Shadow Armor

The Shadow Armor (シャドーアーマー) is an armor found in Mega Man X6.

Characteristics
Themed akin to a ninja, the Shadow Armor acts as the proverbial darkness to its sibling Blade Armor's light; while the Blade Armor is evocative of a samurai warrior blindingly cutting down all in its path at light speed and making its user known to battle, the Shadow Armor turns its wearer into a literal ninja, traveling just as fast, but defeats all without a trace, and without opposition even knowing it. The Shadow Armor appropriately is defined by its majority use of black in color, and like the Blade Armor, goes for more of a human like appearance, drawing upon clothes worn by ninja in their lore; this includes dogi and hakama like details, a net mesh pattern on the chest to represent chain mail worn underneath clothing, a full face mask to hide its user's guise, and the feet split at the tip to evoke tabi socks. As a unique detail, the Shadow Armor bears fins that point backwards on its helmet and legs, artistically drawing out the idea of motion blur while in movement. In line with more esoteric ways of thought that ninja also followed in their arts, the use of white and its more solid full form appear to evoke a further yang quality, which is believed to be best for male ninja by natural affinity by the ways of Onmyodo and Taoism, while the use of gold is used to evoke the state of taiji or ultimate balance, and both a feeling of mastery and a mark of accomplishment, akin to a ninja master.

The Shadow Armor acts very similar to the Gaea Armor from Mega Man X5, but unlike its predecessor, the Shadow Armor focuses on technical agility, martial skills, and high offensive output bolstered by nonstop attacks. It keeps many of the main features and drawbacks of the Gaea Armor, including invulnerability to instant-kill spikes, sticking to walls without sliding down, the lack of an air dash, and the inability to use Special Weapons.

The X-Buster has been heavily modified for the Shadow Armor. X's normal shot fires shurikens, and behaves similar to the C-Shot from Mega Man X5. The direction of the shurikens are fired randomly in three different angles: straight forward, or slightly up or down. X's Charge Shot produces a Z-Saber slash that also makes a crescent at the tip of the saber slash and can strike multiple times per slash. This technique is officially called Engetsurin. Additionally, normal Z-Saber slashes are performed at a faster rate. X's Giga Attack creates powerful spinning orange crescents that encircle him for a brief moment, severely damaging all enemies in his vicinity. That technique is officially called Enkourin (円光輪 lit. Circling Halo/Circling Light Ring).

The Shadow Armor sacrifices the Gaea Armor's ability to push V-Blocks with its dash for a ninja-like maneuver: If the UP directional button is held while jumping, X will jump to the top of the screen. If there is a ceiling, X can grab hold of it and hang upside-down (in a manner similar to Zero's Hyoroga). At this point, X can fire shurikens downwards in groups of three. After several volleys, X will automatically drop down. X can also perform a short dash along the ceiling to compensate for the lack of an air dash, but this causes him to drop down after the dash is finished.

The Shadow Armor's ninja-like abilities are heavily toned down with the use of the Ultimate Buster part, as his ability to fire down at enemies from the ceiling produces no shots at all. This alters X's strategy into a full-on Z-Saber fighter instead of a stealthy ninja.

Functions

 * Note: Specific parts do not have effects as this armor can only be equipped when complete.


 * Head Parts - X can swing the Z-Saber at a faster rate than other Armors in the game.
 * Body Parts - Damage is reduced by 50% and the reduced damage will go to the Giga Attack bar, which can be accelerated by obtaining Life and Energy Refills. Once completely filled up, X can use the Giga Attack: a double Enzukirin attack that encircles himself three times in opposite clock directions, dealing massive damage to any enemy hit by them.
 * Arm Parts - The X-Buster's normal shots are shaped like shurikens (which fire in random directions like X5's C-Shot), and the charge shot is replaced by a powerful saber slash called Enzukirin (円月輪 lit. Crescent Moon Ring) that deals massive multi-hit damage to enemies. Similar to the Gaea Armor from the previous game, this Arm Part has only one charge level, although the charge speed is the same as X without any Armor equipped. Special weapons are disabled for this armor.
 * Foot Parts - X can stick to walls and safely walk on spikes. He can also stick to ceilings by pressing ↑ + Jump Button and dash while upside-down, and also firing triple Shuriken Shots downwards while at it as well.

