Proto:Mega Man X6

This page details one or more prototype versions of Mega Man X6.

This prototype of Rockman X6, dated Sept. 28, 2001, was circulated around the internet in 2010. It is mostly complete, but the developers made plenty of significant changes before the final release. If you've played it, you'd know they probably should have kept going.

To do: There are probably more X5 leftovers, document them. Graphics for ending and credit are present in the game data.

General Gameplay Changes

• The duration of the dash maneuver is longer than in the final.
• While wearing the Falcon armor, the regular air dash (X, O) is the same as the 'double jump' air dash (X, X).
• On character selection, the cursor always defaults to X regardless of which characters/armors are available; in the final, the default is Falcon armor.
• Dr. Light's capsules were not yet implemented in the proto.

Proto	Final

• No Heart Tanks, Weapon Tanks or Energy Tanks were implemented yet.
• The cheats for unlocking X and Zero's ultimate armors were not implemented yet.
• The game hangs permanently when trying to load Gate's Lab, making playing past the first 8 stages (+ intro stage) impossible without hacking.
• Also when the Gate's Lab is available and the player didn't beat Nightmare Zero or High Max, they can still be fought, unlike the final.
  • This will also make LV.4 version of Zero Nightmare and High Max available.
  • The AI pattern of LV.4 Zero Nightmare is mostly complete, he has no noticeable difference from previous levels, except one thing when he is performing Genmurei Kai: He will shoot 4 Genmurei Kai slashes toward X; after 3 slashes, he will pause a moment and quickly launch the 4th slash, and the rest of patterns are very much like the normally inaccessible one in the final version.
    • The LV.4 version of Nightmare Zero is later used in X challenge mode in Mega Man X Legacy Collection.

• High Max is immune to all of Zero's special attacks in the proto, and his movement pattern is slower.
  • When the game is about to load High Max's dialogue to X/Zero, it tries to load Alia's message to X/Zero at the start of an alternate area instead.
  • LV.4 High Max has no noticeable difference from previous levels, except his HP gauge length will change after the player's first defeat to match the final value (probably a glitch).

Prototype	Final version (Japanese)	Final version (English)

Before Player's defeat, Prototype	After Player's defeat, Prototype	Final version

• Normally, the only possible method to hurt High Max (as X) is: Shoot a Charged Shot at his body, then use a Maverick boss weapon (Yammark Option, etc.) at him. But the situation is a little bit different in the prototype: here, your X-Saber and Giga Attack can also hurt him. It comes with a theory: At one point of game development, you can actually unlock Gate's Secret Lab without beating a Maverick boss, and even without the help of almighty Ultimate Armor as X. (Note that the multiple-hit counts generated by Falcon Armor's Giga Attack would later be used by Ultimate Armor's Nova Strike in the final version.)

	Prototype	Final
X-Saber
Falcon Armor Giga Attack

• After High Max's defeat, Signas' head shot is glitched (or not being implemented properly).

Prototype	Final version (Japanese)	Final version (English)

• Dynamo doesn't appear in the proto at all. If you enter his boss chamber, his music plays and you hear a few sound effects, but no boss. Since you can't escape or die your only option is to restart the game.

Proto	Final

• The cutscene after X (or Zero) obtaining a huge amount of Nightmare Souls exists in the prototype version, but it's triggered after obtaining 5000 Nightmare Souls instead of the final version's 3000.
  • It introduced another theory: The "normal method" to unlock Black Zero by beating LV4 Zero Nightmare is originally meant to be available in the final version, but the final version had an oversight that was not caught by the developers, even in the last few moments before release; probably they thought collecting 5000 souls will be too long, and made a "quick fix" of this mess.
    • Despite the still-available method to meet Level 4 Zero Nightmare, Black Zero is not normally available in the prototype anyways.

• Dropped items are extremely rare, and it's more difficult to gather health refill items from specific enemies.

• Items do not show up properly in the inventory once found.

• Alia's ! message symbol appears on the lower left corner of the screen; in the final, it's on the lower right. The button to answer it is mapped to L2 instead of the final's Select button.

• The flies produced by Yammark's nightmare have less health, but accumulate in greater numbers. Hitting them doesn't produce the metallic ching sound/visual effects, they just fly away.

• The steel blocks from Metal Shark Player's nightmare are destroy-able by the X-Saber, and not affected by the charged Metal Anchor at all.

