Mega Man X6
North American PlayStation cover art
Developer(s)	Capcom
Publisher(s)	Capcom
Director(s)	Koji Okohara
Producer(s)	Tatsuya Minami
Designer(s)	Akiteru Naka Toyozumi Sakai
Artist(s)	Haruki Suetsugu
Composer(s)	Naoto Tanaka
Series	Mega Man X
Platform(s)	PlayStation, Windows
Release	PlayStation JP: November 29, 2001 NA: December 11, 2001 EU: February 8, 2002 Windows KOR: 2003[1]
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Mega Man X6, known as Rockman X6 (ロックマンエックス6) in Japan, is a platform game developed and published by Capcom. It is the sixth main entry in the Mega Man X series. The game was first released on the PlayStation in Japan on November 29, 2001 and was later made available in both North America and Europe. The game was released for the Microsoft Windows in different parts of Asia in 2002.

Like past games in the series, the player tackles a series of stages and adds the unique weapon of each boss to the returning hero X's arsenal who relies primarily on shooting combat and wielding a sword in close quarte. The plot of Mega Man X6 takes place during the 22nd century where humans and intelligent Robots called "Reploids" live together. The game follows shortly after the events of Mega Man X5 in which planet Earth was devastated by an attack by the "Maverick" leader Sigma and the protagonist Zero sacrificed his own life to save it. As the world recovers, a Maverick known only as the "Zero Nightmare" has begun spreading chaos, resulting in X's decisions to investigate him.

Prominent series artist and producer Keiji Inafune was not involved in the game's production, as he had intended the fifth installment in the series to be the last with Zero's death. Critically, Mega Man X6 has received mixed to positive reviews to the point of being remembered as one of the worst games in the franchise. It was also re-released in 2006 as part of the North American Mega Man X Collection for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 and as part of the Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 in 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows.

Gameplay

X rescues a Reploid from the Nightmare virus.

The gameplay is very similar to Mega Man X5. As an action platformer, the game follows the classic formula of choosing between eight stages in their own order where they face boss characters whom they can copy its weapon upon defeating them. The player can select the returning hero X who is skilled at shooting with his X Buster and can wield the Z Saber in close quarter combat. Like in previous games, the player can use armors with X inheriting his Falcon Armor from Mega Man X5. When exploring, the player can find capsules from Dr. Light who grants X parts of alternative armors, the Shadow Armor and the Blade Armor, which give him unique abilities.^[2] Zero can be unlocked after finding and defeating the boss Zero Nightmare, bringing his own weapons and techniques to the fold, including a refined Z-Saber fighting style.

Mega Man X6 has an increased emphasis on rescuing Reploids over previous titles in the series. Whereas previous games rewarded the player with health or an extra life, Mega Man X6 rewards the player with additional parts or other permanent prizes. Rescuing Reploids was made more difficult in this game with the addition of the Nightmare, which makes any Reploid it infects evil, thus rendering the Reploid impossible to save. Both characters can be equipped with various power-up items earned after rescuing certain Reploids.^[3] The parts system was altered as well. Rather than attach a certain part to a certain armor, parts are attached to the character itself. The number of parts that can be equipped at once is dependent on the player's rank, which is increased by harvesting Nightmare Souls.^[4]

Plot

Three weeks have passed since the events of Mega Man X5 as Zero is missing after he and X defeated Sigma. As a result of the Eurasia space colony incident, Earth's surface has been rendered uninhabitable, forcing the human population to take refuge underground. An intelligent Reploid researcher, Gate, is searching through the ruins of Eurasia and finds something unusual. A week later, Gate goes mad as he completes an experiment, and declares his intentions to turn Earth into a utopia for high-class Reploids.

Meanwhile, Alia sends X to Eurasia to battle an enemy. In the aftermath, he briefly encounters a being reminiscent to Zero. X then meets a scientist named Isoc and his subordinate, High Max, who are in the search of the Zero-like being, which they identify as the "Zero Nightmare". Isoc invites all Reploids to join his cause to destroy the Nightmare phenomena, which is turning the Reploid population into rebellious "Mavericks".^[5] X journeys to the suspected areas to investigate the Nightmare phenomena and fight the infected. X can also encounter the Zero Nightmare and defeat him. Following this, the real Zero appears, unaware of how he survived his battle against Sigma.^[6][7] Nonetheless, he reunites with X, and rejoins the Maverick Hunters to continue investigating the Nightmare.

Following the defeat of the eight investigators (or High Max), X and Zero meet Gate, who reveals he found a piece of Zero's DNA at the Eurasia crash site. The DNA drove Gate insane, and he created the Nightmare phenomena alongside the Zero Nightmare to help build his utopia.^[8] The Hunters go to Gate's laboratory to put to a stop to his plans. Following Gate's defeat, he confesses he has rebuilt Sigma, who wakes up to defeat X and Zero.^[9]

If X defeats Sigma and previously defeated the Zero Nightmare, Zero is alongside X as he rescues Gate so that Alia, his former colleague, can try and revive him if she chooses to do so.^[10] If X defeats Sigma, but did not defeat the Zero Nightmare, Alia is instead with X at the end, who thanks him for rescuing Gate. Zero is then shown to be alive, but leaves the fighting to X.^[11] If Zero defeats Sigma, an unknown scientist seals Zero away for the next 102 years, as Zero is worried about his virus and believes X can protect the peace.^[12]

