GAME HINTS

Story

Screen shot from Capcom.
Following the war between the Reploids and the humans, a tyrannical federated government known as the Legion was established. Overruled by the “Sage Trinity” (just how many religious references are they going to throw in here?), this organization strives to blur the lines between Reploid and human (presumably in a somewhat misguided attempt to prevent another war from occurring—or, perhaps, to at least give the humans a decent chance at actually fighting back this time should the Reploids decide to go Maverick). At any rate, they accomplish this by adding cybernetic parts to the humans and assigning artificially limited life spans to the Reploids. (I can imagine this goes over well. Can’t you just see it? “Dear Mr. Reploid: We have arbitrarily decided that your life is to end today and you must be destroyed by sundown. Have a nice day.”)

Special Features

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Screen shot from Capcom.
As an extremely odd design decision, this game almost completely ignores the plot of its predecessor, Mega Man ZX. Instead of all of the models being granted simultaneously to Vent/Aile, each model now has its own “Biomatch” which are various Reploids or humans that they have decided to “Megamerge” with. Once you encounter Vent/Aile, a few nods are finally made toward the previous game’s plot, but mysteriously all of the Biometals no longer recognize each other and various other things about Mega Man ZX appear to have never happened.

From a technical standpoint, however, the game plays in a very similar way to Mega Man ZX. You still pick up new transformations from every major boss you fight, which are then used in much the same way, just now you actually turn completely into the boss in question (seeing as to how you are using Model A). This becomes very amusing very fast when Model A starts to actually emulate other people’s Megamerges. (Though personally I don’t find the Pseudoroid transformations to be all that interesting for the most part. They tend to be big, clunky, and too mobility-challenged or attack-challenged to be terribly useful except for specific gimmick puzzles, and overall I find the regular models to be a lot easier to use.)

One thing of note: the transerver system is a bit different here. You now activate “Warp Points” (100 EC a pop) which allow you to teleport to them via a transerver. Unfortunately, this is a one-way operation; once you transport to a particular location, you have to run back on foot. This actually makes this game reversed from most other games—in classic games, you always have to enter a cleared stage at the beginning and run through on foot, but once you get what you want, you can exit out at any time. Here, you can enter a cleared stage at multiple points but then you have to run all the way back out. Easy to get in, hard to get out.

FAQ

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  • Is Model A Axl?
    Just based on what the games tell us, it’s honestly hard to say for sure. Model A is most certainly designed based on Axl, what with its Megamerge appearance and the two guns and the copy transforms and such. But Model A’s personality seems to imply he’s either not actually Axl or he’s suffered a memory wipe. Contrast this with the previous game, where all of the Biometals behaved as though they were the Reploids from the Zero series, complete with references to the wars in the past (e.g. the Zero games) which heavily implies they were supposed to actually be the Cyber-elf forms of those lost heroes. But with Model A...officially, the answer is unclear. Unofficially, I’m going to say it’s likely (even though at the end of the game Albert claims it’s “Model Albert” but that doesn’t explain the similarities with Axl), but if it is Axl, he’s obviously lost all of his memories. (But then, so too have all of the other Biometals in this game...)
  • Are the three Sages from the original series?
    Their names are definitely an in-joke, but I doubt they are supposed to actually be original series characters. After all, if they were, then Thomas and Mikhail would have known not to trust Albert. The fact that Albert took them by surprise indicates they are entirely different people from their original series namesakes. (Besides, Thomas sounds a little bit more...um...evil than Dr. Light ever did.)
  • Who is Mikhail supposed to represent?
    Dr. Cossack. I don’t believe Cossack was ever officially given a first name in English by Capcom. However, as far as I know that is his name in the Japanese games. (To be honest, I wonder if Mikhail is also supposed to be a nod toward Dr. Cain, but this is pure speculation on my part.)