• Douglas and Signas's names in dialog are colored green in the proto, instead of the final's yellow and dark blue respectively.

• Nightmare Dark and Nightmare Rain effect not being implemented properly in Commander Yammark's stage - Alternate path.

• Nightmare Fire effect not being implemented properly, means you can't enter the alternate path of Blizzard Wolfang's stage at all.

• The hologram of X/Zero generated by Nightmare Mirror effect can be slashed by Zero's Z-Saber.

• The rank system is glitched and the player's rank/boss level can't match the amount of X/Zero's current obtained Nightmare Souls (Final version's value) properly. Fortunately, it is fixed after certain events (The Alia's scene mentioned above, etc.).

• Though Blade Armor, Shadow Armor, Black Zero, Ultimate Armor are disabled by default, they are already more or less functional and has several differences over final release. They can only be activated by using character modifier GameShark codes at the stage select screen.

Blade Armor - GameShark code 800CFE26 0003

• • Blade Armor is missing several sound effects of air dashing. No Giga Attack available.
  • Charge Shot uses normal X's Buster as placeholder.

Shadow Armor - GameShark code 800CFE26 0002

• • Shadow Armor has some work-in-progress outline across its body. Sound effects for charge shot/ceiling shot is missing. Special background effect of its Giga Attack is missing.

Ultimate Armor - GameShark code 800CFE26 0004

• • Ultimate Armor is the most functional among all, and still retains its blue color palette as in X5. Sound effect for Nova Strike is missing.

Black Zero - Use GameShark code 800CFE27 0030 before stage select screen loads, and choose "ゼロ" (Zero) at character select screen.

• • Black Zero is missing the built-in Z-Saber Plus attribute as it seems to be not implemented in this build.

Weapons Changes

X

Proto	Final

The Falcon Armor's Giga Attack is missing both its sound effect and its animated background at this point.

As a consequence, some background objects in Metal Shark Player's stage can be seen when using it. This may occur in other stages as well. The final version's animated background makes this irrelevant.

Proto	Final

Yammark Option has Ice Burst's palette and Metal Anchor's icon. The charged version fires at half the rate as it does in the final.

Proto	Final

Ice Burst has Guard Shell's palette and icon.

Proto	Final

Magma Blade has Meteor Rain's palette.

Proto	Final

The sprite used for its fully charged version has a different (uglier) animation.

Proto	Final

They almost got Metal Anchor right except for the icon.

Proto	Final

Ground Dash has Yammark Option's palette and Arrow Ray's icon.

Proto	Final

Meteor Rain has Magma Blade's palette.

Proto	Final

Guard Shell has Ground Dash's palette and Yammark Option's icon. The charged attack is completely different also:

Proto	Final

See that black spot? Instead of the final version's screen-border shell cannons, the proto has a discolored shield sprite which bounces around the screen like a ping pong ball. Sometimes it gets caught on the top of the screen and jiggles rapidly without ricocheting. The projectile's behavior is highly reminiscent of the Bubble (flying skull enemy) from Zelda II.

The palette corrects itself when you do an air dash.

Proto	Final

Arrow Ray has Ground Dash's icon. The attack itself however is completely different: It is a graphically corrupted and silent version of Wing Spiral, a leftover weapon from Mega Man X5.

Here's what its charged version looks like.

Note all incorrect prototype X colors match their incorrect variations shown on the Rockman X6 Japanese PlayStation manual.

Zero

Proto	Final

Zero's arsenal was similarly affected with misused icons for certain weapons. Aside from all palettes being messed up, both Shoenzan and Rekkoha's names are displayed as ????????, and the button combinations for their activation are not present on the row of text.

Proto	Final

The Z-Saber retains its green palette when using Shoenzan in the proto.

Proto	Final

The background for his Rekkoha attack is blue lightning instead of red vertical lines. The right hand side of the screen is covered by a graphical glitch.

General Graphical Changes

Boss Portraits

All of the boss portraits seen after selecting their stages are in a preliminary stage, some of them still sketches.

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Others

Proto	Final

Stage images were not yet drawn, instead displaying their Japanese names. Killing a boss does not change its portrait to grayscale, and the stages affected by the nightmare system do not turn red. Gate's headshot is missing entirely.

To do: Images.

