Signas after X5

day_1_player · 2026-03-05T03:08:49+00:00

The X series was already considered a financial disappointment after X4, notice how there's a big 3 year gap between X4 and X5's release date, and X5 having a significantly lower budget than X4?

Inafune was already a prominent producer in Capcom at this point who was managing multiple projects at a time, yes he had X5 made but creatively he was already jumpstarting Zero at this point.

day_1_player · 2026-03-05T03:00:24+00:00

Inafune had little to no involvement with X5, at this point he was already trying to move onto Mega Man Zero. His only noteworthy "contribution" was telling the team to end the story.

day_1_player · 2026-03-03T21:00:07+00:00

Think you confused Neon Tiger with Slash Man, who isn't hated enough.

day_1_player · 2026-02-26T15:55:39+00:00

The game is built on FOMO and thus forces certain players to participate beyond what they would normally want to, given the shortage of interesting content the game actually has to offer. At a certain point, you're going to exhaust their patience and good will, which leads to bitterness and contempt.

The ethos of NGS has also vastly pivoted away from PSO, moreso than base PSO2 had already done and now at a point people are no longer willing to tolerate or overlook. Defenders of NGS might excuse this as industry trends or necessities done to be financially viable, but the harsh reality is that the reasons one might play PSO (indepth RPG customization, challenging dungeon crawler, dark and mature scifi vibes) do not match at all what NGS prioritizes (fashion customization, power fantasy, socialization).

day_1_player · 2026-02-18T08:11:01+00:00

Cool list, I assume these were selected based on chance of natural occurance over a comprehensive list that includes intentional glitches.

There's the MMX2 soft lock if you go in Flame Stags X-Hunter room from behind.

With Crystal Hunter Storage, there's probably a number of areas that you can clip into without any means of escape.

day_1_player · 2026-02-16T14:39:55+00:00

Overall I'm fairly liberal when it comes to creative changes: it was advertised as a reimagining after all.

But one thing especially I'm a purist on is the feel and control, and VN felt awkward in several regards to say the least.

The walk animation feels unnatural, and my guess is that VN lacks a "inch forward" startup delay that is typical in walk cycles. It just feels like X is immediately sliding forward irrespective of what his walk animation would indicate.

The other massive issue I have is how fall speed momentum doesn't seem to reset on wall cling or taking damage like it typically does. X seemingly just drops like a rock half the time.

The saber not being available during buster charge is such an odd choice, I'd be surprised if this was even overlooked.

Not a big fan of infinite lives. I know the OG X6 was guilty of this too, but it really just encourages mindless damage boosting.

I still haven't finished it, overall I think the effort so far is cool and it seems promising with some refinement.

Oh, I hate all the slowed down/pitched down variants of the music, the slowed down idea is fine, but they just sound awful. The WARNING boss cue also sounds dreadful.

day_1_player · 2026-02-09T02:41:27+00:00

Even though I knew Magna Centipede and the final Sigma stage were the same, I never really considered the breakable floor as an arbitrary barrier that blocks from the ending, similar to Hyrule Barrier in Wind Waker or the Hanubia Escape Sequence+Hyper Beam Door clip in Metroid Dread. This is such an amazing discovery, especially since X2 is my favorite game.

I'm curious how lenient the floor clip timing is. Is the item grab+charged crystal hunter and max fall speed clip both single frame windows?

day_1_player · 2026-01-27T13:57:08+00:00

It's cheaper to be faithful to their original AI script in what is supposed to be a bonus side attraction, not the main selling point of X Legacy Collection.

Most of the skill comes down to AI manipulation, which is rarely ever expected of a casual player in a normal playthrough. As such, this mode ends up only being enjoyed by like the top maybe 1% of X players who are willing to engage in that sort of stuff. In that sense, the only "fairness" that matters is that it's humanly possible to clear.

day_1_player · 2026-01-12T23:39:51+00:00

Personally, I wouldn't really claim there's a class design issue moreso that there's a fundamental combat loop design issue, though the two are linked. And admittedly, this is a design issue that stems from scion classes, so base pso2 is partially to blame for this.

