'tis true.
Also, the 4th Armor in X5 is NOT the armor the Light gave X, it was a replica made by Alia. This is why it lacks a Giga Attack and the head part doesn't work as well as it used to (I still say that armor should have used the Stock charge and not Plasma, would have given Ultimate a more unique feel).
And yeah, X6 is three weeks after the whole planet was ravaged by the Sigma/Zero Viruses and the nearby Eurasia explosion. They may be over the hill, but they're not finished, so it makes sense that X isn't ready to turn in the armor just yet.
X's armors NEVER show up in cutscenes. EVER. Its called not wanting to have to make separate images and cutscenes for each armor, or each combination thereof. Do you think the X8 developers are seriously going to make 4 different cutscenes for each of X's armors? (Neutral, Icarus, Hermes, Ultimate) and for each part combination?
In FMVs, of course not. But still shots such as X5 uses are a different story. Get Weapon screens of X1 and X2 responded to X's armor parts, as does his mugshot for X/Zero communications in X3, and his mugs in X4 and X6. X5 is the odd-ball in that no mugshot, nor still image, features X's armors.
Varying images is much, much easier than varying videos. Rather than redoing the entire image, it's a popular practice with X's armors to paste it over him as an extra layer.
However, there has been a growing amount of laziness with X's armors in recent games. X8's armored mugshot have only one position, the armor seemingly designed on purpose to hide X's face, therefore his expressions. MHX just ignores the armor outright, which looks really weird when at the end of the game you're seeing Vile's ride armor grab an unarmored X.
and then there's Zero and Axl's secret armors. Do you know how many variations of images and cutscenes they have to make?
Pallette swaps in 2D artwork are ludicrously simple.
To this extent they draw him teleporting without armor im sure.
Half the beam-in frames are reused in special weapons, so they really only save about two frames per armor by doing this. That's more for effect than anything else, as the animation was designed in X4 when the traditional armor system was still in use.
also, Zero =lazyness. in the intro, he trashes his X2 buster, and cannot use it again. Unless we say that in that scenario, Fighting Ultimate armor X is the fight that actually happens, then its lazy spriting. they didnt want to make a new set of sprites just for that fight, even though they had already made sprites for his Awakened form's levitating, and for his Giant Saber swing, and it wouldnt have been that hard to make a new set of buster sprites, even if it was just the buster and not the pose that changed.
Speaking of laziness, on the vs. Ultimate Armor X battle, would have been so hard to have the armor dissolve as/after X collapses? Once again, a small effort would have gone a long way.
But, as you yourself admit, the X1~3 style is barely adequate in depicting what it is supposed to depict. X5 is a completely different story as X6 shows it is entirely possible.
But as I have often said, the inadequacies of the SNES style are more negligence than they are system limitations. Even with those proportions some alterations could have been made. But it is pixel-for-pixel identical to X2's, showing that they didn't even try, despite creating an otherwise entirely new sprite sheet for Zero.
Of course, X5 is one mucked up game anyway.... so many small weird things.
Maybe we should note it down for the next round of "ask Inafune-san".
Agreed on both counts.
Considering how frequently he dies or takes heavy damage, it seems like a safe assumption.
It would be if not for the fact that he's unscathed in X6, which is when the final Z-Buster appearance is. X3 being the last I could have bought as either Mosquitus damage or an antivirus reaction.