Proto	Final

Proto	Final

Both the inventory and rescued reploids screens are incomplete sketches in the proto. Despite the unfinished look, the whole part system does work. (Sans for the not-working Z-Saber Plus part).

Note the Armor sketches are drawn to the place of all 4 possible X Armor variants, with a different pre-design sketch of what appears to be Shadow Armor.

Proto	Final

High Max is a slightly lighter hue in the proto. Also, note the health bar's skull icon instead of the purple diamond used in the final.

Proto	Final

The bricks left by Ground Scaravich's nightmare are pretty basic in the proto, so much that you might not realize their presence is unnatural. Despite their appearance, they will function normally without issues.

Proto	Final

The portals that take you to each stages' alternate paths have two additional animation frames which were removed in the final. Also, they're green. This does not apply to the portal in Metal Shark Player's stage, which is still blue (but with the two extra frames).

Proto	Final

Nightmare Zero retains his regular colors in the prototype. Considering his face portrait and sprite in the intro stage had the correct palette, this was probably an error.

Prototype-Only Graphical Glitches

• 

  Loading

• 

  Data Menu

• 

  Options

• 

  Game Over

• 

  Nightmare Zero's Shin Messenkou lowers the camera until you can see behind the stage graphics.

Stage-Specific Changes

Opening Stage

Proto	Final

This Junkroid enemy was moved back a bit to be less annoying.

Proto	Final

They removed one Meta Wheel F in the final. However, it is still present on Xtreme difficulty. Several enemy placement changes between proto and final are also differences between the final version's normal and Xtreme difficulties.

• When the game loads the last line of wounded hunters, the hunter's name is blue (the same as X) in prototype and green (the same as the previous hunter) in the final version.
  • It introduced yet another theory: At one point of game development, it's possible that the dialogue of two hunters are divided and that each hunter has their own specific lines.

Prototype	Final version (Japanese)	Final version (English)

• The flashing of D-1000's body when it was stunned refreshes quickly, instead of the final's Mega Man X5-style.

• The sound effect when Nightmare Zero finishes D-1000 is absent.

• The demonstration seen by leaving the game idle on the title screen shows X shooting and slashing into nothing and generally acting like a moron. He never gets over that pillar to the right before it goes back to the title.

Commander Yammark

Proto	Final

The projectile dust from the Killer Moths was changed from yellow to an ugly purple, probably so you wouldn't think it was harmless.

Proto	Final

A Nightmare Virus was added to the same room as these helpless reploids in the cave portion of the stage.

Yammark's stage also seems to be a testing ground for a less nasty behavior pattern for the Nightmare Viruses themselves. Normally, they will always charge straight toward a helpless reploid if one exists, but in the proto they're programmed to ignore reploids in this stage. They also have a habit of flying into you and killing you through violation of personal space, but in the final they courteously stop a few inches away, allowing you to kill them.

• The sound effect heard when Yammark fires his weapon is different.

• X-Saber can stun Commander Yammark like how he was stunned by Ray Arrow in the final.

Blizzard Wolfang

Proto	Final

A single Wolfloid was removed from over this ladder, probably because its presence makes it difficult to escape if you climbed down while it was still alive. It retains its position over the ladder in the final's Xtreme difficulty, however.

Proto	Final

The avalanches in the second part of the stage were changed from the regular 'wall of ice' variety to single bouncing ice blobs. The avalanche sound effect was also changed to something a bit less crude.

Proto	Final

In the proto, the first falling ice block section doesn't include Wolfloids. Getting hit on the head by an ice block does negligible damage as well. In the final, they kill you in two hits. Getting frozen is instant-kill in both versions.

Rainy Turtloid

Proto	Final

Another enemy was added, guarding the weather machine at the end of the stage's second acid rain section. This enemy is also present in the final's Xtreme difficulty.

Proto	Final

The prototype has a single-use health recharger sitting around in the third acid rain segment. The final replaces it with a bunch of small and large energy capsules.

Rainy Turtloid isn't weak to Wolfang's weapon. Instead, he is frozen by the ordinary X-Saber. This is probably a bug.

• Charged Yammark Option deals a huge amount of damage toward Rainy Turtloid at several specific timings, and is super effective toward him (probably a bug).
• The Sea Attacker ST enemies move slower in the proto.

• You can't enter this stage's alternate path.