Review

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Play Control: 4
Screen shot from Capcom.
The play control is pretty much the same from the previous game.
Graphics: 3
Pretty much the same here too, though it seems to me there are a few more places of ambiguity over what objects you can stand on or otherwise interact with, and which ones are just part of the background. Not terrible, though.
Animation: 4
Most of the NPCs in this game have custom sprites and face portraits, which is quite a change from previous titles. Some of their outfits and appearance designs are surprisingly elaborate for being such minor characters. Also, many enemies now have custom animations for when you blow them up with a super-shot, not just when you waste them with a saber slash.
Music: 3
A lot of the songs are either pulled directly from or are remixes of tunes from Mega Man ZX.
Sound Effects: 5
This game has voice acting. In English. My jaw about fell on the floor. Not all of the lines of dialogue have voices, and the voices are down-sampled to fit on the cartridge, but still, they are there. The other sound effects are pretty standard, though Model A sounds like he’s got springs in his boots when he wall-jumps.
Plot: 2
Screen shot from Capcom.
I’m not sure I’m pleased with how they essentially tossed Mega Man ZX out the window. Also, they introduced brand new Biomatches for each of the four main Biometals...and then these new characters play almost no part in the plot. Maybe they will have more character development in the next title—assuming, of course, the next one doesn’t defenestrate this game like this one did to the previous one.
Difficulty: 4 (normal to hard)
Some of the levels can be quite irritating at first, but once you start gathering all of your transformations (particularly Aeolus, Siarnaq, and Queenbee), the difficulty level takes quite a plunge. (Then it shoots right back up again in the final fortress...)
Replay Value: 3
There are certainly a ton of different transformations in this game, making it, in some ways, more interesting to explore stages. You also, as usual, have two characters to play as, although their plots are not connected—contrary to what this game’s marketing claims. Their storylines are not really all that different from each other either, so there’s no huge reason to play through as both of them unless you just want to.
Polish: 3
I honestly have nothing to say here. Nothing jumped out at me, either good or bad.
Overall: 82%
In a way, I kind of liked Mega Man ZX better, but I’m having a tough time putting my finger on exactly why. This game is relatively solid, though a few stages (particularly the final one) make you want to hit the designers over the head with a clue mallet. Still, it’s nowhere near as bad stage design as, say, Mega Man X6, so that’s something.

+ Plus:
You can have as many quests active as you want, and you can therefore be working on multiple quests at a time. (But too bad the quest log in your subscreen isn’t all that helpful.)
- Minus:
You lose your current transformation whenever you talk to someone or get a cut scene. This can be anywhere from irritating to disruptive because it means, for example, that you can’t prepare a charge shot for any transformation except Model A before boss fights (unless you want to die and return...).

Suggested Order

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You don’t have a stage select screen, and you don’t officially select which mission you want to do next. To take a mission, just go to the area where the mission takes place. See the maps for more details on how to reach the areas.
  • Train (Get Buckfire)

  • Tower of Verdure (Get Rospark)
  • Arctic Ice Floe (Use Buckfire a lot here; get Chronoforce)

    You can get to the Oil Field directly from either the tower or the arctic floes, so whichever stage you do last, don’t transport at the transerver, just walk past it. To open the door, follow the instructions the game gives you—destroy the blue orb with Fire, the red orb with Thunder, and the green orb with Ice.

    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Oil Field (Get Atlas)
  • Legion HQ (Get Siarnaq)

  • Highway (Get Thetis)
  • Floating Ruins (Get Aeolus)
  • Control Center (Use Aeolus; get Queenbee)
  • Scrapyard (Get Vulturon)

  • Quarry (Get Model ZX)

  • Waterfall Ruins (Get Argoyle)
  • Mysterious Lab (Get Hedgeshock)
  • Bio Lab (Get Bifrost)

    Now that you have all of the transformations, revisit each stage and pick up things you were unable to obtain on your first pass through. Go around talking to every person you can find first to make sure you have all of the quests that you can get.

  • Undersea Volcano (Get here via Bio Lab3)
  • Ouroboros

Teleporting Hatches

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These don’t really look like hatches, but I couldn’t describe what they look like. Stand in front of one of the holographic crystals and press Up to enter the hatch.

Top left: Vulturon; Top right: Rospark; Bottom-left: Chronoforce; Bottom-right: Buckfire
    
Top left: Argoyle Top right: Hedgeshock; Bottom-left: Bifrost; Bottom-right: Queenbee

After every battle you will get a weapon energy capsule (slash it for something more useful) and a life energy capsule. If you used a Sub Tank on one of the bosses, try to work it out such that you pick up the life energy capsule when your meter is full so that it can go toward your tank.

Bosses

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This doesn’t list all of the stage bosses in the game, just the ones that have some applicable commentary. Bosses that you receive transformations from are covered in the Data Base section.
Spidrill
Screen shot from Capcom.
A large spider. Stand underneath its head as Atlas, hold Up and rapid-fire both guns at once. The spider should go down in about three seconds. In the event you don’t have Atlas yet, you’ll have to dodge and shoot at the head. The spider has rotating legs that fill the entire screen, but touching the legs themselves doesn’t hurt you, only the tips, so you can jump over the tips. The spider moves up and down and sometimes drops some small spiders that you can destroy. If it puts two of its legs together, it will form sparks that will arc upward and then drop down on you; there’s no safe place to stand with this so you will have to move back and forth to dodge.

You can also damage its legs by aiming for the gems on them. If you do this, the spider will strike at a block in the floor with one of its legs; the color of the leg denotes which block the leg will hit.

