In-Depth Character Discussion: Mr. X

*Original post by cong100.

I've noticed that nobody really talks up about Mr. X. maybe it's because he's the main bad-guy and we'd rather pound on him than play as him. I've been able to beat mania solo even with the cheat playing against 2 bosses at the same time on starting with 3 lives. Here are the reasons why I like him:

-Best neutral special (standing A) in the game, imo. Just stand up near the top of the plane and Mr. X's tommy gun will mow everyone down. I usually will try to capitalize on that moment of respite for me by rushing towards my enemies and do an tommy gun ram and knock 'em all down again. It's also very useful for getting that one near guarantee hit to end a fight with a boss.

-For a big guy, Mr. X is a deceptively speedy fighter. His punches comes out fast, and has very good reach. It's useful for out-poking most of your enemies.

- Mr. X's offensive special (Fwd + A) is super useful in that you can use it to snipe on enemies who are idle all the way on the other side of the battlefield. Getting your enemies softened up before they can even get near you is very helpful indeed.

- His regular blitz, the tommy gun ram, is fast, powerful and has a big enough collision box that it can knock down an entire group of baddies.

-Finally, Mr. X's aerial game is excellent ... no, i'm not talk about Mr. X himself, but rather in how effective he is able to launch his foes!! He can throw an enemy so fast, efficient and far that I could almost wipe out an entire group of bad guys just by throwing people around.

Mr.X also has deceptively long range, it can be used to mess with the A.I and hit them before they are ready.

Infact it's good to poke them with a few punches before setting up a combo or some form of grab. Works on most enemies in the game, even the Kickboxers if you catch them off guard.

Mr.X can't vault, he does a double kick instead, but he's totally invincible doing it, and this kick hurts mutliple enemies, rather than just the one you grabbed.

Mr.X's offensive special ( > A) the further the bullets fly the more damage they do to an enemy or enemies.

Laucorn wrote:Mr.X's offensive special ( > A) the further the bullets fly the more damage they do to an enemy or enemies.

In more accurate expression it is:
In very close range it takes about 15% of a bar, downs enemies.
At further range it takes about 11% of a bar per bullet, only the last bullet downs enemies.

I'm in the middle of a Mr. X run, and I gotta say... Throwing bad guys has never been more fun.

The only thing I can say about Mr. X...as a playable character, he has got to be THE single most broken character in the roster (more than Rudra, even!). Makes sense since he's the Syndicate boss, though.  

Shadow Fist King wrote:The only thing I can say about Mr. X...as a playable character, he has got to be THE single most broken character in the roster (more than Rudra, even!). Makes sense since he's the Syndicate boss, though.  

Elaborate

Don Vecta wrote:

Shadow Fist King wrote:The only thing I can say about Mr. X...as a playable character, he has got to be THE single most broken character in the roster (more than Rudra, even!). Makes sense since he's the Syndicate boss, though.  

Elaborate

Well, Mr. X hits harder than anyone else when he does his rushing blitz. His normal attack has pretty long reach. His throws take out a good amount of life. Where the characters would normally vault over enemies to throw them from behind, Mr. X instead does a jump-kick that, while not very powerful compared to the just-mentioned attacks, still has a fairly lengthy reach. And then there's his special attack - spraying bullets at different angles, just like his boss counterpart. The only real weaknesses he has are his lack of a "police" attack and inability to use weapons aside from his Tommy gun, but when you consider his strengths, those weaknesses are probably not even worthy to matter as weaknesses.

I didn't play with Mr. X all that much. He's a limited fighter, but very good at what he does.

The novelty of playing with him is also very fun.

Crash Dummie wrote:The novelty of playing with him is also very fun.

Re that comment, here's how I imagine it:

Syndicate thugs: "Hey, let's gang up on Mr. X, he can't possibly take us all--"

Tommy gun: Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!

Mr. X: "See, this is why I'm the boss and you guys are just lowly dispensable mooks."

The more I play Mr. X, the more I'm convinced he's a top-tier character, if not flat out the best in the game. Even without his defensive special that rips through crowds, he'd still be a high-tier fighter with fast movement speed, a double tap up/down that jumps him a huge distance up or down, a ridiculously long range standing punch combo that's also extremely fast (on SoR3 Pause Delay, the only one worth using really due to SoRR enemies being designed for a faster pace), and incredibly useful blitzes. The defensive special is the icing on the cake that lets him play keepaway when necessary and mow down crowds.

Something particularly interesting I've noticed. His 3 star blitz (and possibly 2 star) has some serious priority over enemy attacks. I'm playing the last level on SoR2 route and I've seen it out-prioritize a Barbon's spinkick, an Electra's whip attack (I used it just as the whip got out to full range) and a Souther/Nail's slide attack. The only enemy it hasn't seriously worked against are kickboxers (who are as crazy strong as ever, only Zan's 2/3 star blitzes are pretty much guaranteed to guard break them and mow through crowds), and that's because the kickboxers block it, then retaliate. I've seen Mr. X's normal punches beat out a jumping knee from a kickboxer... his attack range is just ludicrously awesome.

