The third and final stage with a layout that gets changed upon defeating a different area's resident Maverick is Flame Mammoth's (alleged) factory digs. The once-molten metals that dispose of scrapped bits of Utuboros and half-destroyed (but horrifyingly conscious!) Reploids will be completely cooled and can provide X with a safe place to stand if you visit after having defeated Chill Penguin...which is more than slightly backwards considering the weapon weakness order, but whatever.
The streams of scrapped machines will still crank out along the conveyor belts, but instead of being melted down, they'll simply shatter immediately upon contact with the now-solid surface of the processed remains that passed through before them... I guess now it's just a glorified junk pile?
There are quite a number of upgrades to round up here, so let's get straight to it!
---
Flame Mammoth Stage
(a.k.a "Factory Stage" and "Prototype Weapons Plant")
Hidden upgrades:
-Arm Parts (requires Leg Parts and Head Parts)
-Heart Tank (defeat of Chill Penguin highly recommended)
-Sub Tank (requires Leg Parts)
Not far into the stage, we might notice a destructible ceiling placed well off the ground and seemingly beyond X's dash jump range... it's extremely easy to miss your chance to break the ceiling by breaking the one block you can reach without managing to get a grasp on its neighbor. I'd actually met the claim that there was anything up there with skepticism because of how extremely easily you could manage to mess it up and have to restart the stage as a result.
Ah, the Arm Parts...perhaps the most elusive of all the capsules containing armor parts left strewn about by Dr. Light in strange locations, and indeed one that I didn't even know existed for quite some time, but I'll get into why that is another time. It's technically also the "least necessary" of all the parts... well, at least insofar as one could hope to claim that "making your X-buster much more useful" as being less than useful, as it's quite a major boost to your destructive capabilities.
More (wait, there's MORE?!) than a mere upgrade to an extra tier of maximum charge for the X-Buster, however, this upgrade lets you perform a charge attack with ANY weapon you've acquired from the eight Mavericks laying siege to the city, therefore giving you NINE new forms of attack that you didn't have access to before.
Next up, the cooled surface of the melted-down machines in the very next chamber shows a hidden Heart Tank that would have previously been shown stranded far along the severely-damaging molten metal. While TECHNICALLY you don't need to make the surface harmless to get it, since it's not an instant death, it's vastly simpler to do it this way.
I have to consider... you could probably also manage to get it with a Boomerang Cutter deployed just off the safe surface overhead, but I always happen to misjudge the distances it arcs around and I only really seem to use it as a last resort for collecting upgrades, so I can't say as I've ever tried it.
The next-"easiest" alternative is to abuse invulnerability frames to enter the still-scalding surface for as long as possible so you can dash in, take the heavy damage when it wears off to return to being invincible, and then take the Heart Tank before likely succumbing to the heat before you can get back to safety. It's not like they'll take the Heart Tank back afterwards, after all. Naturally, this still fairly suicidal plan becomes much easier as you have the Body Parts, Sub Tanks, and an increased life bar courtesy of other Heart Tanks collected in order to extend the length of time you can afford to spend being continuously damaged. It's been awhile since I did it this way myself, so I can't say just what the minimum is if you hope to make it to the Heart Tank at least...
The final upgrade in this stage is ALSO located in this room, but at the farthest extremity from the Heart Tank's location, along the highest point of the room along the wall that opens up from the hallway where the Arm Parts were obtained. There we find the Sub Tank, guarded by hard-hatted guardians, the Degravers and Mettaur (Mettaurs?) along the suspended scaffolds.
I'm not entirely sure what it is that lets X break boxes from the side that would require his upgraded helmet to destroy from below, but I want to say it's in fact tied to the Leg Parts. I'm fairly certain you need to dash to reach it anyway, so the point is rendered moot. This also goes for the Arm Parts in this stage and the prospect of reaching the Heart Tank in Sting Chameleon's stage, so I haven't actually determined if this is actually the case.
21 июн 2012