Blaze Heatnix

Proto	Final

The green lights on the Nightmare Snake miniboss were made to look glassier. It was also given the ability to shoot tiny homing shots.

Proto	Final

The magma was changed from orange to an ugly purple. The magma in the background of the stage is purple in both versions, so this may have been done for consistency.

Proto	Final

The boss's weakness has been changed from Yammark Option to Ground Dash.

Metal Shark Player

Proto	Final

This Junkroid was moved to the far end of the nook, making it less likely that you'd die from hitting your head on the ceiling.

Proto	Final

A single Nightmare Virus was removed from the long compactor leading to the alternate exit. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but its presence makes it almost impossible to get through (Thankfully, equipping enhance parts as Zero and use Ensuizan invincibility at the start of this stage helps). Unfortunately, it is still present in the final version's Xtreme difficulty.

This misplaced tile appears in the second part of the stage with the conveyor belt.

• Likely due to a sound effect priority glitch, the trash compactor in the second part of the stage is silent.
• The music stops after destroying Nightmare Pressure (the miniboss fought before confronting Metal Shark Player).

• Yammark Option can stun Metal Shark Player like he was stunned by Meteor Rain in the final.

Ground Scaravich

Proto	Final

The blue color and transparency effects on Scaravich's totems weren't implemented yet.

Proto	Final

The location of the portal was moved to another part of the same room.

Part of the animated terrain has a glitch where it flashes black occasionally.

• There are significantly more Nightmare Viruses present in the proto.

Shield Sheldon

Proto	Final

This background object is slightly glitched.

Infinity Mijinion

Proto	Final

At the beginning of the stage, you are contacted by Infinity Mijinion in the proto. This is the same message he has for you when meeting him in his boss chamber. In the final, you get a message from Alia instead.

Proto	Final

Illumina has electric wires in the proto which it didn't get to keep for the final. Its weakness was changed from Yammark Option in the proto to Meteor Rain in the final.

After depleting its health bar for the first time in the final, a continuous electrical buzz sound effect is heard. In the proto, this sound effect is only played once.

• There are significantly more Nightmare Viruses present in the proto.

• Yammark Option can stun Infinity Mijinion like he was stunned by the projectiles generated from Guard Shield in the final.

Inaccessible Stages

There are a number of stages not finished but still present within the data. Using a GameShark code, you can access a few of them without crashing. The GameShark code 800CFDD4 0XXX where XXX is the stage you wish to access. This code must be used at the Stage Select. The GameShark code 800CFDE5 00XX is a stage checkpoint modifier which can bring you to different checkpoints, but the player should activate this code along with the stage modifier mentioned above, then deactivate checkpoint modifier code before "Ready" text appear; otherwise the transport light won't appear.

• 000 - Intro Stage

• 001 - Commander Yammark

• 002 - Blizzard Wolfang

• 003 - Blaze Heatnix

• 004 - Metal Shark Player

• 005 - Ground Scaravich

• 006 - Rainy Turtloid

• 007 - Shield Sheldon

• 008 - Infinity Mijinion

• 00C + Sigma Stage (Boss Rush)

No Teleporters to fight the bosses exist. Camera scrolling is broken. Falling through early gaps will take you to the stage boundary before dying.

• • This stage does have corresponding checkpoints for each boss rematch but none of the bosses are implemented.
• 011 + Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 1

Featured standard enemy setting, with more units of Giga Death than the final version.

Final battle with High Max is intact, but dialogue box is broken - for this instance the blue dialogue box base is at the top of screen instead of bottom, a Mega Man X5 leftover not cleaned up. For Shadow Armor the broken dialogue box may get stuck for a long time before the text box shows broken text chunk.

• High Max's attack speed is the slower one seen at the intro stage/alternate area in the prototype with the final moveset, and featured the same attributes as alternate area High Max (Zero can't hurt him).
• The statue in the background for Final High Max battle is missing (not implemented?).

• 012 + Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 2

Enemies are the same as in the final - Except one thing - You'll warp to the "Gate defeated" cutscene in the final after you enter the warp portal and ready to go to the phase which X and Zero have different stage variants. Gate's arena and the boss battle is already in the game data but can't be accessed without external checkpoint hacks.

• X specific stage route - Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 2, Checkpoint 01

• • End stage object and the machine produces Nightmare rain effect are missing.

• Zero specific stage route - Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 2, Checkpoint 02

• • End stage object is missing.

