I'd say X4 and X6 were a lot more fun than X8...
I was crediting Kaji with X and Inafune with Zero. And not just them; all the people involved in seeing the X series through over the years.
So when did any besides Inafune express a desire to end the series at X5? If you can't answer that, your statement is still false.
I don't think this will EVER get resolved, and the series and Capcom's bottom line will suffer for it.
Sans Wily, which wouldn't have changed whether they ended the series at X5 or not (if anything X6 at least makes his presence more believable; Zero's creator should not have left him for dead that easily), there is very little in the X-series that was left unresolved. Most of it is the fans simply not paying attention.
But Falcon did have invincible flight, which more than made up for it in the context of X5's stage layouts. And Gaia's main strengths were in good use of the Ultimate attack as well as lightning-fast full charges.
No argument from me. But Shadow's strengths of spike invulnerability and ludicrously powerful charged saber are just as valid. Blade, I can't really defend; I honestly believe that armor was made so that if a sequel recycled past armor as X5/X6 did, they wouldn't have to water it down.
Unless there's some kind of Part kerfunkery going on here with X's Air Dash, you pretty well can't get the Shadow Armor without the Blade Armor's Mach Dash.
That statement could not possibly be more wrong.
First of all: Zero.
Even going the X-solo route, "part kerfunkery" gets you wherever you need to go, no weapons.
You don't like parts? Well, going X-solo and completely part-less, you need only Ice Burst and Metal Anchor (and no, I am not referring to pause physics exploiting; I don't do that). It doesn't even require an air-dash, so you can do it unarmored if you're feeling crazy enough.
This is
EXACTLY what I mean when I say that people who complain about X6's obstacles give up too easily. The level design is far better balanced, and "impossible" obstacles far less frequent, than most people think.
There are areas of X6 that the Shadow Armor can't even get through without the aid of Parts. Falcon and Gaia in X5, not so.
I've been over this a zillion times, air-dash is a default feature of X6 (your default character is Falcon, not unarmored, which exists solely for challenge). You should not be sacrificing that without being aware of where it'll cause you problems. X6 is considerably more open in structure than other games of the series, that comes with some level of responsibility for the player. Granted an always-enabled stage exit as opposed to Start/Select would have streamlined things, but the end result is the same (outside of X Collection which axed the Use Previous Data option).
There's a reason parts in X5 are useless, because they are considerably easier to miss than any amount of Nightmare-eaten Reploids in X6. Again, a completion rate higher than 50% of parts, and 66% of life/weapon Ups, is completely impossible within the game. Not only that but what parts you're gaining and what part you're sacrificing during the crucial "weapons and..." choice are not in any way indicated, so it cannot be planned without previous knowledge. There's no sense in it. Besides getting Zero to a few otherwise impossible locations (and his lack of access is another major complaint of X5, there are a fair share of power-ups he cannot reach), the vast majority of them are not in the least useful. Speedster/Falcon is one of the major exceptions.
Can't much be considered a hard or hardcore game if you "tank" a character, at that point.
That's a subjective argument. Any amount of defenses can be worn down, the level to which enemy numbers/strength make it fair or challenging is up to personal preference. But I think most can tell you that X6's mobs are crazy enough that you can't be too lax. Some of the boss attacks are rather powerful, too, particularly Nightmare Mother.
I should probably note at this point that I play X6 on exclusively on Xtreme mode (as I do with any other X-game with variable difficulty). I can't vouch for damage rates on the other settings.
The definition of a "true" challenge is also
HIGHLY subjective. If you have limited yourself (BTW I
have done Gate's Lab unarmored), you're pulling punches, and to me that is a fake challenge. It says that you're only having a hard time because you're not taking your opponent seriously in the first place. A true challenge is one which remains challenging after you have used your arsenal to its fullest extent. Most of Inticreates games are baby simple by such a standard. Some, such as Z2 and ZX, don't even allow such a scenario, as the game mechanics render a fully powered player against a fully powered boss completely impossible.
that they didn't need much extra save for the Weapons, Heart Tanks, and Sub (and W and Life) Tanks.
The fact that X5 is counter-productive to this in its part layout is one of my many gripes with it. Between the Energy/Life Ups, it's fairly obvious that Zero is in greater need of Life (lacking armor, and access to several Heart Tanks) while X is in greater need of Energy (special weapon consumption). But their character-specific parts are more often than not tied the opposite way.
Which is what X6 should have done given how useful, even necessary, some Parts were to X6's stage layouts.
There is no instance in which parts are necessary for Blade Armor to clear a stage. Same holds for Ultimate, and for Zero. Only Falcon, unarmored, and Shadow are applicable. In other words, your default form, and whatever is less mobile than your default form. Your default form is stuck ONLY in the beginning of the first stage of the game's final stretch, no big loss if you need to Start/Select out and grab Jumper. Shadow, lacking one of your default abilities, is stuck only one stage later. In the game's final stretch, there is no excuse for not being adequately equipped. Especially not since, as you so adequately pointed out, even obtaining the Shadow Armor requires either a firm grasp of the game's physics and obstacles, or an appreciation of the Mach Dash.
The idea is that the parts allow you to counter-balance Shadow's weaknesses, something X5's Gaia really desperately needed. In the same manner, Overdrive can compensate for its lack of special weapons, allowing you to lay the smack-down on bosses that much faster.
Along with the occasional secret. The Ultimate X Armor and Dark Zero Armor are proof-positive that the developers did indeed get lazy on us. X1 had the Hadoken, X2 had the Shoryuken, X3 had the Chips, Gold Armor, and Z-Saber. X4, Ultimate and Dark. Fine. X5? Ultimate and Dark. ...what, again? X6? Ultimate and Dark. Okay, now it's just getting old.
To be fair, Zero is not supposed to be armored (barring whatever technical leap goes on in 22XX), so Black Zero as a recurring theme is as natural as his ground-punching. Furthermore, even though they're visually the same, their abilities have varied title-to-title. X4 did nothing, X5 had virus-busting, and X6 had an attack boost.
Ultimate Armor I'll give you, but at least in X6 the Ultimate Armor was actually unique compared to the game's pre-existing arsenal (even if I do find it odd that it was not given a specialty saber attack). Not so in X4 and X5, where it is simply infinite Nova Strike (Seriously, why did X5 not start you with Stock Charge? It'd have made so much more sense.).
and makes the Saber the strongest weapon in the game even so much as crippling the final boss when it had usually been about Mega Man X and the buster on his arm knowing his fate.
Said quote is from before the saber existed. Said saber is only the strongest weapon when combined with said buster (Shadow Armor). Said buster, also allows manhandling certain bosses without even having to move (Wolfang and Sigma's first form in particular).
As for the final boss, he died three weeks ago, his weakness is to be expected. That said, I find it refreshing to have the good guys playing offense for a change, rather than waiting patiently for Sigma to retry annihilating the planet.