Insane Difficulty: My MMX Hardtype Blind Playthrough! - Insane Difficulty

So I downloaded this mod earlier today because I needed a break from 1.3 and I have to say I regret that I didn't pick this up much sooner! I haven't played MMX in a long while but it has a special place in my heart along with other SNES classics, so what better way to show that love than to die! A lot. And share these deaths with the world. So, that said, feel free to check out Part 1 where I go through the intro and defeat Storm Eagle.

My favorite part so far is definitely the increased focus on platforming this time around. You can see that I struggle a lot bit in this first part, but I didn't want to stop playing so I went ahead and tackled Chill Penguin too. It's not up yet, but I start to get it together a little more in that one. I'm dreading to see what the new Sigma stages look like, but if what I've seen so far is any indication, it should be pretty good! I like this hack a lot and can't wait to see MMX2/3 as well, especially considering I've never played the vanilla version of those. Maybe I'll wait for Hard Type and go in totally blind haha.

Yo dude, nice to see you trying out the hack. I love how it usually gets new playrs from time to time, it really feels good to see people get what I was after when I did it.

I'm in the process of starting a remake of this, so all of the feedback that I can get (mostly on design choices - I'm aware of most of the graphical quirks and whatnot, but those were 100% because of my limitations at the time with the tools).

I hope you enjoy it! Be sure to share that death counter with the rest!

Yeah, I can really appreciate all the things that this hack tries to address, even if it does take some getting used to. For example, from what I've played this game rewards you heavily for awareness of your surroundings, and charging forward blindly will get you punished if your reflexes aren't up to the task. I really like this change, even if I find myself on the receiving end of pain more often than not as a result. I think it's in part due to my impatience and in part due to the fact that I could get away with it in Vanilla since I knew the levels so well, so it wasn't really "blindly charging" per se. Like in Storm Eagle's stage, I make a "blind jump" during one of the platforming sections just out of muscle memory, even though it fortunately worked out.

I think I may have bitched about slowdown at one point (I certainly did in Chill Penguin, which I have video for now), although in hindsight it was always a part of the game and I take back anything I said about that. Even then I made sure to point out that it's a minor thing anyways. I can't believe I forgot about that part in Armored Armadillo's stage where the game slows to a crawl when you jump that chasm on the trolley. So that's my bad, it didn't really have anything to do with how the hack was made.

So far (still have to pick this back up so this list will probably change) for the good we have:
+Increased focus on platforming
+Dash boots acquired after intro, so you're no longer penalized for holding off on Chill Penguin
+Redesigned arenas for bosses that compliment their abilities, both strengthening strengths and covering weaknesses (seriously just watch me get wrecked by Chill Penguin's new arena haha)
+Special weapons that are useful (in base form) for clearing stages
+More powerful weapons use far more energy, instead of outright nerfing them (from what I can tell, I only have Tornado & Shotgun Ice haha)
+INFINITE LIVES make sure that you're never too far removed from the action. I racked up about 80 or so deaths in my first session alone, but infinite lives combined with the fast pace make it easy to jump right back in for another go. As a side effect, this totally removes incentive to save state, which is the mark of a good hack in this genre IMO.
+It's very hard to put down lol

The only really "negative" thing I'd have to say (and I say "negative" because it's fairly minor) is that I don't particularly like it when an enemy is hiding just off screen, particularly when you have to make a jump. And even then, it really depends on the situation. I'll use the Chill Penguin stage for my example since it's a little weird. I really don't like that section near the beginning where there's an axeman, followed by a pit, followed by another axeman. It's not all that offensive, true, but in that situation I feel like it's pointless. It doesn't feel like a good penalty for rushing, when with the pit right there I'm already being naturally cautious, and with the second axeman appearing offscreen like that, it can be difficult to tell when it's safe to progress, with the only real indication being an audio cue that can be easy to miss when you're dashing around, blasting those flying bomber robots, and even the logs themselves making a similar noise when destroyed. Now, thankfully this guy doesn't respawn, so this honestly does seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of things, and doesn't really hurt my enjoyment of this hack. Honestly, from what I've played so far this is really the only instance like this that feels kind of unnecessary, so you could take that as either a minor criticism or a compliment really.

On the other hand, I did like figuring out those damned bats in the initial cave section, so I don't think the "off screen enemy" idea is necessarily a bad one. I think the difference for me is that this felt more like a puzzle in a way: how do I eliminate this enemy I can't yet see in order to safely make this jump? I feel that moments like that can be very interesting when done well, as long as they're used sparingly. And so far, I don't feel like I've seen the same trick twice, if that makes sense.

Overall, really liking this hack so far and I'll be sure to give more feedback as I progress. Keep it up, man!

EDIT: Okay, so I've beaten all the Mavericks at this point, so first I'll list the positive points as I see them.

+Boomer Kuwanger and Launch Octopus's levels. All of it.
+Patience is rewarded above blind rushing
+The special weapons actually feel somewhat balanced
+I like that the powerups are relocated, but still in somewhat familiar locations. Spark Mandrill's E-Tank was an interesting one for sure.

