Encountered the same bug
Willy_C_987
Recent community posts


So I discovered a new bug/glitch last night. After a few failed attempts of climbing the wall, jumping over to the platform for the capsule, and jumping out of the ride armor, I started to glow permanently throughout the rest of the stage. Not a game-breaking bug, but interesting to say the least.
I am having issues though with the air-jumps misfiring mid-air. It occasionally fires off unintentionally. Maybe it's a button sensitivity thing on my controller, or a delayed input after wall-jumps, but something is happening that would be worth checking out. I do play a lot, but I do try to keep my buttons clean.
As of 1.00.7, a few of the Upgrades got swapped around to different levels. Lvl 3 beam no longer appears in Vulpine, it appears in Raccoon. Air jump is in Snapper, and Rapid Shot is in Vulpine. The capsule is probably not there because you have the buster upgrade already, even though you got it from its original location in an earlier save. I'd start a new save file. Or, just go back to Snapper stage and you should find the capsule pop up there again. Test it out, I'm curious.
Second review on the new stun effects on Raccoon, Vulpine, and Stellar bosses. I think the stun works really well on Stellar Primate, as it stalls his movement. I don't notice a stun on Raccoon from using his weakness (Boulder), so not sure if it's working or not. And for Vulpine, since I typically don't get Water first before fighting him, I'll use it during the refight. The only time it knocks him back is when he is on the ground and not in an invulnerable state, and only standing still, which is rare. Most of the fight he is either teleporting, summoning fire walls, or on the ceiling, which the Water does not stun him there. It does a fair amount of damage, which is enough for me, so a stun isn't as necessary unless you can knock him out of or prevent him from going into his invulnerable state, which would be nice.
Yep. Even half-charged buster often is more effective against some of them. My biggest issue is that some enemies take no effect from the lvl 3 beam when caught in its path. The grasshoppers are a larger version from the og MMX, so I'm used to one-shotting them.
I prefer Hunter as my casual difficuly, but will do Veteran for the challenge. Can't get past Sigma first form though. If I can Hadouken both dogs then maybe, but even then, it still takes 2+ Hadoukens on Sigma. Actually did a Veteran run and quit there after one game over to Sigma.
I've given this feedback before, but it doesn't seem like it has been addressed. I tested this in previous versions all the way back to 1.00.1 to see if this was a recurring thing, and it is. When you attempt to dash jump at the very edge of a cliff or ledge, it performs the air jump input, cancelling out any ability to perform it later in mid-air. This also happens when double jumping while climbing walls. You can dash-jump from the ground and then perform the air-jump, or off of walls and then air-jump, but not in the instance as captured in the screenshot below. I hope you'll address this since it results in accidental leaps into hazards with no recovery other than the punch up move.

I concur with a below comment. Some enemies like the green grasshoppers have an unusual amount of health for their size and for the amount of damage needed to destroy them. Lvl 3 beam does nothing against them. The purple guys got nerfed for sure. And some enemies that appear in the intro stage seem to have less health than they do elsewhere, like the missile launcher enemy. I'd really like to see the beam to destroy most enemies (at least smaller ones) on impact. Hopefully these first two get some rework. The grasshoppers especially are a nuisance.



Just did a full playthrough on Hunter mode, v. 1.00.8. Here are my thoughts, along with a few bugs, including one major bug.
- I like the directional changes on Boulder and Fire. They are good additions. I like being able to shoot straight with Boulder as an option.
- The new stunning on Train, Fire, and Stellar bosses are okay. I think it works really well on Stellar, but not crazy how or when it stuns Vulpine during his fight. The problem with him is that he's invulnerable for the majority of the time that he's on the ground, so the best times to hit him are when he's hanging from the ceiling, which there the stun isn't all that necessary. It would be much nicer to prevent him from going into his invuln state. I don't care for the Train boss stun either, but I would probably need to give that another try or two. Stellar was much improved by using his weakness to knock him out of his fight pattern. It made the fight much easier and quicker.
- There is a bug with the credits. It does not scroll all the way. Some of it piles up on itself. I don't know if it was due to fast-forwarding, but I have not seen this before.

- The largest bug is Fortress 1 boss. For some reason you instantly die once the fight begins (I didn't screenshot that part, but got some others). The only way I could avoid this was by quickly dashing out of the way once it started. I believe it is forcing a death as if X got crushed, but he's not. The screen goes white. There is something odd with the first crusher he's standing on, you can see it in the photo below. Once the fight got going, some of the crushing patterns got buggy, like some alternating red ones not crushing. Sorry for saying this, but this makes me think this wasn't play tested by your personal team. How does this type of thing slide by in a release? Each version needs to be play-tested once through by the Dev play-testers first, to catch the big things. Or maybe this wasn't a bug??? Please play through this and see for yourself that you indeed die here.