Mr. X's only got a few downsides that are easily made up for by the rest of his moveset: bad range on back attack, poor jumping attack range because it's more of a body slam than extending his legs, no slamming grab attack so he has to resort to the weaker vault kick against enemies who land from throws, and an offensive special that isn't terribly damaging unless you hit an enemy at range, where it will miss occasionally and won't go through crowds (but why bother when his defensive special rocks and is fairly spammable?).

Very nice analysis here bareknuckleroo. I must add on the list of cons is the "no police/magic" since it can be a serious help for some scene (especially in some mods). On the other hand, his off special is really neat against character like Abadede (especially in v5.0 since he was so "ultimate"!) and his vautl kick, though weak (16), has huge inviniciblity, and works on Bongo with a small recovery.

But all in all, I do agree with your conclusion, high tiers character.

I'm not even sure the lack of a police special puts him at any sort of a disadvantage. On scenes where I'd have used a police special, Mr. X can easily do more than that amount of damage in a single life by sheer force of his ridiculous abilities. If Mr. X can do more damage in a single life than a character would do in one life + a police special, then he's ahead of the game.

I get your point but i thought that police has also a crowd control aspect (meat grinder style though) that any good moveset could overcome, and this is why I rate "magic" even better than police despite it weaker damage since it is avaible everywhere/anytime.

But the answer might just rely in skill and experience with the game that I might lack compare to yours.
Thank you again for bringing up that point of view.

The fun of using the vault grab kick is kicking the face of a mook who tries to go after you and you end up kicking his face and the one of the fucktard you just vaulted. Epic win!

I was starting to get attached to X when I stopped playing last year, since I started playing again recently it's kinda continued. I really like his playstyle - a great basic blitz, pretty good advanced blitz (if you can get it off), really fast throws, a great combo with a great finisher (basic blitz) and gunning everyone down is just so satisfying :p

He is weak against bosses though, especially blockers and safe landers (which makes Shiva his worst nightmare). Mainly because his short range blitz is harder to time right (particularly causes trouble against blockers but also against those who have fast attacks/retaliation like Bear/Abadede) and ofc his lack of slams. He also struggles against bikes, as they seem to do a wheelie most times when using a jump attack...even the gun doesn't work too well against them. (I usually try vertical jumps at the screen edge, sometimes you can even hit them twice if you time it right)

But overall I really think he's a top tier toon (despite me not thinking so originally), and in some cases I've actually done better with X than with any of my other specialist toons. (including Maximum of Rage original version, which to me is still the ultimate test for mastering a toon...god knows how I managed a x8 finish on that when I got x1-x4 on the other 3 toons I've done it with)

Mr. X's only got a few downsides that are easily made up for by the rest of his moveset: bad range on back attack, poor jumping attack range because it's more of a body slam than extending his legs, no slamming grab attack so he has to resort to the weaker vault kick against enemies who land from throws, and an offensive special that isn't terribly damaging unless you hit an enemy at range, where it will miss occasionally and won't go through crowds (but why bother when his defensive special rocks and is fairly spammable?).

The jump attack only does 10 so it's quite weak also, but his other jumps are quite good. His vertical jump attack in particular is actually quite handy, as enemies often get caught by the rest of his body when trying to go around him (maybe his hitbox is quite big when he does it). It's not fully reliable, but it does a lot for handling crowds of basic enemies (Donovan/Cody aside) in between gun sprays.

His offensive special is extremely valuable though - not only does it give him a ranged pull (priceless), but can also be used to 1-on-1 some annoying enemies that get up really slow (namely Nora/Bongo) without them getting anywhere near. Plus you can get free hits against the likes of Bear/Shiva/X when you get up after they knock you down.

I'm not even sure the lack of a police special puts him at any sort of a disadvantage. On scenes where I'd have used a police special, Mr. X can easily do more than that amount of damage in a single life by sheer force of his ridiculous abilities. If Mr. X can do more damage in a single life than a character would do in one life + a police special, then he's ahead of the game.

He does suffer in some of the nastiest scenes where polices are allowed (SoR2 ship, factory lift) and even more in user mods where polices are allowed against bosses (particularly ones that block and safe land) but the tactic of rolling or running around madly etc. in between gun usage is effective anywhere.

I get your point but i thought that police has also a crowd control aspect (meat grinder style though) that any good moveset could overcome, and this is why I rate "magic" even better than police despite it weaker damage since it is avaible everywhere/anytime.

It's far more valuable simply because the places you need it most are the places that have no polices allowed. (even more so in user mods, as some of those don't allow polices anywhere)

Offensive special is highly valuable against enemies who enjoy attacking mid to long range grounded (Electras, Suits, Zamza, Antonio, Jack, Clowns, Danch, etc.) as they can eat the set of bullets, thus a nice damage range.