Langbrach
Another one of those underwater things inside a pod. Destroy the tentacles, and when they are all gone, the blob will appear in the center of the pod. Shoot this to damage the boss. The pod will alternate between the floor and the ceiling, and more tentacles will start coming out as time goes by. If you are unfortunate enough to touch one, you will get stuck to it for a few moments. Sometimes the pod releases fish and other things as well, but hopefully you’ll have destroyed the boss before you start seeing much of this. Use Buckfire here for best results.
Desert Aspis
A sand snake. Switch to Siarnaq and tap the lower screen until it’s dead. If you run out of weapon energy, pause to dodge a bit until your meter refills. In the event you don’t have Siarnaq yet, you need to jump and shoot at its head. The snake can toss red globs that hinder your jumping, and a fire ring that dips toward the ground or explodes outward. It can also flash the screen and stun you (not that this will matter to Siarnaq). If you get close to it, sometimes it will slam itself onto the ground, trying to land on you. Use this opportunity to shoot it in the head. Also, Ashe can charge up as Model A and bounce her lasers off the moving slope to hit the head in almost any position.
Cankerfly
This is the plane from Mega Man ZX, but this time it doesn’t drop boxes. You can climb onto the ledge and strike at it directly, or shoot upward with Atlas or Siarnaq or something of that sort. Aim for its underbelly. The plane seems to mostly try to hover over you, so attempt to choose your location so that the nearby cars won’t get hit.
Capsule Converter
Five cannons on the far wall. They shoot blue shots horizontally, and also send fire along a path as marked by the panels that light up on the wall. As usual, Siarnaq is useful here because you can rapid-fire the cannons while you focus on dodging. Atlas is another good choice just for sheer damage output. Make good use of the ledges in the center of the room.
Giganto Bole
A tree trunk. It shoots bright green leaves that rain down on you in a pattern that shifts enough to make them nontrivial to dodge. The tree can only seemingly be damaged when it opens in the middle to shoot green shots at you. Also, vines can come from the ground and ceiling to wind around you and immobilize you briefly. This won’t hinder you if you’re using Siarnaq as you can tap on the tree to shoot at it anyway.
Model ZX
This battle is actually pretty funny. Your opponent will bound around and slash a lot, and also likes to climb the wall off the top of the screen, then slide back down firing shots. Every once in a while, instead of sliding all the way down, Model ZX will jump off the wall and land somewhere in the center of the screen. There is also the ground-slam move that kicks up boulders (as Grey) or the upward slash that travels through the air (as Ashe). And definitely watch out for that triple-slash. But mostly Model ZX will use the normal buster (sometimes charging up) and the saber. Because of this, keeping your distance doesn’t really help much, and staying close isn’t a good idea either. Overall you need fancy footwork for this fight.
Screen shot from Capcom.
Prometheus and Pandora
They both disappear and reappear and execute various attacks. Prometheus can appear and send vertical beams of fire out in both directions in a couple of different patterns, or leap in and send up bursts of fire where he hits down. Pandora can appear and form lightning versions of her staff to circle around herself, or send parts of her headpiece to shoot ice shards from either side of the screen. She might also float back and forth on her staff while Prometheus does his upward slash that takes him off the screen. One thing you can do with these guys is use Model ZX and use the midair circle-slash to hack of large chunks of their shared life meter.
Hydra Dragon
You need to shoot at the base of its body, not its heads (even though at least one of the heads will show up on Siarnaq’s radar). Unlike some other bosses, you cannot damage the hydra when it’s off the screen so you have to move close enough to it in order for its body to be on-screen so you can shoot it. Blast it over and over, preferably with something like Atlas where you can do heavy damage fast without having to charge. (You can also rapid-fire with one arm while charging the other.) Try to stay back as far as possible so the heads (and later, the necks) don’t bodily strike you.

When you get the hydra’s health meter down, the heads will break off of the necks and float to the top of the screen and then its attack patterns change.

Model W
He’s surrounded by angular pieces like spokes of a wheel. It’s these spokes that do most of the attacking. The spokes are also his weak point and are what you should be aiming at; when you do enough damage to them, they will disappear for a brief span, during which time you can actually damage Albert himself.

Sometimes the spokes go along the floor; you can either dash under them when they are rotating or use Aeolus or something to jump over them. When the spokes form tornados, stay near the rightmost one first, then when the little wind swirls shoot out from the left side, once they are clear of you, dash over to the left side and wait there. There are also pyramids that spout flames on the ground, and Albert can shoot homing shots at you by targeting you first (keep moving to avoid them). When Albert goes into the background, he may fire a laser which meets in the center, so air-dash over it instead of getting sandwiched in between.

Model ZX is fairly useful here; fire fully-charged super-shots when you are far from your target, and slash him with the saber when you are in range (while still charging your buster, of course). You can jump and do the circle-slash to inflict multiple hits when he’s in the air.

As is typical, if you lose to any of the final bosses, you have to do them all over again, and you have no opportunity to refill Sub Tanks, so make sure you can win before you start draining them.

Saved Games

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Screen shot from Capcom.
You get 5 saved games on a cartridge. This is nice for giving you slots for playing the two characters in different difficulty modes. You can also keep saves at particular parts of the plot.