- In the acquired Boulder Weapon demo, there are some graphical glitches (duplicated floor appearing above). There might be others, but that's the one I noticed.
- The air jump input seems to activate too closely along with wall dashes. Or, when performing double wall jumps it executes the air jump input. You may need to differentiate how far away in pixels near walls you can perform the air jump, because it often gets you into trouble of doing it too early and not being able to save yourself later in midair, leading to potential death in the void or spikes.
So, some improvements, but also some glaring bugs. I think as a community we hope you are taking our input and feedback into consideration, as we really enjoy this game so far and all have valuable ideas and suggestions. I hope later versions get played through all the way before getting released so we as official players can catch the smaller stuff. But overall, good work.
I noticed a small programming mistake from swapping around a few of the upgrade locations. Half of the dialogue is mismatched. For example, in the new location for the lvl 3 beam, the second half of Dr. Cain's dialogue still references the former version, "Using the 15 chips you have collected, step into this capsule to upgrade your leg system." The other is the new jump boot location, saying it as an upgrade to the "buster system." Just a mismatch error.
"Perform the Hadouken at any time even if you are missing health, but that it just deals the damage of a charged shot."
Not so sure about that. If it were to do the same damage as a charged shot, then simply perform a charged shot. Also, I think the Uppercut and Downward Kick work just fine. I think there could a little bit of tuning. I get the cooldown issue, but not so much in combination with Hadouken. I'm not often using it in quick succession with either of the other two moves, but maybe others are. IDK.
I do like the idea of stages changing after bosses are defeated, a domino effect. That would be cooler, but also more creative design would need to happen to figure out what that would be, so if that did happen, it would be further down the road. But, what things would you do to the stages that wouldn't be doing the same things in X and X3? Food for thought for the Dev.
One improvement to Veteran mode Sigma level would be to do allow the wall enemies on the initial climb to give guaranteed drops, much like in MMX. And if so, then respawn back to the beginning of the level instead of before the boss door when the player dies (although I can just walk back). Otherwise, those wall enemies are simply there to be a nuisance without any reward. It would be nice to have at least some type of health drop before walking in to refill. The fight sucks without Hadouken off the get go.
I think I've figured out the dash bug others are having issue with, or at least I am. When you dash jump off the very edge of a cliff or platform, it executes the jump technique, preventing you doing so later in the leap. It's fine if you are in full contact with the floor and dash off, then the air jump works. But as most players take advantage of leaping as close off the edge as possible, the extra advantage of the jump boots gets lost during the mid-air fall. If you test this, you can see the yellow air jump marks as you dash off the edge.
I agree somewhat about the chip requirement being left as a final requirement for the Hadouken capsule only and not every capsule. However, the 20 chip requirement only applies in Veteran mode. It is 15 in Rookie and Hunter modes, which is quite managable. 20 is trickier, which just means a different routing strategy, one I'm still figuring out. Best strategy I think is to start with a stage that requires the least amount of backtracking to get to the capsule at the very end and all chips are accessible on the first run-through, without any upgrades or special weapons.
I will agree about some enemies hitting you off-screen before they come into full view. I'll admit, this is a bit annoying with trajectory firing enemies.
I disagree with "5 lives minimum" statement. You can play Rookie mode and get 5 lives from the start. Play on whichever difficulty suits your playstyle.
I do agree about platforms on Fire Stage. An extra cue on when they change would be good.
I've not noticed most of these other bugs you've mentioned.
(Screenshot of Vulpine fight. See comment down below about invisible health bars).

First, best version yet (1.00.7)! I like the swapping around of the few upgrades to different capsules. I'll not spoil where they are, but where you moved them around to definitely improves gameplay and flow.
Some other positives I've noticed: Hadouken is much more consistent to pull off. I've seen other comments requesting to put it on one button input. I'm in favor of leaving it as the original. (If they haven't played original MMX, it's time to play and learn that Hadouken). The only thing on the input I might check however is whether you're taking into account the circular d-pads on controllers, as the diagonals have their own input. The original Hadouken input is down, down-diagonal, face-directional (left/right), shoot. Only one or two Maverick refights I usually fail to pull it off on, but at least 50% I can knock them out. I'd really wish you'd change that on Sigma so he can be taken out on one Hadouken instead of 3.
I want to list some things I think are great about this game before I go into any "fix this" requests. By the way, I bet it would be helpful if other commenters listed what OS, game mode, and version they are playing. I'm on PC (Windows 11), latest version 1.00.7, and so far I'm speaking about Hunter Mode, as that is my preferred difficulty.
