Hi Guys. As promised the Mega Man X Third Armor has been added to Bass Abyss. Keep reading for more details!
Third Armor
The Third Armor is one of the most complex Mega Man X armors of the SNES era. It was featured originally in Mega Man X3 in 1993.
This armor has many upgrades and options, so I decided to focus on a limited set of features that I considered essential to include in this game, without overshadowing the previous armors too much. Let’s review what was implemented for this update.
Cross Charge Shot
By far my favorite feature. Essentially this adds a fourth level to the X- Buster. When released, press SHOOT again quickly to combine it with the previous shot and create the Cross Charge Shot.
Unlike Mega Man X3, you’ll notice that you can combine the shots quite faster. Also, the shots themselves are a bit stronger in order to clear a screen filled with small enemies. A point-blank shot should be especially devastating. In the original Mega Man X3 this attack felt dull and slow. That’s why I decided to make these adjustments.
Vertical Dash
This armor provides the ability to do a Vertical Dash. While on air, the default command to achieve this is SPACE -> SHIFT.
Yeah, these controls are terrible, but for historical reasons, the UP direction has been mapped to the space bar, while the JUMP command is mapped to the UP-ARROW key. This should not be a problem, though. Remember that you can remap the keys to anything of your liking. While in-game, press ENTER to access the controls settings. Even better, to avoid cramped hands, I recommend you to play with a gamepad using a keyboard mapper such as JoyToKey.
Defense Shield
Yes, I managed to implement it and it seems to be working quite fine. What this does is that whenever you get a hit, a blue defense shield is generated which reduces even further the damage of the next attack.
Back in the day when I played Mega Man X3 I never noticed any remarkable improvements. According to this guide, if the Armor Part alone provides a damage reduction of 50%, with this Defense Shield you’ll get an approximate total damage reduction of 62.5%. Uhm, whatever. That’s what I implemented. Bottom line is, running out of HP should be the least of your concerns now.
Screenshots
As usual, I love to capture lots of screenshots for posterity.
Level 19
Level 18
Isn’t the game too easy using the Third Armor?
No main level should require any of the Third Armor abilities. But for a game with no planned difficulty settings, I think the character you choose will determine how difficult the journey will be. So, using the Third Armor could be considered Easy Mode, while selecting Bad Box Art Mega Man would be Hard Mode.
You might be surprised how easy some segments of the game can be with characters considered difficult or weak. No need to worry, just experiment, determine the level of challenge you are comfortable with and have fun.
What about Gold Armor, Zero-Saber, or Zero himself?
I know right? Yes, I know you guys are looking forward to this. Let me know in the comments or on Twitter. I might reorganize my priorities, but really, I have a huge backlog as of now so it’s difficult to promise anything and the Flash deadline is looming so let’s see what happens.
Vile vs Arch-vile
This update includes several fixes in existing maps. If you are curious you might find a new 1-up item here and there, but the most important fix was the ceiling of the boss room of level 19. Vile finally can hide up there as demonstrated on these screenshots and take on the Arch-vile.
Browser compatibility
Starting with this release I will report the results of some browser compatibility tests. As of today, the game seems to be working fine with the major browsers on Windows 10. YMMV.
| Browser | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Goggle Chrome | Version 79.0.3945.79 (Official Build) (64-bit) | |
| Microsoft Edge | build 18362 | |
| Firefox | 71.0 (64-bit) | Apparently they had a change of heart and added back support for Flash. |
And lastly
I am glad I was able to complete this release before the holidays. This year has been particularly productive, I can’t really complain. Again, there were several issues I was not able to fix in this cut, but better play now than waiting forever, right? I already have a list of bugs to fix so I expect to get back to work as soon as possible.
2020 is the last year for Flash. I wonder if I will be able to complete the game before that deadline. Whatever happens, it’s been a lot of fun. So, no regrets from my end.
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