Gate's Laboratory - Part 2 (Mega Man X6)

From Atrocious Gameplay Wiki

Gate's Laboratory Part 2 is the second to last stage of Mega Man X6. It is arguably the hardest stage of the game due to its length, enemies, bosses, and tedious sections.

Why It Sucks

  1. The stage is actually two stages fused into one, making it extremely long.
  2. The first part is filled with instant death spikes in the most inconvenient places.
  3. It uses the most annoying enemies in the game like the Monbandos who shield themselves from damage and the Totem Gates, who will be your worst pain since they block places you need to jump to, are often near death spikes, block your attacks, and many times you must face them while being on a moving platform, which makes shooting them an exercise in frustration.
  4. Near the end of the first part there is a section filled with spikes that is extremely hard to cross, and with basic X it's near impossible since you cannot do air dashes with him.
  5. After that you face High Max who is a really annoying boss since he can only be damaged by hitting him with a specific weapon/ability. He can be damaged normally during his desperation attack, however during this his attacks become harder to dodge.
  6. The second part depends on what character you are using:
    • If you are using X, you have to deal with some annoying platforming sections along with the acid rain from Rainy Turtloid's stage. Adding to this is the fact that one part is pretty much impossible to clear if you are using either basic X (unless you use a trick that involves switching between the Magma Blade and Ground Dash weapons via the pause menu constantly until you reach the platform) or the Shadow Armor (unless you have the Jumper and Hyper Dash parts, and you time a really precise Charge Slash and after that use the Giga Attack, so its possible but extremely hard) since it involves clearing a gap with an air dash, which neither can do.
    • If you pick Zero, you have to deal with a really slow stage due to the fact that for roughly half of it the ceiling becomes a trash compactor (exactly like in Metal Shark Player's stage) that goes down and can kill you instantly, forcing you to be really careful and making this section a chore.
  7. At the end You (as X or Zero) face Gate himself who is probably worse than High Max. The fight takes place over various really small platforms and Gate cannot be damage by any weapon. The only way to damage him is by destroying the energy balls he shoots and trying to get any of the resulting 6 projectiles to hit him. However, if they (X and Zero) hit just one of the projectiles, the six disappear, also Gate's energy balls have different effects depending of the color of the ball like spawning Nightmare Viruses, sucking X or Zero in, slowing you down or chasing you. The worst part is that after Gate loses around a third or half of his life, he will start use an attack that can destroy the platforms, which potentially can make you fall to the pit below and kill you instantly. The platforms reappear after several seconds, though.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. The remix of the X-Hunter Stage 3 (Mega Man X2) used here is great, the same can be said about High Max's and Gate's boss themes.