Copy X in Z1 is way tougher than I remember

[AutoHarmonic]

Maybe last time I played this game, I had been using cyber elves. Been trying to go through without 'em, and Copy X feels like a huge difficulty spike. I think I'll be able to beat him in a few more attempts, but... yeesh!

Why'd they have to give the first form the ability to heal? And being able to instantly die during the second form is really rough.

I've seen a quick kill of Copy X's first form on Twitter, but pulling it off reliably seems pretty rough. I've just been using charged Z-Saber slashes and, if I get an opening before the Z-Saber is ready, I'll use the Triple Rod since all three hits will usually land.

[Citronvand]

I just beat Zero 1 (5 min ago), normal mode, no elves and no save assist. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2nd final form was complete and utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I got to the final level with 9 extra lives and I still had to redo it once because I ran out of lives. ♥♥♥♥ that 2nd form. The worst part is that you can't skip the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cutscenes which you have to watch every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time you die.

The way I beat the first form was with charged Z-Saber. Jump to the closes wall, then attack him with a fully charged attack in the air. He will get knocked down. Then jump to the other wall and redo it when X comes flying at you. I managed to beat him several times this way without taking any damage, didn't even know he could heal.

The way I beat the 2nd form was the charged Z-Saber with Ice. Jumped on one of the hovering side platform and then jumped towards X and attacked him with a charged Z-Saber attack. Deals a lot of damage but so does he. Honestly just practice and a bit a luck. Not sure how to avoid his yellow laser spam.

[AutoHarmonic]

Originally posted by Citronvand:

The way I beat the 2nd form was the charged Z-Saber with Ice.

Oh, Ice specifically? Didn't know that worked!

I've been trying to use the Triple Rod to whack him from below, since getting nailed by one of the rings while on the floaty platforms is death. Charged saber slashes probably would work better, though.

Originally posted by Citronvand:

Not sure how to avoid his yellow laser spam.

I believe you have to be standing opposite to the hand that will shoot first. Then you dash to the other end of the platform.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by AutoFireII:

I've been trying to use the Triple Rod to whack him from below, since getting nailed by one of the rings while on the floaty platforms is death. Charged saber slashes probably would work better, though.

I only used Z-Saber and Z-Buster the whole game so I don't know whether the Triple Rod is good or not. If you listen closely X has a different voice line for every attack he makes, so as long as you memorize what he says you know exacty what attack he will make. That way you no longer have to fear getting instant KO with the rings.

[Oguzhan]

Huh? Copy X being hard is something I am not used to hearing. Honestly I consider Phantom to be way harder. All things considered X is very telegraphed, both forms.

Also, triple rod is really useful IF you can utilise it. It also has a lot of swag play to it. I remember it taking a long time for me to master the thing back in the day. It's probably the best out of all the 4th weapons (T-Rod, Chain, Rod), though not my fav as that honor goes to the rod from Z3 for it is way easier to use albeit a bit slower.

[AutoHarmonic]

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Huh? Copy X being hard is something I am not used to hearing. Honestly I consider Phantom to be way harder. All things considered X is very telegraphed, both forms.

Phantom definitely has been the other big hurdle; the rest of the bosses leading up to Copy X are trivial.

I've found that playing things safe with charge buster shots seems to be the most reliable method, but his clone attack is still pretty iffy... and his EX skill is super RNG-based.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by AutoFireII:

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Huh? Copy X being hard is something I am not used to hearing. Honestly I consider Phantom to be way harder. All things considered X is very telegraphed, both forms.

Phantom definitely has been the other big hurdle; the rest of the bosses leading up to Copy X are trivial.

I've found that playing things safe with charge buster shots seems to be the most reliable method, but his clone attack is still pretty iffy... and his EX skill is super RNG-based.

I won't lie Zero 1 is clearly the hardest in the series. Now, I am an avid megaman player AND used to the design of IntiCreates (even their earlier games) so even stuff like Phantom and Copy X from Z1 are not much of a hurdle for me.

It's just Copy X's attacks are very telegraphed so I was a bit suprised is all.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Huh? Copy X being hard is something I am not used to hearing. Honestly I consider Phantom to be way harder. All things considered X is very telegraphed, both forms.

The problem is not necessarily the difficulty itself but rather the accessability to practice against said boss. You fight Phantom at the start of his stage and he has no instant-KO abilities. That means the player has as much time he needs to learn the boss without any hassle.

X's 2nd form however requires you to watch an annoyingly long unskippable cutscene. Then fight the first form. You have to do this every single time you die. If you run out of extra lives it becomes even worse since you have to replay the whole stage, fight 8 bosses in addition to the long cutscene and X's first form.

When you finally get to the 2nd form you are probably a bit injured from the first form, at least at the beginning when you still are learning. So the 2nd form can kill you in just a few seconds, especially since there's pits you can fall into, or be dragged into with his energy loops. That is not a lot of time to learn his patterns.

This leads to a very frustrating experience for a new player. Of course, your experience may vary depending on how many elves you have murdered, if you are cheating (save assist & casual mode) and whether you already know the boss.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem if I could just skip the damn cutscene. Wasn't this made after X4? In that game the bosses only spoke the first time you encountered them. Any subsequent attempts started the battle instantly.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by ;3933271334209914269:

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Huh? Copy X being hard is something I am not used to hearing. Honestly I consider Phantom to be way harder. All things considered X is very telegraphed, both forms.

