RETROACHIEVEMENTS AREA

This achievement requires you to "Reach Gate in Secret Lab Stage 2 as unarmored or Shadow Armor X without using the Jumper, Hyper Dash, or Speedster parts".

With how MMX6 has the extremely genius (/s) design of a jump that requires an airdash when Unarmored X (although using him in this game is essentially begging for pain all the way, but still) and Shadow Armor X (who on the other hand is VERY useful against the spike infested stages AND High Max), you'd need a combination of those parts to make the jump. But as the achievement implies, it is somehow possible to make the jump through exploiting a few things.

Both require setting up a jump from a specific low spot on the ledge of the platform to dash jump and not hit the upper wall, but Unarmored X's method relies on spamming Magma Blade when you jump a certain distance to exploit how it freezes you mid-air for a moment to get more reach.

I did it with Shadow Armor, who doesn't have weapons, so instead has to rely on a VERY well timed Charged Slash > Giga Attack > Charged Slash sequence to reach the ledge.

And by well timed, I mean that you have to do the first Charged Slash at just the right spot THEN use Giga Attack > Charged Slash one after another ASAP to even make it. Credits to IsSnake on Reddit for the video I learned from this strategy.

This achievement requires you to "Clear all 8 Maverick stages and beat the game as Zero on Normal difficulty or higher without saving, without equipping any parts other than the Jumper or Hyper Dash, and without collecting any tanks other than Heart Tanks or the EX Item".

...So you're pretty much meant to play without any other useful parts [Shock Buffer, Double Barrier, Saber Plus, Master Saber] AND without even COLLECTING Sub Tanks. A good chunk of the game [maverick stages] thankfully isn't SUUUPER bad with Zero thanks to his saber and even being allowed to use the Hyper Dash + Jumper, but of course some things are easier with knowledge of the game:

• Get Shield Sheldon for a fast stage and Guard Shell
• Get Rainy Turtloid for Hyper Dash and Ensuizan
• Get Metal Shark Player for Rakukojin
• Somehow beat Mijinion for Rekkoha
• Rekkoha the donuts away for Heatnix
• Visit Wolfang for Jumper part [get it with meteor i-frames or Ensuizan Invinc Glitch]
• Do the rest of Mavericks [Wolfang, Scaravich, Yammark]

The actual problem comes when you get to Secret Lab 1, complete it and have to fight with the garbage that is Nightmare Mother.

Only way I could do it [and this with many health upgrades] was to rapid pause each time it was about to move to see where it would go [since IT DOESN'T GIVE YOU ANY INDICATION NORMALLY] and do a trick explained by a speedrunner to jump, Rakukojin, double jump and Rakukojin again for two hits instead of one. But you still need to rely on luck to get cycles where the eyes can be hit for long with it [or even at all - if you get the one where both cubes are on the floor and eyes pop upwards, you can't really do it unless they are about to die].

The totems can be shredded with Guard Shell Glitch, High Max in Gate Lab 2 can be cheesed with Ensuizan loops, and the second section is...technically not SUPER difficult but you need patience and precision to not fall off the pits while the crusher appears each time at the end.

Gate is Gate, so you have to do your best baiting his orbs and hoping for luck that he actually uses them frequently [you'll also want as much health as possible to trade whenever its worth it]. Unless you can setup Ensuizan Glitch [only with the cyan orbs, which you can't predice where and when he will use], in which case you've basically turned it into a waiting and winning game.

If you can get through both Nightmare Mother and Gate, then that's basically it. Sigma 1 might need a bit of luck [or just more skill] to not lose much health against him, mainly if he doesn't attack much, but Sigma 2 can be OBILERATED with Guard Shell Glitch.

It is funny that most of the game is fairly doable with knowledge and upgrades, and it is only the GARBAGE boss design of Nightmare Mother and Gate that will pose actual, SERIOUS chokepoints for anyone attempting this run. And now imagine having to do that with unarmored X, who doesn't have double jump, air dash, and doesn't even have the charged weapons ability to cheese Nightmare Mother with the Charged Metal Anchor.

All 1st in the Expert Championship was as difficult as it sounds, if you've ever played this game. I had to go for a custom Dave setup someone suggested in the RetroAchievements page and a lot of practice to pull it off. Stuntmaster scores [custom hi-scores to reach since the default ones in-game were fairly easy] also took a while to pull off, but definitely weren't as stressful as the Championship runs [thankfully Reverse doesn't have an All 1st cheevo]. That aside, dishonorable mention to the baby dolphin cheevos, which is a fun easter egg but the time it takes to get them isn't the most engaging thing to do with this game. Oh, and both videos below have per-course thoughts in the description.

• Expert All 1st Run
• All Stuntmaster Scores Cleared

This one was surprisingly tough in some spots, arguably half of it being from dealing with the controls being finicky [not bad specifically, but they aren't as lenient as WR64] but also having to keep my execution clean just to pull off the harder cheevos.

A good bunch of them were tied to Stunt Mode high-scores in the game itself, which is cool since its like an official challenge frmo the game itself, although most of the Hard and Expert scores basically require a perfect performance in getting all rings AND making sure to add some tricks whenever you can to actually beat them. The only reason why the Expert Stunt Mode runs are in the replay channel is because the Hard Stunt Mode runs unfortunately bombed even on my main channel [and not because it was trivial to pull off], but whatever.

The Expert video has thoughts per course available in the description as well, if you fancy that.

• All Hard Stunt Hi-Scores CLEAR
• All Expert Stunt Hi-Scores CLEAR

The Stunt Mode runs were basically the freestyle victory lap [ignoring their difficulty] though, as they were the last achievements left for me to tackle. What I had to do before that though is also up there in difficulty, which was to win in 1st in EVERY race in the Expert Championship for an achievement. The video of it also bombed on the main channel though, but I can be fine with the fact that I still pulled it off and its recorded both in the account and in video.