Okay, Cyber Peacock's stage. And I promise I won't make cock jokes. At least not many.
After the insanity that I went through last time with Slash Beast's stage, this stage was very, very much appreciated.
I love the stage's gimmick.
In order to get the upgrades, you need to finish the areas quickly enough to earn the S Rank. Now, of course, we're not collecting the upgrades in this run, but it's still a fun challenge to earn the S Ranks.
This stage is all skill and no luck, and that's exactly how I like my X games. Nothing sneaks up on you, and if you're good enough, you can do this stage perfectly on your first try. It's kinda like Magma Dragoon's stage in that sense.
Sure, it's pretty easy, but good level design in a Mega Man X game has never really had to do with the difficulty level, per se, in my opinion. The best level design in an X game is such that you feel like an unstoppable force of nature speeding your way through it.
One of my favorite stages in the game, and a nice breather in a run like this. Stages like this one make X4 deserving of the praise it gets.
I did some experimenting, and I think the route I found is the quickest way to get through this stage, but someone smarter than me can make me look like an idiot.
So, until then.
The fight against Peacock isn't much different from how one usually fights him. Sure, I don't use his weakness against him, but the battle is so pattern-based, it's hard to deviate from that. His homing missiles are the only active threat, and those things are easy to dodge by using what I call the Morph Moth pattern of dashing around in a circle and placing a shot in at the opportune time.
By the way, my OCD flares up big time by the fact that my finger slips just before the beginning of the battle as I'm charging my buster, and it forces me to restart the charge.
Oh, well.
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