As you probably know already, visit a transerver to save.

Items

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Screen shot from Capcom.
Life Ups
  • Tower of Verdure3: After the spider mini-boss you find a vertical tunnel. There’s a large pipe there that you can climb up, but the pieces drop as you touch them (unless you have the Featherweight equipped). Either climb up the right side of the pipe, or, failing that, fly up there using Queenbee. You want to get on top of the pipe, not inside it.
  • Control Center1: Use Rospark to climb up the elevator shaft above the elevator instead of riding up inside the elevator. The Life Up is at the top left of the shaft.
  • Scrapyard2: Go through a blue-marked door to the right of a red-marked door. It’s through a maze of spike corridors. Use Vulturon to navigate through them, and if you survive, you’ll find the Life Up at the end. (Note: There is a cheating method of getting this. In the room to the left of this area, there is a lever and a spiked wall. Stand on the lever, use Chronoforce to slow down time, then run like crazy to the room with the Life Up in it (Aeolus is good here). If you’re fast enough, you can slide down the wall past the horizontal spiked wall and get the Life Up without navigating the spike corridor.)
  • Waterfall Ruins2: In the area which is relatively open with waterfalls and water at the bottom of the screen and Rumblefish. Head left from where you first enter the area (or right from Waterfall Ruins3 after you’ve gone through the water obstacle course with spikes), and you’ll find a waterfall. Follow the waterfall up, and there’s a ledge and a door behind it. Get up there with Queenbee or Thetis or whatever works for you, and go in the door.
Biometal Upgrades
  • Oil Field2: Underneath a ledge under a door. Get to this by going right from the door where you meet Antonio. (You need Atlas to get down there.)
  • Highway1: Underneath the highway, you will find a red gate that only opens after you shoot a red switch that’s to the left of the door. First, break the walls with Atlas or possibly Buckfire. Then freeze time with Chronoforce, shoot the red switch, and run up and around and back down to where the door is.
  • Quarry3: During the tank tunnel. It’s sitting on some breakable blocks above a bottomless pit. If you let the tank continue its course then it will destroy the blocks and the upgrade will fall off the screen. You can either destroy the tank, try to race it here, die to the tank so that it’s not there when you return, or approach the tunnel from the other direction. (After the tank, just go through the door and then turn around and come right back.) Use Buckfire or Atlas to break the blocks on the left or right side so that you don’t drop the power-up item itself.
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Bio Lab2: It’s in plain sight in the water. You have to use Queenbee to raise a hatch in order to access this area—this lowers the water level. Once you’ve raised this hatch, push the hatch back down again (you can lower a hatch by standing on it with any model except for Queenbee). Then go right; there is another hatch to raise over there that will release water to pour into the lower area. This will almost completely fill the lower area, which will raise the green ledges, which lets you get in where the upgrade is.
Sub Tanks
  • Arctic Ice Floe2: Near the upper right of the area as seen on the Detailed Map, climb up and across the vertical bars using Rospark (or whoever you have handy) and you’ll find the Sub Tank on a high ledge over there.
  • Legion HQ2: Near the bottom of this area, just to the right of a glass wall with a Secret Disk behind it (E 38), is a jet sled. When you find the correct sled, just hang onto it (press Down twice as Siarnaq) and shoot at the glass and such as you go and you will snag the Sub Tank along the way.
  • Floating Ruins3: Complete Meg’s quest.
  • Mysterious Lab3: You need to go through the door that you access by moving the batteries into their places. It’s under a pipe; use Argoyle to snag it.
Screen shot from Capcom.
Miscellaneous
  • Ice Boots: Complete Sharon’s quest.
  • Wind Boots: Complete Tillis’s quest.
  • Featherweight Chip: Complete Antonio’s quest.
  • Eraser Chip: Complete Blossom’s quest.
  • Absorber Chip: Buy it for 99 EC from John in Hunter’s Camp3 (through the green door).
  • Frog Chip: Complete Carley’s quest.
  • E Tank: Buy them from Nick through a door in the area through door number 00 in Hunter’s Camp4.
  • Orange: Talk to Nina in one of the rooms near the train after repairing the train.
  • Shortcake: (The cake is a lie!) Stand in front of the fridge in the room with Nick (in Hunter’s Camp4 through door 00) and press Up to open the fridge and find the cake.
  • Others: Various items randomly pop up in one of the containers in the room in Oil Field3 (inside the airship) that you have to clear away a path to with a donation. They are given to you by month (as determined by your DS calendar). So far I’ve seen...
    • September: Rice Cake.
    • November: Laughy Taffy.
    • December: Mystery Gift. You can give this to the kids at Hunter’s Camp. So far the best trade I’ve found is to give it to Blossom and get Bread.
    • January: Gift Certificate. Use this off your subscreen to convert it to EC.