- First, I think the boss fights are well designed and interesting. They each have their own personality and gimmick. Some are a little unforgiving in terms of not being able to dodge their projectiles with good predictability or safety room, namely Raccoon and Tundria Bear. Also, the dash lemon is working much more effectively against them.
- The music is great! Some of my favorite tracks are the Desert Stage, the Maverick fight theme, Axolotl Stage, Fortress 1 Boss, and Tundria. I sorta wish both Fortress 1 and 2 kept the same boss fight theme, because the first one is so good, and that the refights kept the original. They alternate, which is okay, but I like the main fight theme, out of preference.
- The best thing is the mobility you get from the jump and dash boot upgrades. They are such a fun feature to use throughout most of the stages, particularly in the first vertical section of Fortress 1. That brings me to my next point, which is that there are some great upward vertical platforming throughout. The final section in Axolotl, Fortress 3, the very hairy rising sand section in Desert Stage (although I think sometimes it jumps up to the player too quickly instead of staying at its own consistent pace. Some of the spots for the chips are placed in such a way that you have to reset your dashes). Horizontal stages are also great, like Train Stage, Snapper, Stellar, Dessert. All of these are super fun to run through. I think the biggest flaws so far are the downward platforming, largely due to blind jumps, which can be remedied by panning the camera quicker and cover the full area, or rising the adjacent floors that follow downward ( a lot of these in Axolotl) so players don't have to guess where to go before the camera moves.
- The feel of the game is Mega Man X. You've nailed it! Despite the hanging bugs and some unfavorable level design choices, the game flows like a MMX title. I enjoy the challenge of running it over and over, just like the original trilogy.
Now, here is my list of things that could use adjusting, and a few minor bugs:
- One very tiny bug I ran into, which is very very minor in the options menu, is when you scroll up the menu options, it will skip over the "Clear Save Slot" line, but only scrolling up. Don't know why, but again, very minor thing.
- Lvl 3 beam. I feel like it downgraded a little in the damage it does to several regular enemies. I don't feel like the beam portion does damage, as in, if enemies get in it's path, don't go into flashing i-frames that they've been hit. I think if they are in its path, they should be hit regardless of how far they are from it, and that most smaller and medium enemies should be instantly destroyed. I think one of the most annoying enemies are the grasshoppers you find in Snapper, Axolotl, and Dessert Stage. I thing they have too much health for their size and lack of armor. The purple guys with rollers (intro stage, Train, Fortress stages) also no longer take full damage from the beam. Once they lower the roller it blocks the beam. The beam does work better though against bosses, so I am pleased about that.
- One bug/glitch that I've mentioned before that I hope you'll address and fix are the health bars during boss fights. It seems when you or the boss are in its frames, the health bar dims, or in the case of climbing walls, disappears completely. (Hopefully I can share a screenshot, but I've had trouble uploading anything on here). This glitch most noticeably happens in Vulpine and ride armor Vile fights, since those are both wall climbing heavy. Most others the bars go transparent if X or the boss get close to either X's or the boss's. I'd much rather have the health bar be full and entirely visible throughout the fight rather than be temporarily hidden by player or boss. I'll try to post a screenshot, or upload a video. It's not difficult to test though. Go into the first fight with Vile and climb either wall. The bars disappear.
All of the other big things I've listed off in previous comments for the earlier versions. Some things still stand, such as Sub Tanks filling 100% and 32 HP in Hunter Mode. Those are my biggest requests. Excellent work! Keep it going!
So I have another big gripe with the Sigma fight 1, and that is that Hadouken does not one-shot him. I would highly reconsider to change this, as that is the whole reason for the upgrade. I finally managed to beat him on Hunter mode, but I had to shoot two Hadoukens at him and still take him down with the buster, as he still had about 16 HP left. I might be okay with requiring more than one Hadouken in Veteran, although that means getting past the dogs each time unscathed. You were at least kind enough to skip the dog fight if you die to Sigma in Rookie and Hunter modes. I reiterate, as I have before - Sigma 1 in Hunter mode is way overpowered health-wise. If not removing any of his fighting patterns (which I don't think you should), then buffing up X's attacks and defense (with 100% armor upgrades) would be nice. My final point is that because Sigma 1 difficulty is so high, I rarely get to Sigma 2, which when I do I only get a small amount of time to figure out strategies, as that phase also does a ton of damage, as it should. But I'd much rather get to 2nd phase and struggle there than the 1st phase, because the second fight isn't as difficult once you figure out the strategy. Currently it's not as rewarding, only once you get through phase 1. I think it should be the other way around.
