There are several easy to collect safeties along the way, even if the record run collects none of them. Mandril, Armadillo, Mammoth, Eagle, and if you can Iceless Kwanger, have relatively simple to collect Heart Tanks. A Sub tank for Final Sigma, and potentially the Armor Chestplate, are other potential safeties.
1. Chill Penguin 2. Kwanger 3. Chameleon 4. Eagle 5. Mammoth 6. Mandrill 7. Armadillo 8. Octopus ### 100% 100% route starts with Penguin, and has variants based on skill level and how early you want to acquire items. #### Kwanger Second Kwanger Second is the record route. To run this route (without additional revisits), you must be able to do the "Iceless" jump to collect the Kwanger heart tank without the boomerang or charged-ice. This route does Eagle and Mammoth shortly after, allowing runners to use the "Magic Carpet" glitch in Eagle (aka Neymar's Magic Platform Phantom Carpet Boeing UFO Grab Ride 77747™) **It may also do Chameleon Third (see below).** This route is designed around both having weapons that go fast early, and avoiding as many revisits as possible. (A run with additional revisits is valid, if obviously slower.) 1. Penguin 2. Kwanger 3. Chameleon\* 4. Eagle 5. Mammoth 6. Mandrill 7. Armadillo 8. Octopus 9. Penguin Revisit\* 10. Armadillo Hadoken Revisit #### Chameleon 3rd or 5th or 8th? The record route goes to Chameleon Third, and uses the Item collection glitch to get the heart tank in Chameleon without the aid of the Octopus Water or the Charged Ice "Waterless" technique. This ends up being a very inconsistent option, but decidedly produces the fastest time due to the speed of the heart tank grab and having Chameleon's weapon for Eagle. Chameleon 5th or 8th is debatable. Going 5th requires "Waterless" to collect the heart tank, but gives you early access to Sting Chameleon's weapon (safe, but laggy), and the armor defense upgrade. Going 8th is then slightly faster when done optimally, but does not have the other advantages. #### Eagle Second Eagle Second is a strong beginner route. It does not have access to the Magic Carpet, but removes most challenging tricks from the run. Charged Ice will be available to collect the Kwanger Heart Tank and other items (such as Chameleon's "Waterless" heart tank) It likewise can decide to clear Sting Chameleon's stage at any point after Kwanger depending on the player's comfort with waterless and desire to have the Armor. ### Weakness Order While referenced above, true Weakness Order is not typically used in speedruns of this game due to item collection and wanting certain weapons for certain stages. It is presented here for reference 1. Chill Penguin (Boots, takes extra damage to half and full charged shots) 2. Spark Mandrill 3. Armored Armadillo 4. Launch Octopus 5. Boomer Kwanger (takes extra damage to half and full charge shots) 6. Sting Chameleon 7. Storm Eagle 8. Flame Mammoth # The Hadoken The Hadoken is the secret upgrade only collectable under specific circumstances. It deals 32 damage to enemies, which happens to be the size of a boss's life meter. ### Requirements to Collect You must have 100% other than the Hadoken: - All 8 heart tanks, one in each stage - All 4 sub tanks, from Eagle, Mammoth, Armadillo, and Mandrill - All 4 armor pieces, from Penguin (Boots), Chameleon (Chest-plate), Eagle (Helmet), and the Buster from either Mammoth or Zero (the run collects it before going to Sigma Stages, so this requires Mammoth You must **also** see a specific pixel on the screen at the end of Armadillo's stage 4 times, and the capsule will appear& on the 5th "visit". This is the right edge of the screen behind the life drop above Armadillo's boss door. Although it is not required to take deaths here, most runners do. Jumping into the pit to restart at the midpoint of the stage is faster than exiting the stage through other means.The number of visits requires collecting a 1up on an otherwise deathless run if you use the jump into the pit method. The route usually collects the 1up in the open of the second half of Chameleon's stage. The other classic technique for farming extra lives is to use charged Armadillo at the start of the stage, and continuously kill and respawn the "classic mega" ball bat. It is known to have a high 1up drop rate.
You must also have full health when you arrive for the final visit to collect the hadoken. You do not need full subtanks.