Tips and Secrets

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General Notes and Tips
  • Here is an overview map that just shows how the areas connect. Mega Boy has created far more detailed maps that show all of the routes and passages. Don’t look at these if you don’t want spoilers.
  • As might be expected, the game starts with two modes: Beginner Mode and Normal Mode. Beginner Mode is basically easy mode, and is very similar to the easy modes from Mega Man Zero 4 and Mega Man ZX. One thing that’s not noted on those two pages, though, is that in Beginner Mode there are also a lot more 1-Ups to be found scattered throughout the stages.
  • There are mini-games you can unlock by doing various things. This list probably doesn’t even scratch the surface, but here are a few...
    • Gem Buster: Talk to Julian in Hunter’s Camp2. This one’s multiplayer.
    • Quiz Advent: Beat the game (Beginner Mode is fine).
    • Mega Man a: (sic) Beat the game (Beginner Mode is fine). This is a crazy wrong game that looks like something a fan would make—it’s a ZX Advent-themed stage done in NES-quality graphics and sound. You even fight Model W at the end (significantly toned down, of course).
    • Survival Road: Beat the game with both characters (Beginner Mode is fine). You fight all of the game’s major bosses in a row without a break. You are given one life, 16 units in your life and weapon meters, and two full Sub Tanks. Outside of these you get no health refills whatsoever, and no special items.
  • All of your transformations share a weapon meter, but the meter gradually refills over time, so don’t be afraid to use your special abilities. Having said that, if you suddenly find you can’t charge, you may be out of weapon energy.
  • One place to gather 1-Ups is Oil Field1, since there are two there (also one in Oil Field2 if you really want to go that far). Easy to get to, easy to leave because there’s a transerver nearby (in Tower of Verdure1). Grab the 1-Ups, exit to the tower area, then return to get them again.
  • Remember that transervers will give you free 1-Ups if you visit one when you have less than 2 lives. So before you go stockpiling, step on a transerver first.
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • If a boss is giving you troubles, try switching briefly to Chronoforce, charging up and setting off a Time Bomb, then switching back to whatever transformation is useful on the boss. This will slow down the boss’s attacks and movement, and make it easier for you to strike him. When the Time Bomb wears off, do it again.
  • You can fly virtually anywhere with Queenbee. Even though flying uses weapon energy, once you get up to altitude you only have to tap the jump button every second or so, which is almost enough time for your weapon energy meter to refill a bar. You may eventually run out of energy, but you can go a long distance before that happens, and you can always find a spot to land and rest for a moment as need be. Don’t like a particular stage? Just fly through it!
  • When you need to break blocks with Atlas, you don’t have to charge all the way up. Try charging both arms at once, and charge one while you are smashing with the other, to speed things up.
  • Siarnaq turns out to be a surprisingly good mini-boss basher. By tapping the touch screen you can hit the boss at any time that it is vulnerable regardless of where on the screen the boss is positioned. Sometimes it’s hard to touch the boss’s “!” mark easily, but if you can find a place where you can dodge with one hand (using either the control pad with the left hand or the jump button with the right hand), you can spare the other hand to rapid-tap the screen until you are out of weapon energy. After this, focus on dodging and fighting like normal until your weapon meter refills, and repeat.
  • Later in the game, if you’re having troubles with a boss, try the triple-slash of Model ZX, or alternately, the circle-slash from the air if you can’t get at the enemy on the ground. This is a pretty universal technique that works well on most things.
  • Various people report unlocking “Model a” (sic) by earning all of the medals. I have never done this so I can’t verify, but there you go.
Miscellaneous Area Tips
  • To revisit the initial Train level, don’t talk to Dan, the Raider standing near the train; instead, just run past him and jump onto the train itself.
  • In the Tower of Verdure, you can get the spider mini-boss to destroy chunks of the floor by shooting at its legs instead of its head. Once it has put a hole in the floor, jump through the hole without defeating Spidrill, and the spider will follow you down. Do this twice and you can access the Warp Point down at the bottom of the tower.
  • If you want to fully explore the Oil Field, be sure to look for walls and floors you can break with Atlas or Buckfire.
  • In the Arctic Ice Floes, remember you are invulnerable to spikes from the top when using Chronoforce. You can even push around ledges that have spikes on them, if you push them from underneath.
  • In Floating Ruins, you can drop downward through the tornados without getting swept away by hovering using Aeolus (or by using Bifrost, if you want to drop like a rock).
  • Don’t forget that you can hang onto the undersides of the jet sleds in Legion HQ with Siarnaq (get on the sled and double-tap Down).
  • In the Scrapyard, you can use Siarnaq to pull down levers in the ceiling which open up spiked walls for you to go past. You can also stand on the levers. If you need more time to get past a spiked wall, stand on the lever, use Chronoforce to slow down time, then start moving toward the door.
  • Also in the Scrapyard, notice that Siarnaq’s radar on the lower screen will point out which doors are trap doors (“fake” doors aren’t shown on the radar).
  • You can put out fires in the Control Center with Aeolus and they actually stay out. You can also pause the fire cannons by shocking them.
  • With the Featherweight chip active, you can avoid sinking into the cyan gunk in the Bio Lab and the piles of junk in the Scrapyard.
  • Bifrost might not be very useful, but he’s heavy. If you need something to sink (such as a jet sled in Legion HQ...hint hint), stand on it with Bifrost.
  • Use Thetis’s lower screen in the Quarry to see where the spikes are before you blow up the chains of blocks.
  • In the Undersea Volcano, make sure to make good use of Chronoforce’s head.
  • In Ouroboros, be careful about which blocks you destroy and make good use of your models. Chronoforce to slow down time and keep the blocks from reappearing so fast, Siarnaq to surgically aim at enemies and destroy them without destroying blocks around you, Thetis to see what’s below you before you drop down, and so on.
Quests