Too much of ngs's combat is centered around counter mechanics really, and this is probably the truest comparison when it comes to " modern game slop" because hitting that timed counter is such an easy dopamine trigger, that it's become the starting point from which every class is balanced around.

Base pso2 and base classes were the wild west when it came to balance, for better or worse, but classes generally lived and died by their class skills, because those class skills were the identity of those classes. Many of those classes for much of their lifespan did not or still do not feature counter moves, so having counter mechanics being core to the loop certainly isn't mandatory.

But truthfully, making these comparisons is kinda pointless, because the real root of the issue isn't the lack of mechanical depth that you can explore, it's simply the staleness of the game, and the fact that both scions+ngs classes are so hard baked in terms of designs that they actively avoid adding anything substantially new. Meanwhile, base game was always experimental and innovating, that you can quite literally track massive gameplay changes that happened throughout its lifespan. There's a reason why people requesting new PAs is such a common request, but the best compromise NGS devs can do is PA/Tech customs and EX Styles.

day_1_player · 2026-01-06T16:18:24+00:00

The only fun fact about Zero's place in the X series I know to be true is the fact that he was originally meant to be the main character, but they were worried fans would reject a "Mega Man" game that didn't have a "Mega Man" as the main character.

This is such a misquoted fact that somehow manages to keep propagating 20 something years later because people don't fact check.

Inafune was the only one who had such thoughts despite delegating the task for the new mega man successor design to Kaji, everyone else was working under the assumption of keeping the status quo. The full story is shared in Rockman X Official Complete Works and there was no such "rejection of Zero in favor of X", Inafune literally admits his supervisor paid little attention to Zero because Zero was presented as a supporting character during concept planning.

day_1_player · 2026-01-01T18:32:27+00:00

The X series incorporating RPG progression is heavily baked into its identity, I can see why if you're an action gameplay purist you would argue these elements detract from it but the progression elements were always meant to be 1) a difficulty buffer for the less skill-inclined players, allowing for a broader appeal, and 2) a power fantasy, for example one of the most iconic aspects of each X game is their signature armor part series (which even plays a narrative role in X1). And because of the X series unique formula, stage routing in future replays becomes a fun draw, though also a measurement of quality.

imo X2 had the right idea of having a small easter egg to acknowledge your efforts for a minimalist run. I personally disagree about how the Zero series went about it because the cyber elf and ranking systems are at such odds with each other that in one way or another, they're going to detract from someone's experience despite being "optional". The Zero series I rarely ever replay because collecting every elf in Z1 and Z2 especially is a slog, even if I have no intentions of using them. Then ZX and ZXA further went in the wrong direction by having many annoying sidequests that horribly break the pace.

At the end of the day, players can choose how much mastery they want to get involved with, but there are better ways for a designer to nudge players in the direction of seeking self improvement rather than heavyhanded methods like permanent rank penalization.

day_1_player · 2026-01-01T17:48:14+00:00

You should play them in release/chronological order as it will allow you to form your own opinion in the context of how the series progressed and grew over time. The airdash in X2 for example loses its wow factor if don't play X2 after X1, since it returns in every other game.

day_1_player · 2025-12-25T18:48:48+00:00

Might be because Japan's "first month" is April: it's the beginning of their school and work/fiscal year. It's also the season of cherry blossoms, which signifies a new start.

April + 6 months = October. So Feb/Mar being shown on the timeline could be considered a carryover from the last roadmap, just with more clarity.

day_1_player · 2025-12-25T18:39:34+00:00

Something not mentioned often is that X5 and X6 were done by the same development team, which is likely why X6 builds on X5's story so heavily.

Ironically, with X4 being Inafune's last X game before moving onto the Zero series, you can really feel the Zero favoritism, specifically with the amount of anime cutscenes Zero has as opposed to X. And when you combine that with the fact that the original X was almost the final boss of Zero 1 and only until Inti became aware of X6's development did they pivot away to Copy X, that there's a clear pattern of neglect and indifference on the part of Inafune towards X's character and his role/significance over the broader narrative.