Seen some other comments about getting out of ride armor. Currently it's up and jump simultaneously to exit the armor. However, I agree that holding up and jumping would be preferred. After some cross comparison of the ride armors in original MMX games (tested it from MMX2), the inputs do not 100% match. In the originals you can jump out while holding up. In this current version of Regenesis, 1.00.61, you have to press both up and jump together.
Bug or not, dash lemons are a time-saving strategy. They are a clear advantage so you don't have to charge your buster over and over. It's clearer to see in X and X2 boss fights when utilized correctly. They most certainly add up in fights. And from a technical standpoint, shouldn't a dash shot do more damage? Why not? More momentum.
I guess my point is, according to comments I've seen, players still can't figure out weaknesses. A clear visual would be helpful to indicate you are using the right weapon, not that it needs to entirely freeze an enemy, but at least knock them back or break them out of their pattern for a second or two. Weaknesses should always give an advantage, in more ways than one, without necessarily cheesing the fight. That is the formula for all of Mega Man. Also, it's more advantageous for speed-running to use weaknesses, if they make the fight end more quickly.
1.00.61 tested on each mode. Another long list, sorry. Here is my take, starting with some generics, and then by stage and boss specifics.
First, I am enjoying replaying this. Improvements are great. Hadouken feels a little more consistent to pull off. Could still be a little better, but much improved than before. The requirement in Fortress 1 also seems a little more straightforward, after more trial and error. I think I figured it out now. No crashes or soft locks either for me.
Here are some suggestions/ideas or things to fix:
- Hunter mode ought to represent a normal base level difficulty that players are accustomed to from the original MMX games. It feels close, but not quite, particularly with Sigma phase 1 and 64 HP for bosses.
- Play X/Zero dialogue only on first entry of each stage instead of every time, even if you exited the stage early or died to the boss. Same goes with boss dialogue. The exception is if you retry the stage upon completing it. Otherwise, dialogue first time only.
- Music before and after boss fights is not timed logically. The music fades out in the room before the boss door instead of when you enter it. After defeating a boss, the victory music is delayed until about 4-5 seconds, where 2 seconds would be more reasonable for the sake of not waiting.
- Dash jumping results in a multiple image of X following his player character. This might be a graphical trend in later MMX titles, but I think it might be interfering with X's ability to properly grab ledges. It's most noticeable in Vulpine and Squirrel stages, but primarily happens when wall dashing from underneath. Hit box could be off as well so that X's hands don't register as making contact.
- I think 64 HP is excessive for Hunter mode, and Sigma Phase 2 in Rookie mode. The amount of buster damage dealt to bosses feels right, but some special weapons drain too early, such as wind. It also makes Sigma 1 fight atrociously difficult in Hunter compared to Phase 2. Keep health to 32 HP, but keep damage proportional, and then adjust weapon consumption.
- Weaknesses don't output a reasonable amount of damage in Veteran mode for a balanced fight. Buster does more damage on average. Weaknesses should always be more advantageous for attaining victory. Also, stun-lock animations from weaknesses would be a huge plus, as they would indicate they are the weakness for those bosses, and they could interrupt the fight pattern, giving X an advantage besides extra damage. This will take more creative thinking and drawing up new animations, but would go a long way in giving players in-game feedback from weapons. For example, what if you could hit Vulpine with Water while he's in his invincible pose? Or, knock Snapper upside down with Flare?
- Leave stage layouts unchanged from mode to mode. Adding or removing walls, floors, and platforms frustrates the experience, at least for me. Changing some things, like number of enemies, is okay.
Specifics:
- Vulpine Stage platforms in Rookie are too slow. Keep same speed as in Hunter or bump up closer to its speed.
- Raccoon fight in Rookie sometimes drops health and life containers. Seems unusual for a boss fight.
- In Axolotl Stage the breaking platforms break too slow for Rookie.
- Tundria Bear Stage
- Place some clue at the start that the wall leading to the Sub-Tank is breakable, or that it is different. Maybe make it the same wall you need the Comet to break through like in Scorpion stage. Either way, provide some indication that something is different about that location and is special or unusual.
- The fight with Tundria Bear feels overpowered in Veteran mode with the icicles, but dragged on with the sliding ice walls in Rookie. The speed in Hunter should be adequate for Rookie mode. The problem with the icicles is they show no visual cue or pattern of when or where they'll fall, making it mostly RNG. The rest of the fight is well manageable to predict, but the icicles in Veteran make it feel Sigma tier, even with the weakness.
- Stellar Primate Stage:
- I would love to see the armor have some kind of charged or secondary fire ability.
