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

A playthrough of Storm Eagle’s stage without taking damage or dashing and using only the Mega Buster.
-- More info below --
Storm Eagle arguably has the easiest stage in the game. The only real danger here is falling into a bottomless pit, as most of the enemies in this stage can be destroyed instantly with only a Lvl. 2 Charge Shot. The only part that requires some finesse is the section with the Flamers. However, a Lvl. 3 Charge shot along with two Normal Shots will take them out the moment they’re in range, so they’re not really an issue either.
The fight against Storm Eagle is also one of the easiest in the game, especially when you have the Foot Parts. Without those, it’s a slightly harder, but not by much. The main danger here is getting blown off the Death Rogumer, either by the wind Storm Eagle creates when he flaps his wings or his Storm Tornado. Without the ability to dash, these two moves can spell doom if you’re too close to the edge. You can potentially survive offstage if you slide off the sides of the airship and do very short Wall Jumps, but doing so is very difficult. It’s much easier to just stay as close as possible to Storm Eagle at all times, especially since he doesn’t have any close-range attacks. One interesting thing to note, however, is that some of Storm Eagle’s attacks won’t actually come out if you’re too far away from him, specifically his egg spit and Storm Tornado attacks. You can even see this happening with his Storm Tornado in this very video at 3:29. This doesn’t work when he flaps his wings, though, so this is more of an interesting tidbit and not an actual strategy you should ever use.
Some character and enemy sprites used in the Thumbnail were taken from the Mega Man X page on The Spriters Resource (www.spriters-r....
Hope you enjoy!

[@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!