《Mega Man X Innocent Impulse》发布 0.3 版本更新

It's here!! Mega Man X Innocent Impulse version 0.3 is finally released!!

This took a long time, even longer than we initially expected, but it's finally here. The game has been updated with most of the systems that will be present in the final version of the game, as well as receiving a major overhaul and optimization of most basic mechanics.

There's a lot to cover, so we will segment this devlog into different sections:

New Story Areas and VR Stages
New Features
What's next for 0.3
Things that won't be in future versions
Changes from 0.2.X

►New Story Areas and VR Stages

Cardinal City

We can finally head outside the Hunter Base! Cardinal City is the center hub of the region, and it's where you'll be able to access any of the 4 major areas where X's missions will take place. In 0.3, the Train Station will take X to the new featured area of this update.

Desert Area

Located north of the city and accessed by train. In the Desert Area, you'll find an outpost of worker Reploids that are being terrorized by local Maverick threats. In version 0.3, you'll be able to access the road leading to the Geothermal Plant.

Geothermal Plant

A massive facility located at the base of an active volcano. The Geothermal Plant is a maze of steam pipes and lava that's full of hostile mechaniloids that are occupying the plant. You'll have to be careful when navigating, if you fall in lava your HP will rapidly drop!

New Story Boss: Blaze Beastleo

Waiting for you in the Geothermal Plant is the new story boss for 0.3. Blaze Beastleo is the current captain of the Maverick Hunters' 14th Special Unit, the one Magma Dragoon used to be a captain of. Because Beastleo has very powerful fire-based attacks, he may easily overwhelm you if you're not paying attention.

New VR Stage: Deep Sea Base - Bubble Crab's Stage

Returning from Mega Man X2, Bubble Crab's stage will be available as a VR Stage. An oceanic submarine base that is full of loot, hidden by a very greedy crab.

New VR Stage: Marine Base - Jet Stingray Stage

Returning from Mega Man X4, Jet Stingray's stage will be available as a VR Stage. It's a Ride Chaser level! Board the Adion Ride Chaser and dash through at high speed while avoiding enemies and obstacles!

►New Features

WASD Controls

By popular demand. Keyboard players are now able to set the WASD keys to control X. If you wish to enable this, please access the input config options on the Pause Menu.

Difficulty Settings - Life Modes

The game difficulty is selected when starting a new game, which is set to the save file and cannot be changed mid-game. However, the way that Extra Lives will work can be changed every time the player loads a save file, and they're able to pick from 3 different settings:

Unlimited: Players have infinite lives at all times.
Classic: Players start with 5 lives and will Game Over if they run out. They're able to Continue the game and get a new set of 5 lives by paying an increasing amount of E-Crystals.
Zero Lives: Players start with 0 lives and are unable to gain any more. The Continue option in Game Over is disabled, so players can only load the save file to continue. Make sure to save often when using this!

Regardless of this setting, players will always have infinite lives while inside of VR Space.

Chip Parts System

In 0.3, you'll be able to equip a variety of Chip Parts. These must first be crafted with Douglas in the Hunter Base, which requires E-Crystals and a few Part Blueprints for each chip type, which are dropped from enemies upon defeat. Stronger chips will also require a golden Rare Chip, which are limited and hidden around the world, so use those carefully!

Database

Talking to RiCO not only gives you access to the VR Room. Now she can also let you see the Mother Computer Database, where you'll be able to read different lore entries about bosses, minibosses, enemies, and NPCs from the Data Disks that you've found while exploring. Viewing the enemy database also displays the type of Part Blueprint they drop when defeated, so it's a useful way to learn where to get a particular part type.

Fast Travel Beacons

In order to travel between areas, players will be able to use Fast Travel Beacons to move between areas where they previously activated a beacon. Some of these might require E-Crystals to activate. Additionally, if you're on a mission, you can always use the Exit Unit function in the Pause Menu to return to the Hunter Base.

Stylish System - Hunter License Upgrades

In 0.2, the Stylish System allowed X to use his available Giga Attack moves by increasing his Stylish Rank by damaging enemies. In 0.3, since X is classified as a B Class Hunter, his Stylish Rank is only able to increase up to B rank. To increase it further, a Hunter License Upgrade will be available to increase his Hunter Rank and allow him to reach higher Stylish levels.