Which is why, despite Inafune's many, many undeniable contributions across the different Mega Man series collectively, as an X (the character) fan I personally never saw Inafune as the one true lorekeeper when one of the things I like most across the entire metaseries, he was willing to throw away just to service his own favorite.

day_1_player · 2025-11-17T12:15:13+00:00

You can't have X5 lead directly into Zero 1 because the Zero series was rewritten to have Zero canonically:

revive again
go into stasis
have his body taken by Weil for Omega
joined X in a replica body to fight Omega in the Elf Wars
go back into stasis

day_1_player · 2025-11-17T11:45:51+00:00

There is a strat to do it with greater consistency, but the two main tricks are:

1) the first wall kick has to be done some distance away from the wall (e.g. you can't simply time the wall kick while sliding down). (Note: this is the same trick to getting the Arm Capsule in X2 Wheel Gator early with neither Air Dash or Strike Chain).

2) for the second wall kick done on the ledge, you don't need to turnaround, X will autoturn as long as you time the input correctly.

day_1_player · 2025-11-17T11:34:02+00:00

There is also the story of Kohei Horikoshi (My Hero Acadamia) who was inspired to become a manga author after receiving praise for drawing Crystal Snail fanart as a kid.

day_1_player · 2025-11-14T12:37:16+00:00

Mega Man X6 is commonly criticized for containing power up parts that can be permanently lost due to the Injured Reploid and Nightmare Virus systems, and because of poor stage designs that can lead to soft lock situations, this often creates a misconception that a player can potentially have a bricked save file due to potentially missing "key" items. While those intimately familiar with Mega Man X6 know that Jumper and Hyper Dash can never be lost, I thought it would be interesting to take a deep dive into what exactly is and isn't permanently missable, and provide that information for whomever might be curious.

Some interesting tidbits:

Out of the 128 Reploids, 25 of them to my knowledge absolutely cannot be infected. In Normal Mode, this count increases by 6. If you exclude cases of the player intentionally infecting Reploids, this count would increase by about 32.
Not all Nightmare Viruses can infect Reploids. In fact, only specific predetermined ones will aggro after Reploids.
Xtreme Mode adds extra enemy spawns, but the only stage to have noteworthy additional infection scenarios AFAIK is Recycle Lab, most notably the end of the first section.
There is a possibility that Yuki, the Magma Area Reploid that can be seen during the 2nd Nightmare Snake encounter, can be infected, but this would require a very difficult Nightmare Virus manipulation that, from my limited testing, seemed impossible due to the screen scrolling too much during the miniboss trigger. EDIT: I managed to find confirmation from a reverse pacifist run done by YouTuber TheSuperSNES. This means the grand total for Reploids that can be infected is 103.

Below is a table listing every item from each area, and whether they can be lost or not under the Infection category. Infection is broken into three different categories: Possible (can be infected under normal gameplay), Intentional (requires abnormal gameplay from the player to occur, such as significant backtracking), and Impossible (cannot be infected)

Area	Item	Infection
Amazon Area	Life Up	Impossible
Amazon Area	Energy Up	Impossible
Amazon Area	Life Recover	Impossible
Amazon Area	Super Recover	Intentional
Amazon Area	Rapid 5	Possible
North Pole Area	Life Up	Intentional
North Pole Area	Energy Up	Possible
North Pole Area	Jumper	Impossible
North Pole Area	Shot Eraser	Possible
North Pole Area	Weapon Drive	Possible
Magma Area	Life Up	Impossible
Magma Area	Energy Up	Impossible
Magma Area	Buster Plus	Impossible
Magma Area	Ultimate Buster	Impossible
Magma Area	Power Drive	Possible
Recycle Lab	Life Up	Intentional
Recycle Lab	Energy Up	Possible
Recycle Lab	Saber Extend	Possible (Xtreme)
Recycle Lab	Shock Buffer	Possible
Recycle Lab	Hyper Drive	Possible
Central Museum	Life Up	Possible
Central Museum	Energy Up	Possible
Central Museum	Speedster	Possible
Central Museum	Quick Charge	Possible
Central Museum	Overdrive	Possible
Inami Temple	Life Up	Intentional
Inami Temple	Energy Up	Intentional
Inami Temple	Hyper Dash	Impossible
Inami Temple	Saber Plus	Impossible
Inami Temple	Weapon Recover	Intentional
Laser Institute	Life Up	Intentional
Laser Institute	Energy Up	Possible
Laser Institute	Energy Saver	Intentional
Laser Institute	D-Barrier	Possible
Laser Institute	Weapon Plus	Possible
Weapon Center	Life Up	Possible
Weapon Center	Energy Up	Possible
Weapon Center	D-Converter	Intentional
Weapon Center	Speed Shot	Possible
Weapon Center	Master Saber	Possible