This is a brief listing of most of the optional side quests you can receive. Not all of them are listed here, but this should get you started. Look for people with “!” marks over their heads to see if they have quests for you. If they don’t have a “!” mark, try talking to them to see if they will acquire one.

You can take quests at any time; you aren’t restricted to doing only one quest at a time in this game like you were in the previous one. It’s a good idea to go around talking to everyone gathering quests before you go on missions so you can do everything at once.

  • Richard: Hunter’s Camp3. I guess this is technically a quest. He gives you a range key which you can use to enter a room and try to beat his score. This is a mini-game. If you fail, you have to talk to the guy, give the key back, then talk to him again and get the key again. (This wouldn’t be so bad if the messages saying you give away or get the key wouldn’t take so long.) One way to complete this is to use Siarnaq and stand on the floor a bit away from the holes in the wall, shooting straight forward rapid-fire while tapping any high targets on the touch screen. Get: 100 EC. This quest is repeatable, but you have to beat your own record each time.
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Jim: Hunter’s Camp café (door 01). He wants a fruit for the girl he likes. Find the green apple in Tower of Verdure1 by scaling the vertical vines to the left of the area. Get: 200 EC.
  • Mary: In Arctic Ice Floe2, there’s a moth over her head that she wants you to catch. You can use Aeolus or Queenbee or even Buckfire to get yourself up there. You just have to touch the moth bodily. Get: 100 EC.
  • Patrick: Train3. He’s got a backpack that someone left behind, and asks you to bring it to the Hunter’s Camp. You want to give it to Ray in Hunter’s Camp2. He gives you a disk with a comic book on it in return that you need to give to Patrick. Talk to Patrick, and he says he can’t analyze the disk, so he gives it back to you. Get: Secret Disk (O 02).
  • Meg: Floating Ruins3, inside a cave. She wants your help finding four “ancient artifacts.” Make sure to pick them up one at a time and give them to her, otherwise the last one you pick up will overwrite all the others. Also, if you die after picking one up but before giving it to her, you’ll have to go get it again. Anyway, one’s an L Tank found just above the door leading to Floating Ruins1 (use Buckfire or Aeolus or whatever to get up there). One’s a Yashichi (a “Pinwheel”) found in Floating Ruins2 near some tornados (drift down using Aeolus). One’s an Energy Balancer (“Old Balancer”) in Floating Ruins3 through the door to the upper left that’s guarded by Pulse Cannons. You can either use Bifrost to break the walls or fly over with Queenbee—if you come in high enough, even after the cannon disables your jump button, you will be able to drift onto the ledge. The last one is an energy capsule (a “Light Bulb”) in Floating Ruins4 (use Queenbee to fly down underneath the center platform.) Once you have delivered all four of them, talk to Meg again for your reward. Get: 300 EC and a Sub Tank.
  • Nick: A room in Hunter’s Camp4, through the 00 door, after you clear out the tunnels. He wants to turn the room into a café. Exit the 00 door back out to the outside and you’ll find the blueprints on the fence to the left of the area. You can dash-jump off the wall to reach them, or use Aeolus or any method you have to get up there and snag them. Get: 200 EC. (After doing this, you can buy E Tanks from him for 500 EC each.)
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Kidd: Through door 00 in Hunter’s Camp4. He needs a “Legendary Pickaxe” from Quarry1 in the large dark room, near the lower left corner of the room. He’ll open the passage for you once he has the pickaxe.
  • Chris: Hunter’s Camp2, high up on a cliff. Talk to Ray about this one (he’s in Hunter’s Camp2). He says he sold his stuff to Tina. Tina can be found a little ways to the right of Rey. She gave the Secret Disk away to one of the kids in Hunter’s Camp. Talk to Chris again at this point. Get: Secret Disk (O 04). (This disk is hilarious.)
  • Tillis: Train3. The fire is on a building after the mine cart thing in Legion HQ2. Use Queenbee to pick up the water that you find to the right and fly it over the fires. You will eventually run out of water so get the fires out quick. Get: Wind Boots.
  • Antonio: Oil Field2, through a door down at the bottom of the screen; break the floor of one of the pipes to get down there. He lost a wrench in the same room where you talk to him. Go upward and scale the obstacle course. You can use Siarnaq to hold onto the handles that are sliding along tracks, or you can just fly up there with Queenbee. (You can also stand on the moving handle platforms.) Get: Featherweight.
  • Romeo: In the last room you open in Hunter’s Camp door 00, after getting the Legendary Pickaxe. He wants you to go to Legion and check on an order regarding some shelves. You get 1000 EC to buy the shelves. Find Austin standing in area Train3 inside the door. Talk to him twice. Give 1000 EC and he says he’ll deliver the shelves. Go back and talk to Romeo again for your reward. Get: 100 EC. (You could just keep the 1000 EC and never complete the quest, but you need the shelves to open up other quests.)
  • George: Hunter’s Camp1 (outside, on a high ledge above door 00). Talk to him, then go left and drop down for a mini-game where you have to shoot enemies to protect the crates. Get: 300 EC (but the reward is dependant on how well you do).
  • Doug: He’s high up on top of the building over the 01 door in Hunter’s Camp. He wants you to defeat Buckfire. There are eight Hunters up here. Ostensively, their quests cause the Pseudoroid bosses to reappear in their usual locations so that you can go fight them again. When you have done this, go back to the quest giver to get your mission request signed. Then take it to Ward in the café of the Hunter’s Camp (through door 01) to get your reward. These quests are repeatable. However, the real reason they are here is to allow you to earn medals. After taking a quest, talk to the quest giver again to learn the requirements for that Pseudoroid’s medals. (If he doesn’t tell you about a particular medal, then you already have it.)
