Mega Man X3/Upgrades

Upgrades

Leg Upgrade

• Location: Blizzard Buffalo's stage
• Requirements: none (Zero for an easier jump)
• What it does: You can air dash horizontally or vertically by holding Up on the directional pad, jump, then dash.

Near the end of the stage, stand at the end of the bridge, and do the dash jump. Make sure you are touching the edge and get in to reach the capsule.

X-Buster Upgrade

• Location: Neon Tiger's stage
• Requirements: T. Rhino's Tornado Fang & Leg Upgrade
• What it does: When you charge up your X-Buster and fire twice in a row in succession, the shots will combine and become much more powerful. You can also charge up the special weapons.

Get Tornado Fang and Leg Upgrade. When you see a dark gray cracked wall, use the Tornado Fang to burst through the wall, get in the secret room, and use the Leg Upgrade to reach the capsule.

Body Upgrade

• Location: Volt Catfish's stage
• Requirements: Arm Upgrade & G. Beetle's Gravity Well
• What it does: It reduces the damage by half. When hit, a barrier will appear that reduces the damage even further for five seconds.

Get Gravity Well and X-Buster Upgrade. Reach to the large green-colored platform, and get on it. Charge up the Gravity Well to make the platform go up, and go right to the capsule.

Helmet Upgrade

• Location: Tunnel Rhino's stage
• Requirements: Arm Upgrade & V. Catfish's Triad Thunder
• What it does: on the Stage Select screen, it will tell you what items you got. The pink text indicates the items you haven't gotten yet. When you enter a stage, a map will be shown by X's helmet. The red circles means the items you haven't gotten yet.

Get Triad Thunder and X-Buster Upgrade. After you encountered with Bit (or Byte if Bit was destroyed), reach to the place with the giant boulder blocking the path, charge up the Triad Thunder, and proceed left to the capsule.

Enhancement Chips

Note that you can only have one enhancement chip at the time. Therefore, choose it wisely.

Arm chip

• Location: Gravity Beetle's stage.
• Requirements: a Ride Armor
• What it does: adds Hyper Cannon to your arsenal. It will automatically charge up your X-Buster. It also has its own energy meter.

Get at least the Chimera Ride Armor. After a tall vertical area, go right and jump up to the high wall. Get on the Ride Armor platform, select a Ride Armor, and proceed until you find a cracked wall. Smash it, jump off the Ride Armor, and enter the room to reach the capsule.

Body chip

• Location: Crush Crawfish's stage
• Requirements: a Ride Armor
• What it does: Further reduces the damage, and when you take a damage, the barrier will appear and further reduces damage for five seconds.

Get at least the Chimera Ride Armor. Get on the Ride Armor platform, select any of them (except Frog), reach to the tunnel that resembles a bottomless pit, but it's actually a level. Drop down, and burst through the wall and proceed to reach the capsule.

Leg chip

• Location: Toxic Seahorse's stage
• Requirements: Frog & Chimera Ride Armors
• What it does: You can perform double air dashes.

Get at least two Ride Armors (including Frog). Get on the Ride Armor Platform, select Frog, get in the underwater, destroy the fans on the right wall, get off the Ride Armor, and go right to the capsule.

Energy (head) chip

• Location: Blast Hornet's stage.
• Requirements: Hawk & Chimera Ride Armors
• What it does: When you stand still for a while, your energy and Sub-Tanks will be refilled automatically. This is useful before boss battles.

Get to the top of the conveyor belt, go down and right to the wall. Jump up until you reach to the spiked part, dash jump directly upward to reach the capsule.

Hyper Chip

• Location: Doppler's fortress, stage 1
• Requirements: all 4 "blue" Upgrades, all 8 Hearts, all 4 Ride Armors, all 4 Sub-Tanks

Acquire every available item in the game (Heart Tanks, Sub Tanks, Ride Armor Modules, Armor Upgrades) and forego obtaining any chip enhancements (don't use any pink Dr. Light capsules) before heading to the first Dr. Doppler stage (after the eight Mavericks are defeated). In the first Dr. Doppler stage, kill the mini boss and proceed. Make sure you have full health before sliding down the left side of the first pit you find (where spiked wrecking balls fall) until you reach a portion of the wall that you can walk through. There will be a pink upgrade capsule that will give you the Hyper chip enhancement. This chip is the package deal: it gives you all four armor upgrades, and X becomes so powerful, his Third Armor turns a striking gold color. This is your reward for holding off on the individual chip enhancements, and it should make the final stages a breeze.

• What it does:
  • Recharge your health and Sub-Tanks by standing still
  • All damage inflicted cut by 50%, use an upgraded, orange defensive barrier that will last a full 5 seconds after X gets damaged and cut additional damage by 75% while it is active
  • Utilize the Hyper Charge, X's Giga Attack: allows use of unlimited crossover Charge Shots, so long as the weapon has energy; it refills by a bar for every two hits X takes. With the Hyper Chip, it uses less weapon energy.
  • Dash twice in mid-air

Zero's Saber

• Location: Doppler's fortress, stage 2
• Requirements: (1) Destroy Vile in the Junk Factory using Spinning Blade or Ray Splasher to finish him off; (2) play as Zero in the 2nd Dr. Doppler's stage.

On the second Dr. Doppler stage, play as Mega Man X until you reach the first instance of shutter doors in the stage. You can switch to Zero this once, whereas if a mini boss was on the other side of the doors, X would usually intervene. You'll find a mini boss has indeed appeared in this room, Mosquitus. Defeat it it using Zero, and the mini boss will make a final effort to take Zero with it. Zero will be pinched in a death grip as Mosquitus explodes, doing extreme damage to the Reploid. X immediately transports himself to Zero's location, concerned about his partner's injures. Zero affirms that his power generator is crippled, and he has to return to Dr. Cain's lab for repairs. However, Zero passes on his Z-Saber to X before he goes.

From here out, X's charge shot will reach a fourth stage past the dual Charge Shot that you can overlay. X will swing the Z-Saber and do copious damage to whatever he cuts up. If the saber is used on the ground, it launches a shockwave of beam energy that repeatedly chops up the enemy it hits. The beam wave can effectively reap giant chunks off a boss's health in seconds flat. Unfortunately, Zero will be unable to assist X for the rest of the game, which will result in a change to the game's ending.

• Z-Saber Unlock password: 1454 3535 6162 7162