Easiest to Hardest Mega Man X4 X5 X6 Mavericks BUSTER ONLY PS1 | #24-#11

[@LargeTurn1p]

wow those last two of this list seemed to be dramatically more difficult than the previous ones

[@MarMaxGaming]

Things are heating up big time!

[@dogeyes9038]

This was such a surprise! Seeing the notification for this video really made my day, haha. I wouldn't have guessed that a mavericks list covering the PS1 era was in the works. I've always enjoyed hearing your takes on these bosses, so this was a real treat. Especially when my predictions get subverted. I thought for certain that I wouldn't be seeing Rainy Turtloid on this side of the list. It's definitely interesting to get another perspective on that fight. The rest of the placements are pretty much in line with what I would think too. Evaluating these bosses must be quite a bit trickier than they were in the previous games since there are a number of additional things to consider. The primary thing being that these bosses are no longer being designed only for X, but for Zero as well. The other things come from all of the things X5 introduced which carried over into X6; ducking, boss levels impacting how they fight, X starting the games with a full set of armor and the Xtreme difficulty setting. Those things honestly add a lot of ambiguity to the boss fights, though I believe that in both games the bosses are guaranteed to be at the max level ranking during the refights. It's especially significant in X5's boss rush where they are put at level 96 and have absurdly large life bars. This was a ton of fun to watch. I'm really looking forward to the next part! Right now, I think I feel fairly confident about who the top two are going to be, but it's entirely possible that I'm way off again. That's all part of the fun, of course. I've also got to get used to hearing the actual correct names for the X5 mavericks too. I am still so used to their endearingly atrocious localized names.

[@MarMaxGaming]

Always awesome to hear from you, Dog Eyes! I’m really glad you liked the challenge, I kinda decided to do this on a whim, but wow some of the levels in X5 and especially X6 made this a very, very hard challenge. I’m not surprised to see it looks like you know a great deal more about these games than I do; humbly I just decided to focus on the mavericks from these 3 games in the buster only form to help finally finish what we started with X, X2, and X3. Overall I can see why people say X4 is amazing, its presentation was superior and I didn’t really like seeing the mug shots go from epic graphics to anime… the mavericks themselves also looked less impressive graphically than X4, but I can say X5 & X6 kept me on my toes with a major emphasis on “for better or for worse” because omg some of those levels felt almost impossible… especially Flame Heatnix’s with that recurring mid level boss with its massive life bar, and that god forsaken rising acid. Tackling that buster only is straight up almost impossible, it took me hours over multiple sessions, I had to get a lot better at the game to do what was required. That submarine from X5 too was also downright ridiculous, and I mean ridiculous… the minute of dangerous slow auto scrolling before each attempt too?? Barf, I hated that. A true testament of will… I needed breaks. After putting out this Top 10, I need to finally do a few videos that I think will really help the channel like the Perfect Dark Top 10s, Zelda, and a couple other challenges I’ve been thinking about for a while. Also, with you mentioning Zero… I did think about reworking these lists to exclusively do the countdown with Zero, I think that would be very interesting. Great to hear from you! See you soon, appreciate your support

[@dogeyes9038]