Development

Series producer Keiji Inafune was not involved in the development of Mega Man X6.^[13] He had originally intended for the fifth chapter in the series to be the last due to the death of Zero at that game's conclusion. "And so I’d always planned to make Zero come back to life in the Mega Man Zero series, but then X6 comes out sooner from another division and Zero comes back to life in that, and I’m like, 'What's this!? Now my story for Zero doesn’t make sense! Zero's been brought back to life two times!'"^[14] Inafune also felt he owed fans of the series an apology for the decision to create Mega Man X6, although the series was "starting to go in a direction out of [his] control" at that point.^[13]

Artist Haruki Suetsugu, who had worked on both previous PlayStation Mega Man X games, signed on as the game's primary character designer and promotional artwork illustrator. Suetsugu stated that the development schedule of Mega Man X6 was tight.^[13] Gate was one of Suetsugu's favorite designs to the point he was disappointed when he was not included in the next games.^[15] As such, he described his designs for the Maverick bosses were "relatively simple", and he took a similar approach to designing all of them: for instance, all of the Mavericks have the characteristic head fins and forehead jewel found on their creator Gate's helmet. The designs for other characters also feature unique traits, including Gate as a "merging of scientists and combatants, High Max as "big and strong", and the DNA-like Nightmare. Due to the events of Mega Man X5, Sigma was specifically designed to be "mess". X's two armors were given different purposes with Shadow highlighting a more stealthy approach at combat and Blade having the look of multiple weapons.^[13]

The game was released on November 29, 2001 in Japan,^[13] December 11, 2001 in North America,^[16] and February 8, 2002 in Europe^[17] The background music for Mega Man X6 was composed by Naoto Tanaka. The game also features the opening vocal songs "Moon Light" and "The Answer" by Showtaro Morikubo and the ending theme "I.D.E.A" by RoST.^[18][19] All of the game's instrumental and vocal music was compiled on the Capcom Music Generation: Rockman X1 ~ X6 soundtrack released by Suleputer in 2003.^[20] The game was not dubbed in any language other than the original Japanese, and the North American and European versions retained the Japanese voice tracks, using translated English subtitles to tell the story. The voice tracks for the cutscenes were removed completely when Mega Man X6 was re-released as a part of Mega Man X Collection for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube in North America in 2006, though the in-game voice tracks are still retained.^[21]

Reception

According to the Japanese magazine Famitsu, Mega Man X6 was the seventh best-selling game in Japan during its week of release at 39,318 units sold.^[30] Dengeki Online reported that Mega Man X6 sold a total of 106,980 units in Japan by the end of 2001, marking it as the 109th best-selling game of the year in the region.^[31] The game eventually saw a re-release as part of the PlayStation the Best range of budget titles.^[32]

Mega Man X6 received mixed reviews, with an average score of 65 on Metacritic.^[22] It has often been critcized for a harsh difficulty caused by poor design,^[33][23][28] as well as recycled narrative.^[34][26] GameSpot was disappointed by the execution of the nightmare system and item collecting add variety which would have improved the length and that the graphics are not really even up to the standards set by older games in the series. He still praised the music is good, while the gameplay made it suitable for "hard-core Mega Man fans."^[4] IGN found the formula was repetitive but still enjoyable.^[28] Similarly, GameZone was positive to the game, claiming that while there was little to no innovation to the formula other than X's new sword, the formula still worked.^[27] Gaming Age found the game challlenging to the point players would need to complete it in order to finish.^[33]

Among the most negative reviews, Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game a 3.5 out of 10, saying "I thought I’d sooner see Sasquatch ride a Chimera bareback through the streets than a bland series like Mega Man X last through six installments."^[23] GameRevolution said the plot was recycled from previous games, citing Gate's backstory and Zero's return from the dead and felt the difficulty was higher than previous installments despite boss designs lacking the appeal to make the player care.^[26] Gaming Age praised the production values for producing visual aesthetic stages with cutscenes retaining good audio.^[33] IGN also praised the soundtrack and replay value.^[28] Despite mixed feelings to the voice acting and storytelling, GameZone found the audio and theme songs were well done.^[27]

In retrospective, 1UP.com referred to Mega Man X6 as "sloppy" citing multiple issues within its design such as repetitive stages and background images.^[35] Despite panning the narrative for recycling events from the franchise, Destructoid felt that the gameplay was fitting as other games though also highlighting the poorly implemented Reploid Rescue system as a resulting of forcing the player to save them all to progress through most of the most challenging stages. This led to the writer to call Mega Man X6 the worst game of the franchise.^[34]

Mega Man X6 was also included on the North American Mega Man X Collection for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 in 2006.^[36] Mega Man X6 was made available on the PlayStation Network as part of the PSOne Classics line on July 8, 2015 in Japan. It was released for Windows internationally, along with PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch as a part of Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 (Rockman X Anniversary Collection 2 in Japan) on July 24, 2018 and July 26, 2018 for Japan.^[37][38]

In retrospect, Capcom producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi acknowledged the negative response Mega Man X6 received. Their reaction was that the players would like a "a better, a newer, a fresher Mega Man X game" and thus came up with the sequel having a transition to 3D graphics. He further added "Not so much trying to correct mistakes from the past or dodge problems that occurred with X6, but more working on getting 3D right." This led to development of Mega Man X7 as a 3D game.^[39]

References

External links

• Official website (in Japanese)