The problem is not necessarily the difficulty itself but rather the accessability to practice against said boss. You fight Phantom at the start of his stage and he has no instant-KO abilities. That means the player has as much time he needs to learn the boss without any hassle.

X's 2nd form however requires you to watch an annoyingly long unskippable cutscene. Then fight the first form. You have to do this every single time you die. If you run out of extra lives it becomes even worse since you have to replay the whole stage, fight 8 bosses in addition to the long cutscene and X's first form.

When you finally get to the 2nd form you are probably a bit injured from the first form, at least at the beginning when you still are learning. So the 2nd form can kill you in just a few seconds, especially since there's pits you can fall into, or be dragged into with his energy loops. That is not a lot of time to learn his patterns.

This leads to a very frustrating experience for a new player. Of course, your experience may vary depending on how many elves you have murdered, if you are cheating (save assist & casual mode) and whether you already know the boss.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem if I could just skip the damn cutscene. Wasn't this made after X4? In that game the bosses only spoke the first time you encountered them. Any subsequent attempts started the battle instantly.

The dialogue thing can be annoying I guess but I am a defender of extra lives in 2d megaman style games, so you are alone there. Imo, players should replay stages and forms of bosses. That repeat makes you learn and get better. You won't be good at something at first, fail and learn from your mistakes.

Like I said though the dialogue thing can be annoying. You can skip it in Z3 and 4 and even in Z2 I think.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

The dialogue thing can be annoying I guess but I am a defender of extra lives in 2d megaman style games, so you are alone there. Imo, players should replay stages and forms of bosses.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm only explaning why the 2nd form is more frustrating compared to Phantom. I have never said that I don't want or like the lives system. Or that a player shouldn't be punished for dying. In fact I'm a huge proponent to the extra lives / continue system in games.

I even argued with the devs in Freedom Planet that their extra lives is completely pointless since it doesn't punish the player: https://steamcommunity.com/app/248310/discussions/0/451848855003950179/

So I'm completely agreeing with you. Like I said, the only problem that I personally have is the unskippable cutscene.

[AutoHarmonic]

Originally posted by Citronvand:

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem if I could just skip the damn cutscene. Wasn't this made after X4? In that game the bosses only spoke the first time you encountered them. Any subsequent attempts started the battle instantly.

MMZ1 started out as a side project by a totally separate team. In fact, Copy X was originally going to be the true X, sort of as a joke. But after the game on greenlit by Capcom and the release date was coming up, the team realized that making you fight the original X made no sense, so they came up with the Copy thing.

I bring this up because they weren't the same team that made X4, so whether it was made after or before X4 doesn't really make much of a difference.

All that to say, though... I agree. Game, y u no let skip?

[Yekkusu]

Well it's not that he's hard.
For me it deppends on how I'm playing the game. I noticed that the better your Rank, harder bosses. Copy X would NEVER heal himself in the first game when I played using Cyber Elves and with Rank F.
But as soon as I beat the game on Rank S, he got smarter somehow. That's what makes this game Ranking System weird. Instead of bosses being more challenging as more powered you are, they became dumb. And the less you use, you take damage and finish the stages in a good note and get the S Rank, they get smarter and stronger while you're like a 3hit from death.

The same ocurred for Harpuia who have way more attacks than I remember, Phantom using a special Shaddow attack that I never seen he using on the GBA version (I played on an Emulator and never cared about Ranks, even if that big F annoys me hard).

So as far as I figured out, it's not that the boss was programmed better for this collection. The bosses just got smarter the better your Rank.
I had the same amount of difficulty killing Copy X on Z1 as I had on Z3 because I did a S Rank (And I have to say, I cried a lot out of anger because this rank system is utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) in all of them and the bosses get more inteligent. At least the guardians and X.

[Kimarnic]

Died so many freaking times to the 2nd form, turns out he is weak to Ice and finished him in a second lmaooo this game is awfully hard

[Sephilar]

Originally posted by Hatsune Miku:

Died so many freaking times to the 2nd form, turns out he is weak to Ice and finished him in a second lmaooo this game is awfully hard

Damn, to this day I never really knew that the second form of Fake X is actually weak to Ice. As I already said in another thread, as much as I enjoyed Zero when I played the games for the first time in the DS, I will never understand what they were thinking when they made this stupid elements system with Ice, Fire and Thunder that don't really work well nor make sense as a rock-paper-scissors system, and giving bosses certain elemental weaknesses being the last thing you would ever think they are weak with said element.

I personally never complained about the difficulty because these games were clearly made for people that enjoy challenging games and they don't really care dying as much as it takes until you get good, but this is the only thing that I always found completely stupid, and it makes many bosses that are actually difficult to beat without you knowing about it to become easy as ♥♥♥♥ when you know it. I mean, obviously you're not forced to beat them that way if you don't want to, but it makes you feel like an idiot when you spend a lot of time beating a boss purely by avoiding and learning their patters and then you get only rank B at best just because of the time it took you to beat the stage, and then you realize other people were beating the bosses taking damage all the time with no skill whatsoever, but they still get a better rank just for knowing that and spamming Z-Saber charged all the time.

[Qviss]

This is the reason combo paths exist after first game. If you hate charged z-saber spam there is an option to play on hard mode after clearing the game.

[Dog]

Honestly, the worst part was the unskippable dialogue.