Mega Man X5 Masochist Challenge Finale: Boss Rush + Sigma (No Damage/No Armor/No Parts/X-Buster Only/Xtreme Mode)

This is it. The hardest I've ever worked for no money.

I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to say about this. That it was hard? Yeah, it was. But even my pretentious ass doesn't have it in itself to make some list of emotions that I experienced during this trip to the furnace.

To make it clear one last time:

This was, indeed, all 8 level 96 boss refights, coupled with the fights against Sigma himself, playing as the most bare-bones X in the game. This means no armor, no special weapons, no parts, nothing to help out outside of reaction skills, repetition, memorization, and the trusty X-Buster, while taking no damage.

On Xtreme mode.

Some of you know I accomplished the same feat in X4 some time back - thanks to Capcom making the Sigma fights and the boss refights all part of the same level in the Playstation games, and me being retarded enough to think this challenge for X4-X6 was a great idea.

So, how did this compare to the hell I went through in X4?

The obvious difference here is the mile-long health bars of the bosses. It's not like they make the bosses harder, per se, but the long lifebar drags out the fights, and does mainly does two things:

1. Increases the likelihood of me losing focus, and making a dumb mistake.
2. Gives the bosses the opportunity to abuse any and all possible bullshit patterns they have in their arsenal, ready to fuck me over.

The biggest offender here, obviously enough, is Squid Adler.

While nowhere near hard in a casual run, Squid Adler becomes exceedingly dangerous when you can't afford to take a single hit. Even moreso when he's at level 96.

What looks like sexy and awesomely choreographed tap dancing around his projectiles is merely a smokescreen, so don't be fooled: it's luck that allows me to get through him.

My eyes are locked on the millions of projectiles he has on screen at once, and almost never on Adler himself, so any moment I could easily make a stupid movement error and run right into him - taking damage.

You can tell in my Duff McWhalen fight that I'm clumsy as fuck, and this is because I'm all jittery and nervous after clearing Squid Adler, due to the rareness of that actually occurring.

The bulk of the pain indeed comes from the first four bosses. For various reasons. After that, it's just tedium - and a battle to stay awake so I don't take a stupid hit due to a silly mistake.

I'm sure you can imagine how heartbreaking it is to lose a run to fucking Duff McWhalen after the pain of the first half of the bosses. And this did happen.

X5 is also especially cruel to my challenge due to placing perhaps the hardest stretch of level in the entire game directly after the boss rush.

Mistakes here are all too common.

One stupid hit, and fuck me. I'm doing the 8 bosses all over again.

But hey, this is my hell. I started it, I have no excuses. So, I'm not going to blame the game for being cruel to a completely self-imposed challenge born out of stupidity and boredom.

Sigma's first form is nothing to talk about. Except that it's pretty fun. It's not hard, but it's not a cakewalk, either. You need to keep your eyes open in order to avoid hits, so it's miles ahead, say, X1's Jedi Sigma, for instance, who allows you to no damage clear him with your eyes closed, playing with your toes.

And I did lose quite a few runs to Sigma's first form.

Amusingly enough, however, more runs were fucked over by the stage portion before the actual final boss fight.

The showstopper here is Sigma's second form. And he can be quite the asshole when he wants to be.

Those purple cubes are among some of the hardest to dodge attacks in the entire X series.

They move in a completely erratic fashion with wanton disregard. A lot of the time, it's hard to know where you're supposed to move in order to avoid the hitbox, and the inevitable damage that comes with it.

They can be manipulated slightly, but when you're in the middle of all this bullshit, after the bullshit you went through just to get to this point, losing focus is very easy.

Something that is definitely a defining factor in making this run possible is the fact that I only had to deal with those godforsaken cubes once during the fight.

The other nasty trick is that lightning attack.

It's very difficult to restrain yourself and move along with the pattern, while keeping in mind the random stops the hand makes so you don't run right into the lightning.

The hitboxes on the lightnings are some of the most forgiving in the game, but it still takes pretty precise movement to avoid damage here.

With that said, X5's Sigma is still one of my favorites in the series. And I do think both forms are very fun in a casual run - and I did get enjoyment out of this challenge here, as well.

His attacks are dangerous, but it's always easy to land a hit on him. There's no bullshit like the puzzling hit detection of X3's final Sigma.

After the final shot, that's it for X5.

X6 will come eventually, but I need a break from grinding these games for a bit after this undertaking. And I know X6 will be an even bigger effort.

I'd actually like to take this opportunity and talk a bit about X6 and this particular challenge.

X6 is the very definition of a mixed bag. And I could talk for ages about X6. The good, and the bad.

But I do feel that everyone and their mothers have already talked about all the perceived bad aspects of X6, so I'm not going to bother.

X6 will be the most interesting game to look at in terms of this challenge. Especially on Xtreme.

There are things in X6 I'm still not sure how to no damage through properly. And that's what makes it fun for me. That's where I get the kicks from when doing these things.

X6, unlike X4 and X5, comes with a number of forced exceptions to the rules of the challenge, though. Whereas X4 forced me to use Rising Fire on Sigma's first form, and X5 allowed itself to be completed completely within the guidelines of the challenge, X6 will - no questions asked - force me to use specific parts and weapons in order to complete it.

I will minimize this, of course, but what can't be helped, can't be helped.

The acid rain segments are also obviously forced damage. But as long as I don't take any direct hits, I think the spirit of the challenge is maintained.

You may call this stupid justification and decide I'm a moron all you want, but this is my challenge, obviously, so I feel entitled to make the rules.

But about X6.

What annoys me a lot in the X community is this meme that there's nothing positive about X6. It's become the fashionable thing to say that X6 is the worst game ever. And it does have flaws, if you ask me. However, most of the hatred towards X6 seems to boil down to: "It's hard".

And, to me, that's no reason to hate a game. Not really.

The big purpose of my challenge is to gut X6 to its absolute bone, push it as far as it allows itself to be pushed, and eventually emerge on the other side.

Showing that it can be done.

And if I can run through all stages of X6 under these guises, the game simply can't be too impossible - especially not in a casual run that allows for damage and upgrades.

That said, X6 is the only game in the series that still manages to blow me away with the sheer amount of bullshit it can throw at you during its most hostile moments.

To many, that's a fault in the game. To me, it's what still makes it interesting after all this time.

I can get normal people not getting into stuff like this, but for a freak like me, the absolutely masochistic degrees to which X6 on Xtreme can take itself is what makes it a fascinating video game.

In no other game of its type have I ever come across some of the stuff X6 places in your path.

But the more frustrated I became with X6, the more I grew to love it. There's just something to appreciate about how X6 is so unashamed of itself.

These days, I'm rarely interested in going back to X4 - which is heralded by many as the best of the Playstation era - due to its mundane business as usual approach to everything.

For X6, nothing is business as usual. And nothing is ever mundane. Everything keeps you on your toes at all times.

And thinking about some of the stuff that I need to go through in order to make X6 completable without taking a hit, as unarmored X, and only using the X-Buster, makes the game show itself to me as a puzzle, or a Rubik's Cube, as opposed to a simple video game like X4.

That's the appeal.

For someone like me, who's gone to absolute hell and back with all of these games more than just a few times, that's what it takes to grab my interest.

It probably says more about me and my sanity than anything else, but hey.

I've never claimed to be all right in the head.