Intermission

Intermissions are mini-games featured in Mega Man X8. They do not need to be played to complete the game, and serve mainly as a distraction to provide the player with a safe, risk free way of collect large amounts of Metals to buy Chips from the Research and Development Lab.

The Intermissions can be played repeatedly and the player can quit them at anytime. Winning or losing won't effect the players Hunter Rank; and likewise dieing won't cost a Retry Chip.

Unlocking
Obtaining Intermissions requires the player to experience game overs (Mission's Failed) a certain number of times in a row. How many times depends on the Intermission being unlocked and the number of stages that have been cleared before hand. The game keeps track of this and uses it to the determine if the player will receive an Intermission when returning to the stage select screen. The counter restarts when the player starts or clears a mission. If an Intermission has been successfully unlocked, Alia will immediately interrupt to announce an "emergency" upon returning to the stage select screen.

During a New Game+, the player must receive a game over at least once after clearing an Intermissions' corresponding stage.

Stages
To select an Intermission, choose any of the four stages where an Intermission has been unlocked. The game will then present a choice of the regular Mission or the Intermission before proceeding to character select screen.

Noah's Park
Defeat as many Crabs-K as possible and survive through a mass of enemies in the waterfall section (where Crabs-Y was fought for the second time). The game keeps record on how many Crabs-K where defeated (with a maximum of 999 Crabs-K, but the intermission will still continue until the player is defeated). The only way to complete the mission is to destroy the claw belonging to Crabs-Y while surviving this stage. The default Navigator for this Intermission is Alia.

This Intermission must always be unlocked first in order to gain the others.

Inferno
The player must make their way down through ascending platforms (similar to certain sections in the main stage). The game records on how deep the player descends down the shaft. There are fixed platforms, moving platforms as well as weight-induced descending platforms, and sometimes a combination of these as well. There are Metals on each one of them and the speed of descent will also vary. The default Navigator for this Intermission is Palette.

Central White
The player uses the Barius Ride Chaser to clear a path to the Environmental Research Center, destroying barricades blocking the way. There are Metals up for grabs in certain sections of the stage so remember to get them as well. The number and size of the walls will increase as the race goes on. At the end you'll reach a giant wall that needs to be broken down to get to the finish line where there are three lines of Metals to grab before finishing the stage. The player only needs to clock the fastest time used to get to the finish line. The default Navigator for this Intermission is Alia.

Troia Base
This is the only Intermission where two characters can be selected. The player will be transported to the Boss Rooms similar to Gateway to fight the eight Maverick Bosses again, but with a 10-minute time limit. The player will need to fight against time to clear all of them out before the time limit is up or the mission will end immediately when the timer reaches zero. It is recommended to have all Maverick weapons before tackling this one. The less time is taken to down a Maverick Boss, the more Metals will be collect after every boss battle. The default Navigator for this Intermission is Layer.