@@MarMaxGaming Many parts of X5 and X6 are absolutely unforgiving to an unarmored X. You definitely deserve props for sticking it out and getting them done. The water level in X5 is certainly a huge test of patience. Unarmored buster only X struggles quite a bit there, and failure sends you back so far. Though even that feels pedestrian compared to what you are asked to deal with in Blaze Heatnix's level. That's likely the single most poorly thought out level in X6. Unarmored X is so obviously not equipped to deal with the scenarios that level throws at you that it makes one wonder why they even let you pick him in the first place. His Z-saber is able to deal damage a little more quickly to those green weak points, but it still doesn't change how nonsensical the challenge is. It all culminates in the spectacular catastrophe that is the penultimate encounter with that mid boss; a vertical autoscroller with half the screen covered in instant kill lava where the boss moves in an unpredictable manner which often means you aren't in position to damage the weak points at all. Oh, and there are Nightmare enemies too. It goes beyond mere absurdity and lands straight into insanity. It took me several hours to pull off the first time I got through it too. What's funny is that both of these levels are completely trivialized by Zero with his base moveset. That goes to show how off the wall the balancing is in X5 and X6 compared to X4. I would definitely be down for another list focusing on Zero, if you were thinking about making one. It would be really interesting since Zero's playstyle has a great contrast to X's. Speaking of X4, it really is one of the most polished games in the series, and I would place it as my second favorite right behind X2. I'd recommend playing the Japanese version of it if you can. It has much better voice acting and some songs that were removed from the localization, much like Mega Man 8. You also raise a good point about the mugshots. I hadn't thought about that before, but I agree with you. They look a lot more interesting in X4 than they do in X5/X6. It does feel a bit lazy to reuse the artwork rather than drawing out the sprites. It is the worst in X5 since you just see them all looking straight on without anything dynamic going on. Very little to communicate what kind of enemy they are. I just remembered Ground Scaravich's level. That actually might be the absolute hardest of the main 8 stages in X6 as far as playing as unarmored buster only X. That level best demonstrates the difference between Normal and Xtreme difficulty. It's also impossible to beat half of the time because it has a chance to generate a room that unarmored X isn't capable of platforming across. It's not pleasant. I guess I'm in a masochistic mood now since I feel compelled to give X6 a go again under these same restrictions. Beating that game as unarmored X with no upgrades on Xtreme is kind of my white whale. I still haven't done it after getting stopped in my tracks by the Nightmare Mother, who I believe is the hardest boss in Mega Man history. Definitely excited to see what you've got in store for the channel this year. I really do need to finally play Perfect Dark if you end up covering that. Also looking forward to Zelda for sure, as well as any other challenges you have in mind. It's all going to be awesome!

[@MarMaxGaming]

@@dogeyes9038 hahah it’s your white whale, that’s hilarious. What an insane test though, I’ve heard how absurdly hard that boss is! It sounds like we straight up had the same experience with Flame Heatnix’s stage, it took me a long time and I needed breaks. The worst of all is that I had survived to the top a few times just for a weak point to be remaining on its bottom left that I couldn’t reach… then the thing just comes up into you while you can’t really jump over to the left wall. I think this guy deserves his own video, or maybe sharing one with that submarine. Ground Scaravich’s stage was a roadblock for me for a bit because of what you said, the damn impossible jump. So I was like, alright, I’ll come back to this as my last one and watch a guide if I have to.. I think, unless I got lucky, it depends where you enter the portal and what room it generates because I did what the video did and ended up in a different room than before which was a massive relief. Then GS wasn’t very hard at all, which made me have to adjust this entire list and re-record what number each of these guys were from #21 onward lol. I hoped and assumed he might be in the top 10 for ease of production but no, he wasn’t worthy of going up there haha. Btw buddy, it’s always nice to talk to you, do you have a social media yet? I sometimes chat with my top couple fans, I think I’m overdue on talking to you for real! Could we exchange numbers over email or something? I’ll be working on the top 10 quite a bit today, it should be out in the next couple days for sure!

[@dogeyes9038]