- The timed platforms are not the best in Rookie mode because of how slow they detonate, especially in the vertical drop following the ride armor section. More gaps in this section would be nice, or increase the detonation rate. They work in Fortress 1, but not so much in this part of this Stellar.
- Bog Snapper Stage
- Leave a clue similar to the one in Vulpine for the capsule, or leave the Heart unhidden, as you can see its location from the right hand side (before the moving platforms). This will entice players to search for the entrance instead of blindly stumbling upon it like I did the first time.
- Change the opening of the boss fight so Snapper appears immediately after X enters the room, instead of the long walk to middle of the arena. This would keep from dragging. There are only a few wide boss arenas in the series, examples being Flame Mammoth, Overdrive Ostrich, and Blizzard Buffalo. Each kicks off the fight immediately after X enters the room.
Besides those, my biggest requests to fix still are making full Sub-Tanks fill the entire health bar, to 100%, and improving the chest armor buffs, because it doesn't feel like it makes that much difference defensively, if any. Upon finding the capsule in Tundria Stage, Cain says, "this upgrade will enhance your chest. You will recover faster with no push back, and receive less damage." I have not understood the specs of this. Recover faster how? No push back from what? How much less damage? 50%? 25%? There is no noticeable advantage of getting this armor.
Best advice overall is to look at and replay the whole original MMX trilogy multiple times to see how it looks and functions, from boss fights, level design, enemy placement, and so on. I look forward to the next update!
Did an almost full run-through (Hunter Mode) on 1.00.5 (couldn't beat Sigma, he's a butt). Much improvement on this version. Here's what I like:
- Normal buster does more damage against bosses and regular enemies
- Dash lemons
- Weaknesses do appropriate damage against bosses; feels more balanced
- Sigma has a clear weakness (Comet)
- Bugs fixed in Fortress 1 boss fight (no no-clipping from crushers)
Things I wish to see changed or fixed:
- A full Sub-Tank should fill 100% of health bar, and/or should be increased the amount of HP it holds so it fills entire health bar (currently fills only over half)
- Improved defense from Chest armor upgrade. So far it doesn't seem to reduce damage, if any. 25-50% damage reduction would be ideal. Especially helpful for the Fortress bosses.
- Hadouken input does not match the original MMX1, which is down + diagonal + right/left + fire. The input for this game seems to be diagonal + down or down + diagonal + down, or some version of that, but it is not a seamless match of the original.
- Both X's and Boss health bars go transparent or disappear when X hovers within the same frames. Invisible health bars are a disadvantage, as players should know at all times the amount of health remaining
- Make requirement to get Hadouken without having to kill yourself in the pit, if that is part of the requirement. Technically speaking, if you are attempting a no-death or no-damage run of the game or the stage, then that makes getting the Hadouken pointless. If it is a requirement to go to the very bottom of the stage, then make it a requirement to do so without dying.
- Some special weapons deplete all the way (especially wind against Scorpion) before they can be used in their entirety for their intended bosses. As a guideline I would propose that a single shot should only expend only 1 bar, while a charged shot should expend no more than 4. The exception is for over-time use, such as boulder and comet, where 2 bars every few seconds would be fair. Charged shots on Special Weapons should always use up more energy than single shots.
- Fixing camera speed in door entries. Current speed drags gameplay too much.
- Adjust camera positioning or add more floors and platforms in Axolotl stage so floors are always visible in horizontal sections. I would say it's okay in vertical drops to have some unpredictability about what's below, because X at least has walls to slide down to check. In horizontal sections no visibility of a "safe" floor to navigate makes for slow traversal and too much guesswork. Even if there were no or very minimal safe areas on the ground to get to, at least having them visible, would help players make quicker decisions when speeding through areas. An alternate could be adding a few additional platforms so there is always a flat surface to jump to.
- Add more damage to charged beam, or even a damage-over-time when fired at bosses and other large enemies. The beam does less noticeable damage than a regular charged shot. Upgrades should always add more.
I don't know yet how I feel about the double boss health bar. It's okay, but also feels unnecessary and less vanilla MMX. Could simply keep everything proportional (i.e. one health bar, all shots do half damage. Or leave this feature for Veteran mode only. The Sigma fight feels overpowered now in Hunter mode. First phase Sigma feels much more challenging than final phase Sigma, and with the way the Sub-Tanks are not filling up the entire health bar, this is a tough fight for your casual player (Hunter mode), not that Sigma shouldn't be difficult, but when you are 100%, you should be much more balanced out as X, especially in defense. And since he now has a double health bar you can't use his weakness for the whole fight, because it depletes too quickly.
Overall, great improvements. Look forward to new updates.
