Part 6: Hyenard and Mighty
The Lava Factory is in trouble? Say it ain’t so! X and Zero rush off to stop the Reploid in charge, who seems in desperate need for some migraine medication.
Part 7: I’m Still in a Dream, Anteater
Cyber space isn’t new territory for the Maverick Hunters anymore, but familiarity isn’t going to stop them from going there again! Snipe Anteater loves collecting data, and must be stopped before he learns more things. Because god forbid an old man has hobbies.
Part 8: Tonion Fun
Okay, so we’ve got this radio tower, right? Well there’s an onion Reploid on top of it doing some dances. This may not sound like a pressing issue, but that onion is a mercenary so we’ve got to kill him. That’s just the kind of situation we’re in.
Part 9: Warfly on the Horizon
We’re on the last of Red Alert’s Reploids, and this one has a fleet of battleships at his disposal. Said battleships don’t seem to stand up well to the force of two guys and their fairly regular-sized guns, or the destruction of Red Alert assets.
Part 10: Second to Last Alert
You know, it is the cleanup episode. But this one feels like it hates you less than X6’s cleanup. Heck, most of these Reploids have been pointlessly starving for weeks because I could have saved them at the time and simply didn’t!
Part 11: Red Space
Most of Red Alert has been taken out, and only its leader remains. Well, its leader and the mysterious Professor we’ve heard so much about. And the inevitable boss rush. But we’ll take things one step at a time and start by fighting Red himself.
Part 12: MaSigma Z
The death of Red means the end of Red Alert, but not the end of this crisis. The Professor, which is obviously Sigma and we all know it, still stands defiantly within Crimson Palace. Naturally, the Maverick Hunters can’t allow him to get off lightly, so X and the gang are off to kill him once again.
Hold on tight, Axl! We’re blastin’ off to the moooooon!
Humanity has bounced back from the Eurasia incident. A new generation of Reploids has been produced; these new Reploids are, apparently, resistant against viruses and are in no danger of going Maverick. With these developments, humanity once again sets its sights towards space. They begin the Jakob Project, which aims to build an elevator that reaches the moon itself in order for humans and these new Reploids to migrate away from the Maverick-infested Earth. But unfortunately, those old Mavericks have designs on the moon as well. And while the threat of Sigma seems to be gone for good, an old rival has arrived on the scene to make sure the Jakob Orbital Elevator doesn’t wind up in the hands of humans.
At last, we’ve reached the final Mega Man X platformer. After X7 didn’t go over particularly well, its successor reigned in a decent bit. The 3D sections are mostly gone, and the game as a whole leans towards 2.5D levels. That’s not to say this feels entirely like an SNES game with 3D graphics, though. There’s more emphasis on the partner system, including additional special attacks that can be used as long as both characters are active. X, Zero and Axl are also just a touch more distinct in their gameplay styles, and you don’t have to wait half the game to have everyone available. It’s an interesting step forward that doesn’t exactly feel like what came before it. And considering this is the last game in the series, we never saw what could have come after, either.
Part 1: Park of the Covenant
Part 2: Abominable Snow Stage
Now that the eight Mavericks have revealed themselves, it’s time to pick a guy to start with. And what worse guy to choose than Avalanche Yeti, who waits at the end of a vehicle stage. Granted we’ve started with the vehicle stages for a while now, but this one manages to be particularly bad.