I'm neutral on a few level design choices, but maybe I just suck. I'm unsure how you'd get past 'that jump' in Flame Mammoth without taking a hit. I will say that part of what makes Mega Man so cool is the fact that you can do any stage in any order, so I'm hoping that I'm just not thinking of something. Moving the dash boots to the after the intro tells me that you thought of this, but I'm not seeing this jump unless as I say, I'm missing something.

Another weird one was the second trolley section in Armored Armadillo. It seemed like the only way to get by was to intentionally take a hit from one of the Miner bots so that X wouldn't slam his head into the overpass right before the jump. I think you were probably intended to dash under in order to lower your height, right? Thing is, by virtue of the sheer amount of stuff you're either going to a) clear the enemies and get hit by the overpass, forcing you to backtrack to the trolley and try again or b) get hit while trying to dash and bypass the whole section anyways. I'd suggest removing the last two or so Miner bots so that you can't cheese that section. It's not a bad idea at all, if I've got it right, but you'd probably be better off toning down the number of enemies so that you can't just ignore the whole challenge.

Now for the one glaring negative that I have with this hack so far. The Launch Octopus boss fight is terrible. Oh, not his patterns or the arena or anything like that. Actually, I really like the increased speed, learning to manipulate his homing torpedoes, baiting his attacks to certain directions in order to best avoid them, and picking my shots carefully since the regular torpedoes need a fully charged shot to pass through. All of that is awesome. The arena too. The huge issue here is that the game can't keep up at all, and it pisses me off and it's not fun because of it. It's not fun to dash into a pit of spikes because the framerate keeps changing mid fight. It's not fun to get what feels like dropped inputs when the game decides now it wants to go 80% speed when a second ago it was running 100%. And almost everything he does causes this slowdown too. If you fire a fully charged buster shot while he's firing his missiles, one of the only reliable ways to break through might I add, slowdown. If he uses his tornado attack - slowdown. If he fires too many missiles and jumps at the same time - slowdown. And you can't predict it either. It's just not fun because he breaks your inputs, and it really sucks because I can tell a lot of thought went into this one, and it should be one of my favorite fights all things considered, but it's not because the truth is the game just can't handle this fight the way it's envisioned.

He is the Maverick I died the most to - by far- but I kid you not about 25 or so deaths were caused by Mega Man dashing into a pit of spikes because the jump input got dropped (it's probably more accurate to say the game registered it as 'too soon' because I timed it as if the game were running at 100% when it was really going 85% at the moment or whatever). Another one that got me way too much was getting stuck in the tornado because - again - I couldn't time the dash jump at 90% game speed or whatever. And it's so erratic that even if I could time it, there's no way to know if that timing will be the same the next time the game decides to slowdown, much less predict when it will happen. Another weird one that aggravated me to no end was that for whatever reason about two times I got stuck in his tornado attack and couldn't break free. I have no idea why this happened, and I'm pretty sure it's not intentional but it was frustrating for sure.

Now, I know this is not intentional, and I would prefer to suggest a change of some kind but I really do see what you were going for and all. But damn dude, I can't have fun with it when I'm basically at the will of the game on whether or not I succeed, which is a shame because this is the one and only time in this hack I have ever felt like a death wasn't my own fault. If X2 and X3 are free from this kind of slowdown (never played 'em) I say go wild with this kind of thing, but playing it here is just painful man.

This post has been edited by Razz: 15 October 2016 - 04:07 AM

Agreed. The arena changes are really nice and compliment the boss patterns that are there. I can't believe how such little changes make a bland boring boss become hell.

Also, the random increases in skill I had randomly while playing were jarring. I didn't even realize you could dash shoot backwards and turn around and dash. It's not needed, but man... It's pretty cool.

Also, mine isn't going to be truly blind because I lost the original footage!

...Oh, you're Delzer. I didn't realize. I've been watching this LP a few days ago!

Before I say anything, there's something really important to note here. There's a bug, inherent in X1 with dashing. Whenever you're 7 pixels or so (iirc) to the wall and you try to press direction + dash, the dash input gets dropped, everytime. Think back to your Eagle stage, at the very beginning, how you thought you were "rusty" with dashing? It was actually that bug, you were pressing the wall there. The solution is to press only dash. Same deal with the platforms in Sigma 1, which for some reason work the same way - press direction + dash, and the dash input gets dropped.

Now for the specifics regarding your post...

About the enemies beyong the camera, I agree mostly. There has to be information of some sort that an enemy is located beyond there, and if there isn't, there has to be a minimum time to react properly. It's one of the criticism I myself make of HT, which I'll definitely have in mind while designing the new Hard Types.

About Flame Mammoth. "That Jump" doesn't require upgrades as you suggested in the video. Yo just jump on the press when it falls, and when it goes back up, you jump out of it with that extra height needed. Yes, all of the stages can be done in any order, and without the need of any tools outside of the buster and dashing. There's even speedruns of low% + buster only (don't ask, just google it - it's nuts).