Adding on. An alternative idea for the chips could be instead of having each stage's capsule have a requirement, that requirement could/should be left for the Hadouken capsule on Fortress 1. That way it gives players a reason to search for the chips without re-entering or backtracking to the capsule for each upgrade, and could be the final requirement for having the capsule appear in the first place, because so far it is still very ambiguous what the requirement is past getting every item and upgrade. Do I need to scale the cliff 6 times? Do I need to die once in the pit at the bottom, which I am sort of against if that is the case because that prevents you from doing a no-death completion. Even in original Mega Man X, the requirement to get the Hadouken capsule to appear at the end of Armadillo stage was not to die 4-5 times. You just need to reach the end of the stage that many times, and then on the final time have full health with 100% of the items and upgrades. So following a similar formula from X2 and X3, you'd need to have everything collected and full health for the capsule to even appear. X1 had the additional secret requirement of making that location in Armadillo appear multiple times. Your requirement feels similar but it's not concrete.
Continuing from previous comments on Vulpine and Axolotl Stages. I replayed them on Veteran mode, and I can't say that I enjoy them, even for the challenge. The issue for me lies in layout changes and modifying multiple variables. In Vulpine:
- Floating platforms change at different rate in each difficulty. I'd rather they be one speed for all three, preferably the fastest one (Veteran). Changing them messes with players being able to route properly, because timing is key when dash-jumping off them. I would say if the platforming were simplified the stage would run just as well for the veteran type player and the beginner or casual player. The lava, spikes, and crushing walls are all threatening enough. I would say there are almost too many platforms to navigate around in the first half. Simplifying would help.
- The horizontal moving walls are a fine hazard to include, but the blocks you have to break through in order to move ahead are a pain if you can't break through them quicker or have a clean way to jump over them without breaking. It doesn't seem like you can jump over the top block in a stack of three. Either resize or raise the ceiling? The principle here is giving players options. They can either shoot through the blocks or jump over them. Maybe there is one spot they have no choice but to shoot to break through, and that's fine. Good level design offers players multiple ways to scale or run through (horizontally). A good example is Flame Mammoth Stage from X1 (after beating Chill Penguin). It's one of my favorite levels to speed through. You can skate below on the ice or chase above on conveyor belts.
- The vertical climb crushing wall sections is particularly brutal at that speed on Veteran. I'm not saying this section can't be done because of the armor that can be gained later to run it more efficiently, but this is an issue for two main reasons. First, one of the boot upgrades is not acquirable without the Flare weapon, which you get from Vulpine. (You could get the Punch upgrade from Squirrel Stage and that would work). But my second and more important point is, every stage should work like if I had no armor upgrades or special weapons. They ought to be a requirement for accessing hard-to-get areas for Sub Tanks, Hearts, and Upgrades (and other secrets), but to get through the actual stage itself, I'd like to be able to run through it as if each level were my starting stage. I mentioned in a previous comment that I like to do Vulpine Stage first because it avoids the least amount of backtracking (in Rookie and Hunter modes, I'll get to Veteran).
- The Chip Requirement in Veteran. I am fine it being all 20 to get the upgrade from each stage, but it weakens the experience of utilizing the upgrade throughout the stage you acquire them in. It would be nice to find one near the beginning of a stage, but because of the chip requirement I couldn't get it anyway unless I backtracked or re-entered the stage after completing. In Vulpine Stage, there are 18 chips before the capsule and then 2 at the very end, so you have to come back to the stage later, or run a different stage first to collect enough chips (probably the more optimal way to get it). The other downside is that you've collected that upgrade (buster charge) after most of the stage is completed. It's nice to have for the boss fight, as long as the beam damage output gets boosted a bit.
As for Axolotl Stage, I didn't even bother to run through it all on Veteran. Removing the safe spots over the spikes seems too much, and it's turning into a Fortress type stage. Again, I want to be able to run through it without the need of any armor upgrades, as if it were my first stage. I think my first memory of playing the original Mega Man X, I played through every stage and got to the bosses. My first was Sting Chameleon, and I remember getting destroyed quickly. Then I got to Storm Eagle and was excited because I killed my first boss. The rewarding part was actually defeating a boss, not making it through a tedious stage. You have some well-crafted layouts and boss fights, and the stages ought to get the players to the bosses as quickly as possible, because they are the objective. I think what's not working is keeping it more simple for anyone to run through without extra work. Treat everyone as if they are a casual player for the first time. You don't have to pay fan service with crazy difficult layout schemes. You've already built a great-looking game, a cool story based on the classic Mega Man X trilogy. The soundtrack is also really good. For the sake of raising difficulty in each mode: differences in damage, defense, amount of onscreen enemies, amount of health drops, etc. Those things I think are good for making them different. However, going back to my point in Vulpine Stage, changing layout or timing of enemies or objects within the stage is not so great, as it messes with player muscle memory and routing. Changing too many variables is more frustrating to your players, unless you state within the difficulty settings what things are changed so players know what to expect. Maybe that's something to consider.
