Mega Man X5: Part 18: Zero Space 4: Part 2: Sigma Final Boss & X's "Good" Ending

The second half of the final Zero Space.

After defeating the 8 Mavericks again in rematches, it's time to go through one last obstacle course.

OH NO! A DISAPPEARING PLATFORMS ALERT! Been a while since I've seen one of these! Luckily, X has more than enough in his kit to trivialize this part.
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In the final hallway, the area darkens...

And then, you head inside of a room. There are two capsules. On the left, there is X's capsule. On the right, there is Zero's capsule. The final two creations of Dr. Light & Dr. Wily...

Sigma finally makes his presence known once more. He has once again gained a new body.

If you reach Sigma here as X, he will explain to him his ultimate goal: To fully awaken Zero into his "true" self. To do that, he first had to spread his own Sigma Virus across the world, which is why in his initial battle against X & Zero, he deliberately allowed himself to be defeated. With the Sigma Virus spread across the Earth, Sigma had intended for it to draw out Zero's full power.

But alas, this wasn't enough. So then Sigma's next idea was to make the Eurasia space colony plummet to the Earth, transforming it into a virus colony and finishing off Zero's fully awakening. At this point, this plot has mostly failed, too, but it still resulted in several Maverick Hunters becoming Mavericks, themselves, which would then sealed their inevitable fates.

X couldn't forgive Sigma for this! He was ready to finish him off once and for all!
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In the phase of this fight, Sigma removes his slick cape and attacks. This form is called Psycho Sigma.

I'm mostly going to just use the Nova Strike for this, but Sigma's weakness in this form is X's Tri-Thunder and Zzero's E-Blade. In other words, electric attacks!
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But then... Sigma has a final form once more, another gigantic head! Almost a whole gigantic body, even! Final Sigma W!

Sigma revealed to X that he gained this body from someone that new a lot about X before and wanted nothing more than to destroy him. In other words, Sigma managed to come in contact with Dr. Wily, himself!

And now he will use Wily's technology with his body to destroy Dr. Light's magmus opus!
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In this form, Sigma has to be struck at the forehead where the red core is. He is weak to Spike Ball as X and Twin Dream as Zero.

However, he can make himself invincible by turning into a cyan wireframe for a moment. Time your attacks against this!

Or... once again, you can just use Nova Strike again and again if you have X in his Ultimate Armor.
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For the better of X's two endings, he finally defeats Sigma, and thus the final legacy of Dr. Wily's evil.

But not before one final trck up his sleeve... and manages to blow himself up with Zero, eager to make X watch as his best friend is killed again...

However, as X picked what remained of Zero off from the ground...

Sigma was still alive, and blasted right through both of them!

Even then, Zero was actually still alive enough to counter back, and destroy Sigma for good.

But now... it looked like both Zero and X were destined to die...
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But then later... X was visited by one last hologram of his creator, Dr. Light...

And somehow... the hologram completely repaired him...!

3 years later, X was leading a new generation of Maverick Hunters into action. He was back in business of hunting down Mavericks, but much more diligently than ever.

And the drive to push him through this diligence, was to be the new wielder of Zero's Z-Saber. As long as he held onto that weapon firmly, Mega Man X will never allow himself to forget the memories of the closest and bravest friend he had ever known...

In fact, with that sword, it was as if he was still right there with him in spirit. Fighting for everlasting peace...
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Thanks for watching!

Truth be told, this whole game was meant to be the grand finale of the Mega Man X series, and X's Good Ending here definitely made that very clear. Had I beaten Sigma with Zero, instead, and there would've be more focus on Zero recalling all of his own past history (his previous battles against Sigma, his clashing against Vile and resulting first death, his grief over losing Iris, etc.) before dying for good.

Alas, Capcom did not think they were ready to let go of this incarnation of Zero, even as a different part of Capcom were already preparing bigger plans for him elsewhere...

The end result? Further X sequels than initially intended! And I want to cover them, too, even if they have made more baffling game design choices than anything I've felt from these first 5 MMX games.

So stay tuned for when I eventually cover the dreaded Mega Man X6!