By increasing your Hunter Rank, X will be able to access different levels of Giga Attacks. Armors can have up to 3 Giga Attack levels, and the Stylish Rank that X has while using it will decide which Giga Attack is used. The higher the Stylish Rank, the stronger the Giga Attack will be.

The method to unlock new Hunter Licenses is temporary. For version 0.3 these will be obtainable right away, but in future versions, new Hunter Licenses will be gradually unlocked after defeating a certain amount of story bosses.

Legacy Armor Crafting

In 0.2.X, in order to acquire Legacy Armors from past games, players were required to defeat a VR Boss while taking no damage. This was only a temporary solution to let players use the Armors before the actual method to obtain them was implemented.

In 0.3, in order to obtain new armors, players can talk to iCO in the VR Space. After defeating a VR Boss of their corresponding game, their Armor Blueprint data will be unlocked, and iCO will be able to recreate the armor data by bringing her an amount of Data Parts, which is a VR-exclusive currency, among other items.

And speaking of armors...

New Legacy Armor - Second Armor

The Second Armor from Mega Man X2 will be available as a Legacy Armor in 0.3! This armor is great for exploration, allowing X to use two Air Dashes and using the Item Tracer to scan for nearby secrets. But it's also got great offense, allowing X to use a Double Charged Shot and highly damaging Giga Attacks.

►What's next for version 0.3

Aside from fixing whatever bugs and problems players may find, here are some of the features that we're gonna add in future revisions of version 0.3.

Language Support

Aside from English, we will enable language support options for French, Latin American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Sidequests

Currently, version 0.3 features a limited amount of sidequests which were added mostly to test the feature. In future version updates we will add more of these to add more flavor to the game, as well as more sources of rewards such as E-Crystals.

Hit Priority System

We will rework the way that player attacks affect bosses by establishing a proper Hit Priority system, which will allow players to combo attacks together and deal high damage to bosses based on a priority value per hit. Those familiar with Mega Man Zero's combo mechanics will feel right at home with this system.

►Things that won't be in future versions

Some of the content in version 0.3 was adjusted in a way that allows players to easily test the different features of the game, but these methods are only temporary and will be reworked in future versions of the game, such as:

Certain elements in iCO's shop, such as the method to unlock Hunter License upgrades.
The list of available chips in Douglas' shop, which will increase as you progress through the story.
The location of some hidden items in stages.

►Changes from 0.2.X

Made new background graphics for the Hunter Base and VR Space.
Remade the layout of the Snow Village.
Added the Freeze mechanic as a stage gimmick for the Snow Mountain area.
Added Heat Lamps to the Snow Mountain area to reduce Freeze levels.
Added new HUD display options for Vertical and Horizontal HUD bars.
Updated all sound effects to match the 8-bit style of the game.
Several dialog adjustments.
Adjusted several character mugshots.
Adjusted some player shots so they can't be affected by the Dash Boost mechanic to help with balance.
Updated the First Armor sprites.
Adjusted the damage of the Third Armor Cross Charged Shot.
Increased Hover Boots time effect for the Fourth Armor leg parts.
Adjusted Chilly Fox's behavior when fought in Hard Mode.
Added new attacks for VR Spark Mandrill and VR Gravity Beetle.
Added new graphics for when players use Giga Attacks or bosses use Desperation Moves.
Added an option to swap the Confirm and Cancel buttons.
Added an Armor Swap button to quickly change armors without a menu.
Enabled Weapon Wheel shortcut mechanics that can be set up with keyboard numbers or the right analog stick.

And that's it for version 0.3!

This update took far, far longer than we initially envisioned, but we're so incredibly happy to finally release it for everyone to enjoy. Version 0.3 is a gigantic milestone for the overall development of Innocent Impulse, as most of the core features are now added to the game. So going forward, we can mostly focus on creating more content for the game and refining all details to ensure the game's quality is up to expectations. Version 0.3 represents the closest image to the ultimate vision of the completed game, and we're incredibly excited to continue working on everything that this game will offer.

We'll continue working hard as there's still a lot more to come, while also putting a lot of care and effort into our other CX2 Team games such as Mega Man Micro World and Mega Man Kilomix, among other yet unannounced surprises that we've been working on. We hope you'll stay tuned with us in our discord server to see where everything goes!

Thank you very much to everyone who has been playing, testing, giving feedback, and supporting the game.

We hope you enjoy version 0.3, and we'll be seeing you in the next update!

Have a great day!!