Nova Strike, Speedster, Jumper), I feel X4-X5 were lacking on the "things you can do with your weapons" side. But for some reason, most people, including people who normally play Mega Man games to death, don't bother experimenting enough. And that's completely the game design's fault. It throws so much shit at you that you end up doing everything as cheaply and quick as possible.

Now that we're on the topic of things people usually miss:

- You can get the rescuable Reploid from the North Pole Area/Hidden Area, the one hidden at the end of a long floor of spikes, by (again) using Ice Burst on top of the spikes, advance as much as possible with it, then simple Air Dash to the other side. No Shadow Armor needed. This one has the Jumper, which is arguably the most important one you can get early in the run. It will make everything else in the game easier (specially the fight against Nightmare Mother)

- You can do this at the start of Recycle Lab, and completely walk past the whole first section without dealing with the ceiling.

[pating]

Done with the game 100% playable and I will be working on having a playthrough about it.   

Thank you acediez.     

Worth it!

Regarding your last post acediez. I totally agree with you. I played it and experimented on it a lot during my high school years and I admit I was caught back then when I skipped my Chinese classes during the afternoon by our disciplinarian in a local Playstation game rental and playing the Japanese version. The school disciplinarian was also puzzled to saw me able to understand a few Japanese during that time.     

[Metalwario64]

Damn!! I never knew the Ride Armor would still block the ceiling when you left it! I figured when X wasn't in it that it lacked collision, because inactive Ride Armors have never had any interaction with anything throughout the course of the franchise (save for maaaaaybe the Chimera Ride Armor you need to "rescue" from Blast Hornet's stage in X3).

The thing that bothers me about the chasm in the Recycle Lab is that even when doing it with the Ice Burst and the Nightmare Blocks, you still only baaarely make it, and that's if you do it just right (I didn't know you had to knock off the block and then jump on it as it falls. That's a bit too esoteric, and probably too precise a technique for most people to succeed without dying several times). The biggest issue is that it's a blind jump, so nobody will know exactly how far it will be the without dying, but I don't know how to fix that and still have it be a challenge to get.

That's why I still extend the Mach Dash ever so slightly (less than I did before) so that it's a little bit more lenient. To me, the add-on Parts should only be to augment and aid the gameplay, not a requirement, even though these hacks make them much, much less frustrating to get now. I'm not saying you should follow suit, it's just my preference, which is what the patcher is all about, ain't it?

I also have one last request, or at least an inquiry about something in the game I just noticed, and was wondering if it could be fixed... Both Commander Yammark and Infinity Mijinion have ridiculously fast blinking animations, and it almost seems like they forgot to set the timing between blinks so they literally constantly blink. Somehow I never noticed that throughout all of these years, since I never used to pay much attention to the boss mugshots, but now it stands out to me and its ridiculous. Since you have some experience with the mugshots coding, is there any possibility of altering the timing of their blinking, or is the coding too complex to do, and it's simply too minor an issue to bother with at this time?

I know you're trying to finish up this release, and you're doing a fine job of it as well, so if you don't want to bother with this it's fine. The animation of the saber no longer desyncing actually means a lot to me, and was something I wanted to bring up previously, but you fixed it before I even could! :p

[acediez]

That's why I still extend the Mach Dash ever so slightly (less than I did before) so that it's a little bit more lenient.

I agree with your previous idea though, the floor should be extended just a bit... (so you still need Mach Dash and either the Ice Burst or the Nightmare Block, but doesn't require that much precision). I just haven't done it yet because it will take some work to get a floor tiling that matches.

Since you have some experience with the mugshots coding, is there any possibility of altering the timing of their blinking, or is the coding too complex to do, and it's simply too minor an issue to bother with at this time?

I actually have the exact byte that controls these animations documented, but I kinda forgot about it.
Now that I look at it... Literally all mugshots except those two have the same wait value for "pause between blinks" frame (0xB4). Instead Commander Yammark has it at 0x01. This looks too much like an oversight, I'm inclined to make them the same as the others and put it in the base patch, not even gonna bother making it optional.

ps: someone please bump up my X4 thread, it just updated it but my last post was merged with the last one 😩