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Kirk: To the right of Doug. Take down Queenbee. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Chuck: He’s just to the right of Kirk. Chronoforce is back at the Arctic Ice Floe. This is the same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Ben: To the right of Chuck. Bifrost is back at the Bio Lab. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Roger: To the right of Ben. Rospark is back at the Tower of Verdure. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Tim: To the right of Roger. Hedgeshock is back at the Mysterious Lab. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Kyrian: To the right of Tim. Vulturon is back in the Scrapyard. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Abe: To the right of Kyrian. Argoyle & Ugoyle are back in the Waterfall Ruins. Same deal as with Doug’s quest.
  • Pierre: Hunter’s Camp1. You need to find a bird-shaped mini-cam. Go to Control Center3. Break the blocks in the ceiling of the passage with Atlas or Buckfire to reach the smoky room. Clear the smoke with Aeolus. Walk forward, and you will set up the cage automatically. Wait for the bird to enter the cage, then walk past the cage again to pick it up and get the bird. Get: 300 EC. (He tells you that you can keep the cage, but you actually don’t. The bird and the cage end up in the room with the fridge in the door 00 area though.)
  • Carley: One of the rooms through door 00 in Hunter’s Camp4. She wants you to pinpoint the location of an old Mechaniloid. Go to Oil Field1 just under the ladder that leads to the next area. You place the transmitter automatically. Get: Frog.
  • Romeo: (Again) After getting his shelves, he offers you this quest. Some Hunters went to pick up a chandelier and haven’t returned yet. They’re in Control Center3, through a door in the back wall after the elevator and mini-boss and up the vertical tunnel with the platforms that disappear when you touch them. Get: 300 EC.
  • Amy: She’s in the same room as Romeo later in the game. She wants you to find a plant. At Legion HQ1, in the areas with the stairs, there are a number of potted trees. Stand in front of the one you like and press Up and you’ll pick it up. Return it to Amy. As far as I know, it doesn’t matter which one you choose, except for the snapper plant (the animated one). If you pick the snapper, your reward is severely diminished. Get: 400 EC. (You can water the plant using the bucket you got from the shop at the train station. Press Up while standing in front of the plant. The bucket refills automatically whenever you go underwater.)
  • Anna: The nurse outside door 02 in the Hunter’s Camp. You need to find Nightingale, her white bird. Go through the green door behind Sharon into Hunter’s Camp3. The bird is just beyond the door. Raise the cage using Queenbee and fly it over the bird, then drop it while you are in the air so that the cage lands over the bird. Once the bird is inside the cage, walk up to the cage to pick it up. Return it to Anna. Get: 200 EC.
    Screen shot from Capcom.
  • Jarke: Hunter’s Camp2. He wants a model train set. Talk to Owl in Hunter’s Camp3 (through the red door). He wants pudding in exchange for a model train. Get it out of the fridge in one of the rooms through door 00 and take it to him, then take the train to Jarke. Get: 300 EC.
  • Sharon: Hunter’s Camp3 near one of the green doors (through the red door). Once you get the shelves, she wants to fill them with comic books. She gives you 200 EC to buy them with. Go to the store by the train. You have to choose which comics to buy; they get more expensive as you go down the list. I don’t know that it matters which one you pick, other than what kind of reaction you get from Sharon. Get the most expensive ones if you want to make her happy, but you seem to receive the reward no matter what. Get: Ice Boots.
  • Blossom: Hunter’s Camp3. She wants flowers. There’s a lily in Waterfall Ruins2, just outside the door that you exit to reach the waterfall area. Get: 100 EC and an Eraser chip.
  • Burt: Highway3. He wants you to race a Galleon Rider. Agree to race, then run over and jump onto the moving platform. As far as I can tell, you get slowed down by taking damage. Try to destroy the enemies around you (no, you can’t hurt the Galleon) so that they don’t damage you, and you should win easily. Get: 100 EC. You can probably replay this race to upgrade your title. (In some cases you have to donate to repair the bridge before you can do this quest. The amount you have to give is probably related to how much damage you allowed the mini-boss to do. You donate in 400 EC chunks.)
  • Elena. Hunter’s Camp café (door 01). A Mechaniloid stole her pendant and ran off with it. Go to Bio Lab4 to the empty room that you have to get to by crawling through the narrow tunnels. Lots of enemies swarm you here. You actually aren’t interested in those; destroy them until the bird robot flies across the screen high in the air and shoot it down to get the pendant. Get: 500 EC.
  • Nicol: (Ashe only?) Hunter’s Camp2. He’s looking for Lazarus and Red. Red can be found in Oil Fields1 in that room you have to open the door to by pulling it up as Queenbee. Lazarus is in Arctic Ice Floe3, in the room you need Bifrost to access (because of the red gem on the door). Get: 200 EC.
  • James: Scrapyard2, in a room through several doors and past a section with slanted ledges. He wants you to bring him some junk to recycle. Not far from his room is a lever that raises a spiked wall. On the other side is a fake door, but there’s also an Ignition item there too. Then go to Scrapyard3 and in the main room you should find a piece of metal (Titanium Alloy) near an energy capsule. Finally, starting from the Scrapyard4 Warp Point, head left back into Scrapyard3, make sure the moving blocks are green, then crawl through the narrow passage and then go up and around to the door that’s on one of the green blocks. Get across the pit there and you’ll find an Engine. Bring these three items back to James and he’ll charge you 100 EC to put them together. Get: Booster.
  • Peter: Waterfall Ruins4, through the door over the door that leads to the remains of the computer. He wants you to get rid of some Chabanos. Go through the door behind him and destroy all the bug robots in there. Go back and talk to Peter. This time, he wants you to find and destroy 50 (green) Chabanos that have escaped. You’ll find them spread in various places throughout the other stages of the game. Look in every nook and cranny for them.