New thought I had that I forgot previously. When firing special weapons, not all deplete the by the same amount. Water and Flare both consume 1, charged or uncharged, while others like Wind consumes 2 when not charged and 4 when charged. I think it would be fair to see every weapon be consistent: one per single use, two per charged. The only thing that ought to vary is the damage output on the weapon type and whether enemies are weak to it or not. More damage if weak. Here's a breakdown of each (uncharged/charged):
- Boulder - 1:1
- Comet - 1:1 (I think both this and Boulder are fair at 1 since they are consumed over time and not per use)
- Sand - 2:1
- Cryo - 1:2
- Hydro - 1:1
- Jolt - 1:2
- Flare - 1:1
- Wind: 2: 4-6 (hard to tell exactly, but a large amount nonetheless)
In the case of Wind, then damage output could be slightly less on charged if bumping it down to 2, to balance it out from being overpowered. It's great against Scorpion, but depletes quick in other situations. Like Storm Tornado in X1, it has a lot of potential for it's versatility, such as vertical sections.
So I tested 1.00.4 and think there are good improvements. I did run into one major bug when I hit Fortress Stage 1. After the re-fight with Scorpion, you start ascending the floating platforms. Well, I discovered if you fall into the bottomless void, instead of dying you get soft-locked. So unfortunately I had to start the stage over, and then I fell into the void (same place) again and got soft-locked a second time. So as much as I hate dying, it's a necessary evil here.
A few other quality of life things:
- The dialog box at the stage enter and "Ready" could be flip-flopped, so "Ready" always shows before X appears on screen (exception being Intro Stage). Also, have opening dialogues on first entrance to stages and boss fights, and not subsequent visits if you fail to complete and have to retry the stage.
- Stage Clear music kicks in 3-4 seconds after the boss exploding animation is finished. It could start sooner. Compare this with the original games.
- Camera movement while entering doors is still very slow.
- Both X's and the boss health bars get overly transparent during fights, whether it's the environment or something else. It get's too difficult to track when it fades in and out. I'd rather it not go transparent at all, or allow a transparency option in settings maybe. Moving them around like in Scorpion fight seemed to be okay, but going nearly invisible is not ideal.
- I like the progress you're making with the Vulpine and Axolotl stages. I think they are improving. In Stellar Stage, however, I liked some of the original design better, particularly in the final section. The falling vertical section (with the ground lasers and exploding platforms) is one where I thought the earlier version was better.
I really love the effort put into this so far. This is a fun Mega Man X title to attempt. I've run through the main 8 stages a few time before running it in full, which I've done twice now, both 1.00.1 and 1.00.3, Rookie and Hunter mode. I do like many of the adjustments made, especially within the Vulpine and Axolotl stages.
The removal of lava in the final drop in Vulpine was much appreciated, although I think some of the culprits too are the spikes on the horizontal moving walls. The health drop to clue the hidden wall to the capsule is a solid move. (Could do something similar in Snapper Stage where the heart container is. I found that out of sheer luck!) What I'd like to see differently is better patterns of the floating platforms, and maybe adding platforms or adjusting them in the vertical climb section with the spike walls (maybe add in non-spiked gaps on the walls instead of all spikes), just before the heart tank. Granted, the boot upgrades would make it an easier climb, except you can't get them without the Flame weapon used later in the train stage. I choose to go to this Vulpine stage first because I found it a decent route to collect everything without backtracking. Vulpine is also a pretty easy first boss to go for, and a fun fight. I'd like to imagine for all stages being able to speed through them. Although I'm not a speed-runner, it is nice to have levels that you can ingrain into muscle memory and go through them in a breeze. This stage has a lot of directions: up, down, left, right, and all the hazards to navigate over and around. The placement of platforms ought to add to forward mobility and momentum rather than a barrier, especially since this is Mega Man X, where fans play for the wall dashing maneuvers.
For Axolotl stage, I think the platforms added at the bottom of the initial dive aren't necessary. They don't add anything in my opinion. I do appreciate the couple removal of spike floors. I think another commenter mentioned the camera positioning, which is what my thought was. I don't know the mechanics of programming that, but when you've dropped down to the beginning of the spike sections, I think it's better to have the camera show the entire floor than try to show partially both the spike ceiling and the moveable space (also would help in Vulpine Stage for the descending platforming-over-lava section). Since I've dropped down I already know there are spikes above me so I know not to jump up, but I have no idea about navigating what's below me. Even from memory it's not reliable, especially when it's still a work-in-progress. Finally for this stage, I wonder if the area for the heart piece is too spikey, or at least too narrow to be reasonably consistent. The only best option is to take intentional damage from the submarine mines before dropping through. But then the escape out is dicey. I feel like it ought to be hazardous to get to - to make the reward more rewarding - but without trying to punish you afterwards. This is like X2's Hunter Stage 3 difficulty level and beyond. For a casual player it should be a little more tame. Ramp up the difficulty in the final stages of the game.
