Mega Man X6 Masochist Speedrun Part 06: Metal Shark Player

This was painful. Very painful. I worked on this stage harder than any stage up to this point. It reminded me of the work I did with Slash Beast's stage in X4. However, it was painful in a good way. Like a swift punch in the face that makes you feel alive.

I have a bit of a mouthful of this stage, actually.

Believe it or not, this is my absolute favorite stage in the game. And it may very well be my favorite stage in the entire series. It's the right kind of difficult. The kind of difficult that X6 should have attempted to achieve with all of its stages. It's difficult casually, and its difficulty is spiked to the moon in a challenge like this.

But it never feels unfair. None of my multitude of failures felt unfair. I was never cheated out of an attempt. It was always my fault, always something I could improve upon in the next attempt.

Even though I like X6, one has to admit its fetish of relying on artificial difficulty more than a few times before its done. And don't get me wrong: I find enjoyment in the artificial difficulty. But I'm not exactly healthy, either.

Metal Shark Player's stage and Blizzard Wolfang's stage are examples of what X6 could have been had the same care and attention put into all of the stages.

It could have still been the hardest X game, but at the same time, remembered more fondly by the X community.

That's not to say there aren't a lot of people crying about this particular stage, as well. But that's their prerogative.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable challenge to waltz my through this stage as fast as I can, while still avoiding damage. It's especially fun in a stage like this that doesn't really need the added difficulty of the limitations I've put myself under.

There's rarely a dash, a jump, or an X-Buster shot seen in the video that wasn't pre-planned and choreographed through sheer repetition and trial and error.

I'm sure the stage could still be done faster, but this what I came up with.

I know the Ride Armor can be used in the beginning of the stage to jam the crusher, but those that have watched my videos for a while now, know that I'm against using Ride Armors unless it's absolutely necessary to progress through the stage. If isn't, I'll take the added challenge.

It's unfortunate that what people usually think of when they talk about X6 is stuff like the godforsaken doughnuts, or Ground Scaravich's stage. Because X6 features some of the absolute best stage design of any Mega Man X game.

And despite his stupid name, Metal Shark Player is a fun boss fight, too. Nothing much to write home about, sans the nice gimmick of him reviving old Mavericks into the fight.

Not particularly challenging, but I wasn't really looking for an Infinity Mijinion type battle at the end of a stage like this anyway.

Next up is Ground Scaravhich, and as of this writing, I have no idea how I'm going to pull that off. Until then.

My video is at DLive