• The enemy farming spot before Gate's arena - Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 2, Checkpoint 03

• • This area uses the exact same enemy placement as in the final.

• Gate's arena - Gate's Lab Stage 2 Part 2, Checkpoint 04

Gate fight is largely the same, but has several differences over the final release.

• The dialogue box content reuses High-Max's instead of Gate's. Dark effect is not implemented. For Shadow Armor the dialogue box may break a few specific times but will eventually fix itself.

• Thankfully Gate has no invincibility against X/Zero's normal attacks like in the final; here he takes full (100%) damage from normal attacks with standard boss post-hit invincibility...

...Which may lead to a glitch involving one-hit defeat Gate by using Shadow Armor's charge shot (crescent slash) if X's charge shot landing position is pixel-perfect on multiple energy spheres and Gate himself at the exact same frame. They may have noticed this glitch at some point after this build and fixed it for the final - by adding full invincibility against X/Zero's normal attacks.

• • There's another design miss in this build which X/Zero may fall into the pit after landing a final blow on Gate at the top of pitfall. In final release X will remain floating at the same position in the air until Gate's explosion ends, and X/Zero will automatically land on nearby blocks to avoid drop-dead.

• The platform at the very left is not fully erased after the fight begins, but is corrected in the final release as they thought the boss fight would be too easy.

• • Gate's AI is somewhat different from final as he always chase X/Zero's X/Y position until he casts energy sphere/energy blade attacks.
  • The broken version of Wind Spiral/Ray Arrow, Nova Strike and Shadow Armor's Giga Attack are the most effective method against Gate.

• 013 - Commander Yammark (Alternate Area)

• 014 - Blaze Heatnix (Alternate Area)

• 015 - Ground Scaravich (Alternate Area)

• 016 - Shield Sheldon (Alternate Area)

• 113 - Blizzard Wolfang (Alternate Area)

The path leading to the Wolfroid possessing the High Jump part is blocked.

• 114 - Metal Shark Player (Alternate Area)

• 115 - Rainy Turtloid (Alternate Area)

The machine producing Nightmare rain phenomenon is not implemented - as a result the player can go directly to the shutter while ignoring all stage enemies.

• 116 - Infinity Mijinion (Alternate Area)

• 10C - Sigma's Stage (Sigma Battle)

Enemies are identical to the final.

• Sigma will not appear but his dialog box will. A strange square dot would appear on his portrait, hinting that at some point in game development, Sigma's portrait was also animated when the dialogue rolls, along with other characters'.

• 09 to 0B and 0D to 10 crash the game.
  • Gate's Stage 1 is not accessible. The game crashes trying to load it. Likely Stages 0D-10.
• Some stages do appear to load when using 2XX. Potentially bosses for the Boss Rush?

(Source: DarkSamus993 (Checkpoint Modifier))

Oddities

• Nightmare Souls have mass unlike the final. They can collide with terrain or certain objects and be pushed in various directions.
  • The easiest place to see this phenomenon is in Metal Shark Player's stage when the ceiling lowers.
• In Shield Sheldon's stage (the Laser Institute), all ledges have icy terrain causing the player to frequently slip off platforms.
  • They do not restrict wall jumping unlike normal icy terrain.
• Loading Zero into the intro stage will crash the game.

Sound Changes

Music

Two BGMs in the prototype are partially incomplete, missing a few instruments.

Rainy Turtloid Stage

• The music heard when Zero joins you is absent in the proto.
• All of the music tracks in the final are looped several more times than in the prototype, taking up much more disc space. There is also a common glitch in where after fading out, the background music skips to the next numbered stream in the game's data.

Sound Effects

The WARNING when confronting a boss is vocalized.

• There are no background sound effects in cutscenes (e.g. wind blowing).
• The swish heard when picking up a robot soul is silent.
• Alia's ! pager beep is absent.
• The ride armors (e.g. the one in Metal Shark Player's stage) do not produce sound effects.
• Bosses do have voices but they are used inconsistently. They remain silent if they are the first boss you killed.
• After killing a boss, you do not hear a sound effect when absorbing its soul.
• For Zero's special attacks, Hydroga and Shoenzan have Z-Saber swing sound as placeholders, sound effects for Sentsuizan, Rekkouha and Ensuizan are missing.
• Sound effects for Nightmare Zero are absent.