A little afterthought of the previous two, I wonder if relocating the Capsules or swapping what armor you get from them would help running of levels (of course this means needing enough disks if placing it earlier in the stage. That's the drawback of having the disk requirement). For instance, you get the air-dash boots at the very end of Axolotl stage, where having them throughout would be helpful to navigate the narrower horizontal spike sections. Also, on the topic of armor parts, I'm not convinced on the visual difference once getting the quick shot upgrade. Either the regular lemons could be nerfed before getting the upgrade or the upgrade be buffed more, because both damage and speed feel roughly the same.
In the Space Stage? (Primate), it runs pretty well. I like the ride armor mechanic. I noticed though in this newer version an addition of the exploding platforms, particularly towards the end. One at the end of the ride armor section and another right before the boss door. Both of those seemed out of place.
I think there was another spider added in Snapper stage, which is cool..... Insta-death though? Even most mini-bosses (which I noticed you don't have any) don't dish out insta-deaths. Those are the closest things in any stage that resemble a mini-boss, and I guess they have spiky legs, but insta-death?
I've seen other people say they don't care for the disk collection mechanic. I actually like it! It gives you things to search for. I think though when you are trying to speed through the levels on a 100% run, placement is key. For example, there's a spot in the Desert stage where one disk is barricaded behind a rock wall that you have to break through. It's timely and feels like a let down to only get one thing out of there. How about adding a health drop or an Extra Life along with the disk? I don't think you need to move the heart container there, I think that's fine where it's at, and no need to duplicate the same type of requirement to get an item like you already did the Capsule. Otherwise for one disk, remove the barrier. In another stage, Tundra stage, there is one I always miss because I hop in the ride armor and forget to go down the cliff to grab it. Several of the levels, like this one, have you go down these little cliffs to grab disks, and there are so many to check that it gets to the point you forget exactly which ones do and do not have anything. Also in Tundra stage, I noticed when trying to get the heart container, I could not do the boot jump after jumping out of the ride armor. I thought I could before. Normally I'd go down there without the armor and use the boots and fist move up, but I thought I could too out of the armor. I also like being able to jump out of the armor easier (being able to dash out is the biggest plus) but I wonder if it got overcorrected, because it's a little too easy, and sometimes I jump out midair when I don't intend to. It might be me though. (I paused right here and hopped on Mega Man X and played through Chill Penguin to the ride armor section. Input for getting out is up + jump, regardless of in midair or sitting on the ground). It just seemed like I was hopping out of the floating armor too easily compared with the previous version 1.00.1. Getting in the armor immediately after getting out also is either delayed or the hitbox is too small. I think the latter.
There is a lot of slow animation entering any type of door (checkpoint and boss). It is a bit of a momentum killer.
The input timing for Hadouken doesn't feel as smooth as OG Mega Man X, or I'm misunderstanding the actual input and it's altered from the original. It's not as consistent to execute.
I do like that E Sub-tanks don't deplete entirely when you use one because of wastefulness, however, I'd much rather they fill my entire health bar. I'm low on health in a tough fight and the full Sub-tank only refills the quantity of health the tank is holding. The tanks refill unusually quick, which tells me they don't hold a full maxed out health bar worth. In X-X3, a full Sub-tank refills you to 100% full, while partial Sub-tanks refills a percentage.
Some weapons could get revamped or have more utility. In the case of Flame, it "fires" off too slow, in my opinion. Although it's Snapper's weakness, the timing, proximity, and hit box you need to target him are not skewed towards your favor. The charged version works pretty well, but the normal shot animation spreads from behind slowly and usually too late to hit.
Finally, I think, both Vile and Sigma don't seem to have a clear weakness, or maybe that's by design. In X1 Sigma was weak to Spark, and then in X2 weak to boomerangs (first phases). Regardless if going for 100% and using Hadouken on him (which I eventually had to do on my second playthrough) it's nice to have options. If he did have a weakness, then it was minimal at best, not clearly damaging. Give players multiple options for defeating every boss, or at least an easier option for the beginner players. In particular, a weapon that works against Sigma's movement and fighting patterns.
Overall, great game! I enjoy running through it and look forward to updates!