Endings

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Grey’s Ending

Naturally, now that Albert is defeated, the flying fortress Ouroboros is falling. And naturally, Grey only now decides he’s exhausted and he collapses.

Meanwhile, Model X urges Aile to go help Grey. Model Z unmerges with the two of them, leaving Aile morphed with just Model X. Model Z says he can handle the four Biomatches and urges Aile to go on without him. Aile leaves, and Model Z paralyzes his enemies, preventing them from following her. (Why couldn’t he do that in Mega Man ZX?)

Grey wakes up back at the Hunter’s Camp to find that Model A was actually worried about him. He goes outside and speaks to Aile. Grey decides he wants to find his destiny. He’s not sure where he’ll go, but he’s going to explore the world. Model A asks to accompany him, and off they go.

Ashe’s Ending

Right before blowing up, Albert tells Ashe that she’s surpassed him and that his research wasn’t wrong after all. Following this, Ashe discovers she can’t move, and collapses. Meanwhile, Model Z does his thing so that Vent can go help Ashe (see Grey’s ending). Given this, I assume Model Z will have a new Biomatch come the next game...

Ashe wakes up back at the Hunter’s Camp to find that Model A was actually worried about her. She goes outside and speaks to Vent, who says he’ll be off flying around in Guardian Base because there are a lot of things that need finding. Ashe teases that she would love to dig up lots of booty, get rich, and buy back the world from Legion. More seriously, she says that she’d like to explore the world and have her exploits become famous. Vent reminds Model A that he can choose for himself what to do, so naturally Model A decides to accompany Ashe.

Hard Mode Ending

If you beat the game on Hard Mode, you get an extra bit to the ending where the remaining two Sages discuss the recent events between themselves. Thomas seems to imply here that he somehow created the four Biomatches (Aeolus, Siarnaq, Atlas, and Thetis). He also reveals that he, like Albert, believes in “resetting” the world. Sound familiar, anyone?

Thanks to Mega Boy for this.