Shadow Devil

Shadow Devil (シャドーデビル) is a Devil type robot that appeared in Mega Man X5.

He attacks similarly to the original Yellow Devil, and his weakness (the eye) can appear on different parts of his body, which can throw the player off-guard. After he loses a lot of energy, he will turn into Doctor Albert W. Wily's Wily Machine 6 from Mega Man 6 and attack the player faster, making it harder to dodge his attacks. During the short duration of this form, the eye will periodically appear at the dome of the skull.

His background music is a remix of the fortress boss music from the first Mega Man game, and a warped "W" appears in the background.

Strategy

 * The Shadow Devil is weak to the Tri-Thunder weapon, but can only be damaged by it while his bright-red eye is exposed. This is a direct throwback to the original Yellow Devil's weakness to Elec Man's Thunder Beam (which itself is nearly identical to the Tri-Thunder). He is also weak to the E-Blade however because of how the move works, Zero will most likely perform the move into the Shadow Devil taking a hit so it's often recommened to perform the C-Sword instead.


 * If possible, when the Devil melts and breaks apart, try avoiding his blobs as they travel across screen. If the Devil's eye shows up, try to fire a fully charged shot on it.
 * It is entirely possible to avoid any and all damage from his blob attack. To do this the player should position itself at the wall opposite to that of Shadow Devil and then wall jump constantly and as fast as possible to remain at the very top of the wall. By doing this the blobs will not harm the player and when Shadow Devil's blobs fall to the ground to reform, the player can dash over and resume the fight normally. It should be noted however that this can be tiring for the fingers and that nothing short of button spamming, can cause the character to be touched by the blobs rendering the entire strategy useless. This is specially tiring during the 2nd half of the fight when Shadow Devil separates into two blob segments, so pausing to rest is recommended. If successfully achieve, Shadow Devil's difficulty is significantly decreased.


 * Also, when the Devil migrates to the other side of the screen, he leaves behind a green outline of himself where it used to be. X and Zero will get damaged heavily if they touch the center of the outline. The outline disappears when the Shadow Devil has completely re-formed on the other side.

Trivia

 * Early in its development, Shadow Devil was originally called "Metal Devil" (メタルデビル) and was silver. His color was later changed to black to better emphasize the lights around his eye.


 * The Shadow Devil is considered to be the toughest Devil robot, as well as one of the toughest bosses in Mega Man history, as its attacks can heavily drain the health gauge and may also lead to an instant death if the player is unprepared.


 * The Shadow Devil's attacks are random and take more health. The Yellow Devil's attacks are ordered, and also have less attacks.


 * The Shadow Devil's stage is very similar to Quick Man's stage from Mega Man 2.


 * To avoid the passing blocks across the screen, you can get above the Devil and simply hug the wall at its highest point by repeatedly hitting "jump" while moving towards the wall. However, this can be very taxing on the thumb considering how long this fight can take. In addition, it can be difficult to use this strategy if the player is using Zero, since he doesn't have a reliable ranged attack.
 * His battle theme is a remixed version of the original Devil's battle theme.