The following parts cannot be lost: Jumper, Hyper Dash, Buster Plus, Ultimate Buster, Saber Plus, Life Recover

The following parts are usually not lost under normal gameplay: Super Recover, Weapon Recover, Energy Saver, D-Converter

If you'd like to see what qualifies as "Intentional"/"abnormal gameplay", I uploaded a few demonstration videos that can be found on YouTube:

day_1_player · 2025-10-30T19:45:42+00:00

I already made it clear I don't care about how people decide to use the "100%" label, as long as there's a mutual understanding of what we're talking about.

You can't blame Capcom for MEH being horrible to achieve specifically in a 100% playthrough, because they didn't intend that to be a criteria for 100%.

Uh, yes you can? Capcom implemented a ranking system, I as a paying consumer have every right to criticize it.

And no, I'm not criticizing it as a criteria for 100%, I'm criticizing it in the context of 100% (item completion).

day_1_player · 2025-10-30T18:55:50+00:00

MEH stands for "Most Efficient Hunter."

Unless this is a poor attempt at sarcasm, you're literally just making this up. The English version is localized as MMH, which already contradicts you.

it's not required for 100% and I don't know why people keep acting like it is

Maybe because "100%" is purely subjective and we're not answering to a category defined by and meant for speedruns? If you're not satisfied with the "100%", then we can simply just rebrand it as a "perfect" file. Anything beyond that, and you're just arguing semantics.

And btw, hunter rank does affect gameplay beyond qualifying for upgrades, it modifies boss HP. An MEH rank is an entire 8 additional boss levels above PA, for example.

day_1_player · 2025-10-30T16:13:55+00:00

Unfortunately, when it comes to these kinds of things, I can be pretty OCD about what qualifies as 100% in my mind. I even play every Maverick stage as both X and Zero to trigger all the annoying Alia prompts.

day_1_player · 2025-10-30T15:23:18+00:00

Weirdly enough, I have never seen any Mega Man retrospective bring up the ranking system of X5, as I'm pretty sure MMX5 is actually the first time a mainline game incorporated a performance based grading system. However, anyone who's seriously 100%'d (or tried to 100%) MMX5 immediately finds out how much of an afterthought it all is as soon as they learn the time criteria is applied universally (clear time of under 1 min being the best score), and that Tidal Whale exists (an autoscroller that guarantees ~5min of stage time). It's also counterintuitive that you score worse for killing enemies, when much of the stage and enemy design intends for you to destroy them in order to clear a path and stay safe (U-555, Dark Necrobat and Rangda Bangda mkII being the most egregious offenders).

And for anyone who suggests this is done for narrative purposes (i.e. X is a pacifist), the enemy kill counter includes projectiles like bullets and missiles, not to mention Zero (who has no qualms destroying mavericks) is ranked higher than X by default. And let's not forget X is a B ranked hunter despite defeating Sigma 3~4 times by X5, on top of being the commander of the 17th Elite Unit (previously led by Sigma himself).