About Armored Armadillo. There's two ways to pass that section you refer, both very similar: making your hitbox smaller by dashing as you suggested, or simply standing on the right side of the trolley. The number of enemies is intentional to make a diversion, however what I couldn't change at the time that I will definitely do in the new designs is how much it punishes you to miss the ride with the trolley: In that specific section, what you note is pretty noticeable because were you to not pass that section, you'd have to go back the whole section, which is a bit tedious.

About Launch Octopus. I can't really do anything about it, unfortunately. You will actually have the same issues with vanilla. I wish there was something I could do, it's just inherent with X1. It gets a little bit better with X2 and X3, because Capcom put their shit together and learned along the way to optimize their own engine. However, I have a slight suspicion that your PC might have something to do with it. By checking your 1.3 vids, it's low-end like mine, which might have something to do with it. Dropped inputs have a lot to do with the controller you use as well. And, well, ZSNES - enough said there.

I highly, highly recommend X2 and X3 btw. X1 is great because of nostalgia and the almightymusic, but X2 and X3 have more interactive, and also challenging design, which makes them a lot more fun to play. And X2's weapons, mavericks, stages are all awesome. That's why so many people are looking forward to X2 Hard Type.

In general, a lot of things you mention about the design are because I was young in terms of designing. I highly recommend you try the early alpha of X2 Hard Type to see how my philosophy in terms of design changed for the better (in other words the stages still suck, but a little bit less).

Thanks for the kind words in your LP, the commentary was all sorts of fun. It's a shame the footage of the other 4 stages was lost.

Augustein: Yeah, that's one thing that's definitely amazing about this hack. If you're not that great at this game, you will be by the end of it damn it haha that or you won't make it very far. It does a good job of keeping the spirit of the original X alive, where it teaches you a lot of the things you need to know via gameplay rather than exposition. It's pretty cool, and I like it.

Hart-Hunt: I honestly had no idea that such a bug existed! That explains a lot though, I always remember being able to dash-jump-shoot so easily in the likes of X4 and so on, so the fact that it's bugged in this game makes a lot of sense really.

For the camera thing, again, it wasn't too bad overall honestly. There were a few times like I mentioned, but I feel that towards the end (I.E Sigma stages) the penalty for enemies placed in a similar fashion wasn't there because you DID often have that time to react, so long as you weren't blindly rushing. I can definitely feel the improvement in that area as the game went on.

I was actually able to figure out the Flame Mammoth puzzle when I went back to replay it, I feel kind of silly for not realizing the intent there to be honest haha. That's a nice little trick, it really makes you think about the environment when progressing which is pretty cool. The same can be said of the trolley ride at Armored Armadillo's stage. Speaking of which, the idea to not make the player replay the entire stage should they fail at that point is a good one. I'm not too familiar with hacking this game, so I can't say how hard that would be to implement, but if it's something that you're looking at then I say go for it. The section isn't that bad to begin with though, once you know what to do of course. I think I only died once on this stage replaying it, because I got greedy for energy at one point.

For Launch Octopus I'll say that I hope I wasn't coming across as overly critical, but I do think that it feels the most unfair out of any of the fights. If it's an engine issue then I agree there's really not much that can be done because I can still sort of feel the intent there as far as how the fight is meant to play out. That said, I didn't have these issues nearly as much on the rematch which makes me think that my computer may very well have made things much worse than they were intended to be. Either way, it can be worked around by sheer brute force or gathering powerups to compensate, so it's not a deal breaker for me by any means.

As for X2, truthfully I was kind of waiting for the Hard Type version I'm definitely gonna play that when it gets released. The only reason I haven't played the Alpha yet is because I know I'm just going to want the rest of the game haha. I may check it out though, just to get an idea of what to expect.

You've probably already seen the rest of the playthrough, but if not then I went back and replayed the lost stages in the same order and completed the game. The level designs are really fun man, and the final battle with Sigma was a blast. Even the subtle arena changes in all the Maverick rematches is nice, because it adds new twists to old threats making them feel dangerous again. If at all possible, the one thing I would change about the final fight is that I think it should be harder to loop Sigma in his first form. If you haven't seen it, basically, wall climbing in the top left corner of the room forces him to dash across the walls every single time, making it really easy to cheese him. Again, I don't know much about hacking this game, but would it be within the realm of possibility to have his energy blasts shoot upwards towards the wall as well?

The very final part of the battle was so fun and so intense that I honestly wouldn't change much of anything. The only reason I was able to get by it as quickly as I did was the fact that Velguader and Sigma 1 were basically freebies once I had the patterns down/figured out how to loop Sigma 1. I'll probably go back and do it "legit" at some point.

If anyone is curious, I died roughly 574 times from all the footage I had available. Definitely a step above the vanilla game that I could beat in my sleep haha. Very good hack man, and if you don't think that it's a quality product, then I can only imagine how great X2 will be.