Mega Man X3: Part 10: Finding the Last Upgrades (No Enhancement Chips)
5After beating all 8 Mavericks in this game, it was now time to hunt down Dr. Doppler at his secret laboratory.
BUT FIRST! Before doing that, I wanted to get the rest of the upgrades that I could out of this game. Not just the remaining Heart Upgrades and Sub-Tanks, but also the remaining parts to X's Third Armor, among other further upgrades.
This required me to return to those same Maverick levels with all of their weapons to see how I can use them to reach these upgrades.
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At 0:16, I returned to Volt Catfish's stage.
There's a platform here that can only be moved with Gravity Beetle's Gravity Well, and ONLY if you have the Arm Upgrade to charge and change its attack. Step on this platform and use the charged Gravity Well to raise it upward between the wall of spikes.
This will lead to X's Body Upgrade, which will decrease the damage X take. Upon suffering initial damage, you will also gain a defensive shield that will further decrease X's damage for a few seconds.
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Still in Volt Catfish's stage, at 3:24, I reach a platform that gives X a Ride Armor to use. You can switch between up to four types, assuming you can find the Parts needed to gain access to them.
To first use Ride Armors in this game, you need to first find the Part labeled N in Blast Hornet's stage with the help of the Tornado Fang. This is a standard Chimera that can jump punch and dash. I used this to reach a Sub-Tank in this same stage, and the last one I needed to find for this playthrough.
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At 4:55 and 6:20, in Tunnel Rhino's stage, if you have the Arm Upgrade and Volt Catfish's Triad Thunder, you can charge it up to make the boulders fall to reach a Heart Upgrade and the Head Upgrade, respectively.
The Head Upgrade will let you find more of these missing hidden items for the rest of the game. Usually as soon as you start a stage. It will also finally reveal more details of what upgrades each of the Maverick stages before you play them:
If the upgrade is in white text, you already have it. If it's in red/pink text, it hasn't been gotten yet. If it's marked as "????", it's either a Armor Upgrade you have yet to grab.
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At 8:38, in Crush Crawfish's stage, use a Ride Armor and bring it to a cracked wall at 9:14, to get a Heart Upgrade.
I then realized I missed another secret before that. Go to the platform at 9:40 and use the charged-up Triad Thunder to smash through it and reach the Change-H Part for the Ride Armors.
This will let you use a Hawk mod that specializes in flying.
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At 11:56, in Blast Hornet's stage, a new spot to the left will be accessible IF you can beat Volt Catfish. This will lead to a Heart Upgrade.
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At 13:13, in Blizzard Buffalo's stage, use a Ride Armor to smash through a floor of ice blocks to reach another Heart Upgrade, and the last one for this playthrough.
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At 16:22, in Toxic Seahorse's stage, take the water-based Frog mod of the Ride Armor (which can be found in Gravity Beetle's stage with the Leg Upgrade) to muscle through a strong water current and then take out the fans responsible for it.
The turtle enemies you destroy along the way will have their spiked shells float to the surface, which can be a problem with reaching the Change-K Ride Armor mod to the left. Charge up a Frost Shield and use its ice platforms to make your way to that part.
The Kangaroo Ride Armor has spikier fists for combat.
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After doing all this, I should have ALL of the NECESSARY upgrades and ready to take on the last Doppler stages.
If there's any that you noticed me missing in this video, that was done on purpose. It was pretty much all of the Enhancement Chips.
As I said before, Enhancement Chips are further upgrades to the Armor Parts. They will be found in Pink Light Capsules compared to the Blue Light Capsules for the actual Armor Parts.
But they have some downsides that dissuade me from using them:
Only one Chip can be installed at a time, and that's assuming you've already found the Armor Part that they each correspond to.
Chips cannot be swapped. You just only get to have one Chip per playthrough.
There is... a MUCH better secret 5TH Chip that you can get to make up for this, and this can only be done if you ignore all of the regular 4 Chips, but have gotten every single other upgrade in the game.
That last note is what inspired this video and all of its previous Parts in this playthrough. As Part 11 will involve the first Doppler stage, I'll also get to show off the biggest reward of following everything I did in this playthrough up to this point.