@@MarMaxGaming Just put together an instagram account. Never actually used it before, but I really should have done it a long time ago. I apologize in advance if it ends up being a little difficult to talk. My sleeping schedule is kind of crazy at the moment, and I also have to deal with relocating this month. Definitely going to try and get some chatting in though, for sure! Our experiences in that stage are pretty much one to one. I haven't even played X6 in at least a year, yet I still know exactly which weak point and part of the room you are talking about. I had the same amount of trouble there to the degree of it becoming ingrained into my subconscious. I don't think it's possible for X to kill that boss before it reaches the top of the room without using special weapons/giga attacks, meaning that whole awkward scenario is unavoidable. Blaze Heatnix and Tidal Whale both absolutely could have a video dedicated to them since there is so much you have to go through just to get either of them done in this challenge. The silver lining with these PS1 X games is that game overs no longer kick you out of the level. Kind of makes lives pointless, but it is a much needed mercy in X6 especially. Nice going getting through Ground Scaravich too. I didn't know about being able to influence which room you end up in based on where you enter the portal. I've always assumed it to be purely random, but if you could control it then that would make things a lot less stressful. GS really is a total pushover compared to his monstrous stage, though I'm honestly grateful for that. I'm sorry that he forced you to readjust the list though, haha.

[@MarMaxGaming]

@@dogeyes9038 I look forward to it, bro! Totally understand. And you’ll be proud to know, while I did use the saber, I did actually kill the thing a couple screens before reaching the top! I slashed and shot the shit out of the left ones every single chance I got, and same goes for the right ones when the left ones weren’t an option. You are so right, I thought about how horrendously cruel it would be for the later games sending you back to the stage select. This would’ve taken a lot longer, and that’s assuming I didn’t give up… at least they knew their stages were long and hard as hell, mercy is the right word for it! Lol it’s okay, just funny how it played out. I hope to upload the top 10 in the next few days! I’ll shoot you a message my dude!

[@duncanmccabe4924]

The title screen for x4 looks so good 😍

[@FlopShotsForDays]

The original Mega Man for Gameboy was one of the toughest games for me.. One of the best game soundtracks 👌🏻 Great video man!

[@MarMaxGaming]

That is legitimately a tough game! We covered it in a 5 minute Footlong video, but yeah it wasn’t easy at all. Appreciate you bro, thanks for watching!

[@CleanFabCollective]

Something to watch after work 💯🫡

[@MarMaxGaming]

Appreciate it, bro! Hope you enjoy winding down with it 🙏

[@megamob5834]

This is awesome man. Admittedly I haven’t spent much time with X5 or X6, as they aren’t really my favorite, so it’s cool to learn more about the boss patterns from those games. I just plowed through them as best I could following the weakness chains. X4 on the other hand is one of my absolute favorites! Curious to know your thoughts on the three games in general. Aside from the maverick fights, there are so many aspects to the mega man x games that can add or detract from their overall quality. Anyway, awesome job as always, can’t wait to see the top 10!

[@MarMaxGaming]

Thanks, MegaMob! Hope you’ve been well. I’m honestly not too familiar with them either, I just got the urge to finally do this challenge with X4, X5, and X6. Some of the stages in X5 and especially X6 are outrageously hard, some mid level bosses are harder than the mavericks. Flame Heatnix’s constant mid level boss is annoying enough, but the rising acid part without any armor was SO hard. It took hours between a couple sessions. Tidal Whale’s submarine with the 4 rockets was also insanely hard. Their life bars are so gigantic and they’re a couple of the hardest gaming challenges I’ve ever faced. I honestly started to get discouraged with some of the levels. I like the presentation more with X4, really neat touches. Things turned into anime and not as detailed with X5 & X6… the power levels are pretty weird and different, but overall the challenges were very engaging to say the least… plus the music is really solid for all of them, still have some tracks in my head. Looking forward to getting the Top 10 out there!

[@cparle87]

12 and 11 seemed to start ramping up the difficulty.

[@moviemetalhead]

This was all cool to find out since I never tried any of the X games past X3. And from the looks of things this list seems pretty legit. Awesome vid, bro. 🤘🏻🤘🏻🎮🔥

[@MarMaxGaming]

I’m honestly so excited to see that you’re watching these, bro! Thank you so much, I can’t wait for you to see the top 10 because dear GOD some of that footage is absolutely ridiculous 🤣 I wasn’t expecting to literally encounter the hardest crap I’ve ever done in my life, like omg

[@moviemetalhead]

@@MarMaxGaming wait til you play Dark Souls, my friend. An awesome challenge, but the game makes you want to keep going no matter how many times you've died.