Head Parts
Metal Shark Player: Reaching this capsule requires the use of the Hyper Dash part and the Blade Armor (using Mach Dash) or Ultimate Armor (using Nova Strike). Near the end of the first area, there will be a compressor and a ladder. By going left, the player will encounter another path. Following this path will bring the player to a large pitfall. The capsule is located on a platform all the way past the pitfall. Hyper Dash part equipped by Zero can also reach it. Jump into one of the Nightmares and then use double jump to reach it.

The player can also acquire the Head Parts through a third method that is much more difficult to pull off than either of the above two, without needing any parts or armor. As X, the player must use Ice Burst on the very edge of the ground by the pitfall. Then, they must dash jump off of the very tip of the ice. If done correctly, X will just barely be able to grab onto the wall, and the player can then quickly Wall Kick up to the capsule. This method requires great precision as near-pixel perfect platform and jump placement are required, and an Ice Burst platform de-spawns if it is off-screen. As such, the player might lose many lives; however, if the player chooses Continue on the Game Over screen, they will start just a short distance away from the pitfall, allowing for essentially endless tries until they reach the capsule.

Body Parts
Rainy Turtloid: Found in the final area with acid rain. Heading towards the upper right area will bring the player to some spikes. The capsule is right on the other side of the spiked tunnel. It can be reached by using the Blade Armor to perform a mid air dash. Executing such a maneuver is a bit tricky and might take a few tries. In Normal and Xtreme mode, Zero can also reach it with Speedster and Double barrier parts equipped. Wait for one of the Batton Bone to attack while standing near the entrance, quickly run straight through the entrance to the capsule.

It is also possible to obtain this without any parts equipped but this requires quick speed. Like the method above wait for a certain Bat Bone to damage the character with its bomb. Then once past the first set of spikes purposefully touch the same Bat Bone before it flies away and dash straight through the second row.

Arm Parts
Blaze Heatnix: Found before the lava rising area of the stage. It can be easily reached by simply going to the uppermost part of the area, but this may require the Jumper part, Ultimate Armor with Speedster, the Blade Armor or Zero's double jump. It may also be possible when the metal blocks pheonomeon is present, but only if the player has Metal Anchor, as the passageway above is blocked by an otherwise impassible metal block.

Foot Parts
Blizzard Wolfang: Found right after the pitfall areas. It can be reached by jumping through the partial opening in the ceiling, in the diagonal floor area. It can be reached with Blade Armor's Mach Dash, Ultimate Armor with Jumper or Speedster, or Zero's double jump ability.

Trivia

 * Whereas the normal shots of the armor are reminiscent of C-Shot, the Giga Attack is similar to a large C-Shot from Crescent Grizzly, although the latter lasts longer and goes off screen. Its Charged Shot resembles a more powerful version of Zero's C-Sword technique.
 * Interestingly, a full pair of unused animations exist for Shadow Armor in which X is seen actually firing off a normal Charged Buster Shot.
 * The lack of an air dash renders the Shadow Armor incapable of progressing through the second stage of Gate's Laboratory without parts that enables higher mobility and speed than it is originally configured to have, coupled with precise skills of the player using the ledge-grabbing ability. Ironically, the Shadow Armor is the best armor for easily navigating through the first stage of Gate's Laboratory, which is laden with spike traps, as well as dispatching the boss of that stage, the Nightmare Mother.
 * Although X can't use any Special weapons in this armor, he can still use the very edge of the crescent energy coming from the charged shot to damage both Dynamo (as if he were hit with his weakness, Meteor Rain), and High Max.
 * Interestingly like Gaea Armor, a full set of unused Special Weapon palettes exist for Shadow Armor and are accessable via hacking but firing a Special Weapon using any of these palettes will freeze the game.
 * The Shadow Armor slightly resembles High Max with the black armor motif, and the gold and white highlights.
 * Due to its ninja motif, some fans speculate that the Shadow Armor is the basis for Hidden Phantom, one of the four guardians from the Mega Man Zero Series.
 * Shadow Armor is the first armor in the series (if not counted the secret Hyper Chip's golden scheme in Mega Man X3) not to feature the color blue anywhere in it's design, followed by the Neutral and Icarus Armors in Mega Man X8, and the X Fire Hyper Mode in Mega Man X Command Mission.
 * In Rockman X DiVE, the Shadow Blade Buster functions like the Shadow Blade from Mega Man 3.