Mega Man X [60FPS]: Storm Eagle's Stage (Buster Only/No Dash/No Damage)

[@chrishd659]

Quite refreshing to see someone doing no dash playthroughs of X1 nowadays, do you think the game was built around this for the 8 first stages or is it absolutely required for you to face Chill Penguin first?
Kinda unrelated but I think you can dash with a ride armor, regardless if you got the leg upgrade or not

[@Joki_]

The stages themselves are definitely built around not being able to dash. You can play through all of them just fine, but you obviously won't be able to reach a lot of the secret areas. The bosses are a bit of a different story. They're all harder without dashing, but most of them are still manageable. However, there are 2 bosses that I do think are problematic: Spark Mandrill and Launch Octopus. The biggest problem with Spark Mandrill is that you can't Wall Jump over him after he's punched the wall, as only a Dash Wall Jump goes far enough. This essentially makes the walls pointless if you don't have the Foot Parts. Instead, you just have to jump over his attacks instead, which can be very tricky. Both his Electric Spark and dash punch attack come out so fast that you can't really avoid them on reaction, so you'll have to jump in advance to dodge them. He does usually attack at specific intervals, though, so there is a timing to it that you can learn. But all of this makes him one of the hardest bosses to beat without the Foot Parts, especially since he can kill you in about 3 hits. The worst one will always be Launch Octopus though. He's already bad enough as it is, but not being able to dash just makes the fight so much worse. I feel for the people who picked Launch Octopus's stage first, haha.
As for the Ride Armor thing, you can indeed dash with it even if you don't have the Foot Parts yet. (I'm gonna skip the Ride Armor anyway as part of the challenge, though).

[@chrishd659]

@@Joki_ Yeah, I heard horror stories about Spark Mandrill and especially Launch Octopus, tried Mandrill prior and dodging his humongous hitbox is just awful :d, almost to the point I wondered if it was properly play tested. I saw another channel (MegaPhilX) tackling Octopus, and his whirlwind looks like a run ender, quite unfair looking from afar. Don't know why the devs highlighted him first on the Stage Select from the get-go.
Curious about the Ride Armor bit though, Sting Chameleon's stage looks doable without it no problem, but the quicksand looks quite dangerous, hope everything goes well :)

[@Joki_]

@@chrishd659 Thanks for the support! Everything went well in the end, but not without some hitches. I didn't find Launch Octopus's whirlpool to be a problem, honestly. If anything, it just gives you a free Charge Shot opportunity. It's mainly those piranhas that were a huge problem and his overall unpredictability. The quicksand portion is also probably the easiest part of Sting Chameleon's stage to get through without taking damage. In fact, I'd argue that part is actually easier without using the Ride Armor, haha. The real killers here are the cave section with the falling blocks and ESPECIALLY the falling spikes during Sting Chameleon's boss fight. I'm guessing the person who playtested the latter had superhuman reflexes, because there's no way a normal person would have let that get past QA.

[@marcusmayo]

Nice job!