[@MarMaxGaming]

@@moviemetalhead this will shock you and it’s been a long time, but I actually played through Dark Souls four times on the switch! I’ve considered covering it on the channel, just didn’t know if it would end up being super worthwhile or not…

[@moviemetalhead]

@@MarMaxGaming Dude! Dark Souls material is fire still to this day as far as views. I want to hear about YOUR Dark Souls journey. It's my favorite game of Gen 7, along side Red Dead Redemption. What was your first build? What boss was the bane of your existence the first time through?

[@MarMaxGaming]

Dark Souls is interesting because I really feel like it’s somewhat of a downhill game in many ways, like it feels really hard to do anything when your survivability is basically zero. I had some unorthodox things work out in my favor - like the first black knight that you see, for example, after getting slaughtered I ran from him… and went up that little spiral tower, then managed to run back past him, and somehow because of the step, he was too tall to come out. So I slowly widdled down his health, swiping and then backing up. And of all things, I got his sword to drop which is less than 1/5 change I guess…. But my arms weren’t enough to wield it. My main grind spot ended up being where you can take down that elevator to the 3 or 4 blue dragons that shoot electricity and bite like hell. I decided, alright, this will be worth it in the end bc I hate feeling so vulnerable. My build, I was just a standard dude that ended up finding that super heavy armor through that fake wall up in the really fancy elaborate part of the game, while wielding the heavy ass 2 handed weapon that looks like a big silver bulge. I’ve learned about how magic spells can totally break that game and kill everything, and I’ve watched the world records of people somehow running through them without ever getting hit.. it’s mind blowing. I don’t remember getting stuck on one guy for a particularly super, super long time.. of course I died like anybody else, and had just a couple that really sucked because of the souls lost but I was pretty conservative and safe with how often I went back to the bonfire and used those souls. Maybe I do need to cover it and give it an angle like, retro gamer plays dark souls… lol how about you?

[@SarahsKnight0]

12:20 - I don't know why; I just always thought Metal Shark Player was the most badass name of all the Maverick bosses. Magma Dragoon, of course, being the coolest boss overall.

[@ModelJames13]

Wow would not have expected Burn T-Rex so low. But I think I know who is going to be #1. 😎

[@RaleighRetroGamers]

The sound of him exploding still haunts us. 😂

[@MarMaxGaming]

Haha of mega man? Yeah, that’ll happen!

[@Enan63.]

Mega Man X1, X2, X3, X4 & 50% X5 are 2D Platformer Mega Man X/Mega Man perfection!!!!!

[@MarMaxGaming]

Haha X6 is where they make it clear how serious they were about making very tough stages

[@ryecallan6095]

Props to you for referring to the X5 Mavericks by their original names rather than the Guns N' Roses names. No offense to anyone who likes the GnR names, but I don't like them at all (although, I will admit Duff McWhalen is a funny name).

[@MarMaxGaming]

Haha of all the names I really wanted to say, it was Duff McWhalen! 😅 I had no idea what I was getting myself into with these names, I was like hmm these are weird… then I see all their much more normal original names online. It’s some odd trivia! Appreciate you watching and commenting

[@ryecallan6095]

@@MarMaxGaming They got changed in Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2. I would assume it was due to royalties between Guns N' Roses and Capcom. I don't know if that's true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. In addition, regarding Dark Necrobat, he also has an attack where he swoops down at the player and grabs them to bite and drain their health while regaining his own, similar to Shade Man from Mega Man 7. Unlike Shade Man, however, he uses it very rarely.

[@MarMaxGaming]

@@ryecallan6095 very interesting!! That’s good to know, it’s weird to think you can beat a maverick without seeing some of their attacks. Dark Necrobat is in part 1, I got through him on the first fight. It’s all his fault! Lol