The hadoken is typically not retained across using a password, but there is a way to keep it. The hadoken is performed as it is in Street Fighter, by rolling the thumb from down, down-forward, forward, then shoot. You must have full HP and the buster equipped. The timing takes some getting used to, as the Mega Man hadoken requires pressing Y *after* forward. The detection of diagonals is slightly off, so you may be able to press down-down-forward to achieve a hadoken. # Stage Environment Changes There are 3 stages that impact 3 other stages in Mega Man X. Typically it is to the player's advantage to impact the second stage. 1. Defeating Chill Penguin causes Flame Mamoth's stage to freeze over. Flame before Penguin means the factory is hot and active, with laggy lava eruptions. 2. Defeating Storm Eagle causes Spark Mandril's stage to have fewer sparks in the floor of the opning section, making is much more manageable. It also makes portions of the stage darker. 3. Defeating Launch Octopus causes water to appear in Sting Chameleon's stage. This is mostly cosmetic, however it is the intended way of collecting the stage's heart tank. # General Tricks # Phantom Grab ### Also Known As - Magic Carpet - Booty Grab - Neymar's Magic Platform Phantom Carpet Boeing UFO Grab Ride 77747™ ### What Is This? In Mega Man X, if an item is collected off the Kwanger boomerang, during the same frame a new item enters the screen, the new item spawns on the boomerang. This has a few known applications. 1. "Magic Carpet" : Most famously in Storm Eagle's stage, you can collect the heart tank at ground level, and (re)spawn the first track platform at the same time. This puts the platform on the boomerang, letting X fly through the stage. by jumping off the platform, only for the boomerang to bring it back. 2. In "Chameleon Third", you farm a health or weapon drop to collect while bringing the heart tank onto the screen, negating the need to cross the chasm to it by any method. 3. "Booty Grab" - In Armadillo's stage, you can use a health or weapon drop to phantom gram the sub tank after the first decent into the stage. You theoretically have 2 attempts at this in 100%, since you will revisit the stage 4. Flame Mammoth heart tank - while it is not difficult to collect the heart tank anyway, phantom grabbing it is faster. # Iceless The so-called "Iceless" jump is most known as a method of collecting the heart tank in Boomer Kwanger's stage. It is sometimes also referred to as a 7 pixel jump, as it requires jumping the maximum distance away from the wall the game allows, to extend the jump just far enough to jump to the heart tank without other items. Similar jumps are made in Mega Man X3 # Dash Lemons A "dash lemon" refers to firing an uncharged buster shot while dashing. (Because the uncharged shots are small yellow ovals, like lemons). Dash lemons deal double damage to enemies including bosses. As such, it is an effective way of doing more damage without building up to a full charge, especially when a full charge also only does 2 damage (such as every boss not named Penguin or Kwanger), # Slope Jumping While mostly obviated by the dash, slope jumping is a thing that works across the game. If Mega Man is walking downhill, and you jump, you gain slight extra speed and height from the jump. This is primarily used in the Intro Highway and Chill Penguin's stage. # MMX Intro Highway # MMX Intro - The Bees The two helecopters in the highway (colloquially known as "The Bees") must be defeated to advance. Since it takes time to mash them down, and you need a source of damage to lose HP before the end of the stage, AND you want to be on the right edge of the screen when you defeat them, you should damage boost through them.The bees move forward as they take damage. Remember this as you walk through them - you need to deal damage to have room to stand safely on the right edge of the screen.
You cannot survive 4 combined body hits from the bees (without a health drop in between). You want to take 1 hit from either the machine gun or the small missiles the bees fire, as they do less damage. You still only want to get hit 4 times total, and end the sequence with at most 3 HP. Optimally, you only take damage here, and optionally during TAS cars. # Chill Penguin Unless you're intentionally not getting boots, always do Penguin first. # Boomer Kwanger # Sting Chameleon # Storm Eagle # Flame Mammoth Do this stage after Chill Penguin to freeze the factory floor. If you have not done Chill Penguin, which is really only if you're intentionally doing Penguin Last, this stage is very different. # Flame Mammoth - Upgrades The threee colelctables in this stage are all close (ish) to each other after the first drop. ### The Buster Capsule Requires the boots, and the helmet. ### The Sub Tank The sub tank is in the top left of the big room immediately after the Buster Upgrade. While it is possible to go all the way right and up and circle back left to dash jump to the wall, there is a better way (if you got the buster upgrade and have ice). Just under the wall there is a Pickman (the hammer bro esque enemy throwing pickaxes) on the left edge of a platform. Eliminate it, and optionally the next enemy to the right. Facing left, use fully charged Ice. Jump onto the ice sled, then WALK (not dash) left, and jump at the corner. X will rarely grab the corner at all, but you should have enough height to trigger another jump to climb the wall.If you're having trouble making the jump, make sure you are only walking left and not dashing.
You can kick off the wall to break the blocks and get at the sub tank (having the helmet helps), or you can fire in a boomerang. If you use the boomerang, you can use that to try and phantom grab the heart tank. ### The Heart Tank There are 3 ways to get the heart tank in the bottom right of the same large room. 1. Phantom Grab with the sub tank. Obviously only possible if you're getting the sub tank. 2. Use a booerang near the wall. There's a trick to make it go down. 3. Just go onto the ice and get it on foot. # Penguin Heart Tank Revisit ### Routing Information If you're reading this page by page, this is the soonest you can collect the Chill penguin heart tank. It requires flame mammoth's weapon. It is not required for any%, and it can be collected at any time before the Hadoken revisit for 100%. Having charged sting makes it easier to navigate the stage, but is not strictly required. ### Actual Item Collection Go through the stage normally (with your new boots) until you reach the mech. When you jump out of the mech to take the top route, switch to fire. Fire Wave will blow up the small structures. The heart tank lies within. # Spark Mandril # Spark Mandril - Heart Tank There are three ways to grab the heart tank 1. Snag it with a boomerang from a dash jump from the left platform. 2. Climb the left wall underneath with boomerangs equipped. Do a neutral dash jump off the wall (release the D-Pad), and once X stop moving horizontally (but is still moving up), fire a boomerang. It will collect the heart. 3. Do a dash jump off the wall around the ledge and climb up to collect it. # Armored Armadillo # Launch Octopus # The Hadoken # MMX - Sigma 1 # MMX Sigma 1 - Vile Dialogue Skip # MMX Sigma 2 # MMX - Sigma 3 # MMX Sigma 3 - Armadillo Skip # MMX - Sigma 4