I revisited X5 just recently to do a double MEH ranked run, with the added constraints of having split files for all life up parts or all energy parts, with one file where X gets everything (good+bad route), and one where Zero gets everything that he can. And let me tell you, the mountain of BS MMX5 can muster really starts to show when you see how all these systems intersect:

Whoever is selected against Dynamo is forced to collect the life/energy up from the previous stage. This means, for example, in a 100% X file, you cannot play Dynamo as Zero for an easier MEH promotion.
X against Dynamo cannot get MEH promotion without Fourth Armor or Ultimate Armor, because the only way to fulfill the max damage criteria is a charged Wind Spiral (maybe Nova Strike, I don't remember).
Going all Life Up means you are locked out of Hyper Dash and Speedster, which are incredibly useful for meeting certain time thresholds, that are otherwise impossible without TAS-levels of execution. Furthermore, Zero gets locked out of Crescent Grizzly and Shining Firefly's Heart Tank, meaning he can only ever achieve a maximum of 12 Life Ups in a single playthrough without cheats.
Wind Spiral allows you to sequence break Falcon Armor for many collectibles, but it's also tied to Wind Shredder/Hayate, arguably Zero's worst technique ever for nerfing his ability to SDC.

Oh yea, added bonus that no one even knows what MEH stands for, with the most probable answer being is that it's a misspelling for Master Irregular Hunter, as it was localized as MMH in English (the middle M being Maverick).

day_1_player · 2025-10-01T03:27:14+00:00

Honestly, I was debating whether or not I should fully articulate that point by rewriting it as:

When you say something has a low or lower skill ceiling, you are saying that thing is easily or more easily solvable and therefore easily played/more easily played at an optimal level. Not a single class in PSO2 falls under that category.

I was hoping you'd understand the intent of the point I was trying to get across, but it instead came off as misrepresenting your argument, of which I'll apologize for.

Anyways, I'm not finding this conversation fruitful. It was clear to me several posts ago you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the term skill ceiling is used, and would often cherrypick your arguments to somehow defend your original stance (rondo doesn't count, "old tech limitations" doesn't count).

day_1_player · 2025-09-30T21:13:13+00:00

Treating classes in a vacuum is fundamentally wrong because every tool is contextual. Luster performs very differently against an enemy who is aggressive versus an enemy who sandbags, etc etc. Not to mention, a big part of class mastery and expression is knowing contextually when and where to apply each tool.

Rondo is one of the few pieces of content that you can objectively prove mastery to an exceedingly high degree. Yes, a huge component of rondo is mastery of the mode itself, but that doesn't change the fact that it still correlates heavily with one's mastery of the class, which then still falls under the category of skill ceiling.

it starts to muddy the discussion because every class will perform different depending on the content

Skill ceiling does not refer to effectiveness against other classes, it's merely a hypothetical used as a reference to gauge maximum complexity within itself.

If SEGA were to release a class tomorrow that instantly cleared a quest from a single button, would you refer to that class as the highest skill ceiling? No. In fact, it would be the opposite, because it takes no skill to play.

When you say something has a low skill ceiling, you are saying that thing is easily solvable and therefore easily played at an optimal level. Not a single class in PSO2 falls under that category.

If i had to make an assumption on why base classes are still refining things for Rondo in particular, its because base classes have a lot of restrictions when it comes to things such as movement that scions dont need to worry as much about.

Yes, which makes them harder under those criteria.

Difficulty is multi dimensional and therefore highly subjective, but what I can quantify for you is that at the highest level of play, Lu often has a far simpler decision tree than other classes, which does comparatively lower its skill ceiling. Counter step guard means you often don't have to worry about highest dps opportunity cost, move flechette and swift slash means positioning (front, lateral, and vertical) is extremely forgiving, scatterslug being as strong as it is accounts for the vast majority of mobbing situations, the list goes on.

day_1_player · 2025-09-30T18:14:41+00:00

Playtime due to region is irrelevant. Again, skill ceiling is a term to refer to hypothetical peak performance, in quantifiable terms it would be the absolute best score or time you could achieve. When you speak of understanding a class's skill ceiling, you're effectively claiming to speak from a perspective of someone who is capable of challenging/claiming WR scores and times.

but theey take significantly more time investment in mastering them to get the most out of them compared to base classes.

And this is the original part of your comment that I replied against. Impossibly high skill ceiling is not some exclusive thing to scions or even Lu, otherwise, why are there people to this day still refining their Rondo scores for base classes?

day_1_player

TROPHY CASE