Project X Zone

In the same vein as Namco X Capcom, this is a crossover game that combines characters from various series by Namco/Bandai, Capcom, and even Sega. It lands a spot here because it happens to include a few characters from the X series and the Legends series.

Overall, the game is very silly and doesn’t take itself seriously. The characters don’t think anything of jumping dimensions and seeing all sorts of bizarre folk pop out of nowhere. The game also loves to do things like pair Valkyrie and Demitri together, and make endless jokes about Arthur’s disappearing armor (from Ghosts ’n Goblins). Sänger from Super Robot Wars makes an appearance here...along with everything from various fighting games to Resident Evil and Devil May Cry.

As a strategy game it is extremely simple. The real point of the game appears to be to overkill enemies in the most flashy way possible. There isn’t much play control during battle; you use typical “Namco syndrome” button presses to select moves, but otherwise the characters attack automatically. Proper timing in using moves is really the largest challenge (with air-juggle being your biggest foe).

Of course I’m going to focus on Mega Man series characters here, given the nature of this site.

Parental Warning: Unlike most Mega Man related games, this one is not suitable for children.

Notes on my unit data: Since damage is so heavily influenced by your level, equipment, target, and other factors, I am just giving a rough estimate of damage based on using the neutral attack as the “100%” rating. Also, these ratings assume a large/heavy enemy; lighter ones get juggled so much as to cause 1 or 2 hits per attack to miss even outside of anything else going on. “Block” ratings are the percentage of hits that get through a basic 8-point block and strike the target; these are simply an estimate of how good the attack is at breaking shields. Possible status ailments are marked: <D> is Down and <S> is Stun. Note that the in-game ratings for XP gain per move are mostly accurate, although in practice they vary by ±1% for unknown reasons, so you won’t always get the advertised amount.

I wasn’t originally going to review a cameo game, but since I had a few things to say, decided to go ahead and do it anyway.

Play Control:

There really isn’t much in the way of play control. What’s there works.

Graphics:

The stage backgrounds are 3-D without really making this conspicuous, blending nicely into the sprites for the most part. It is possible, however, to rotate the camera in ways that make the 2-D facing of the sprites very obvious. I’m still glad for the rotation feature, however. The character portraits are also well-drawn individually, though they retain the drawing styles of their respective games, which means they don’t really necessarily match each other when shown together. (For example, Tron with huge anime eyes and toon-shading standing right next to Chris with more realistic shading and proportions.)

Animation:

During battle, the motion of the sprites is handled remarkably well for having so few actual frames of animation. The sprites are placed in 3-D space and the camera’s movements are carefully choreographed to give the illusion of 3-D despite being flat 2-D sprites. 3-D graphical effects overlaid on top of (and behind) the sprites add to this illusion. Honestly speaking, I imagine half the budget of the game went into the art alone. (On the other hand, the target of an attack doesn’t really animate; I suppose in a way this is a good thing. They make better punching bags when they hold still.)

Music:

Lots of music here, as every unit has a theme (some of them have two) on top of the usual tunes required for story scenes and such. Most of the songs are remixes taken from external sources, but I enjoyed a lot of the music in this game. Several tunes jumped out at me right away, including the .hack theme, Soma & Alisa’s theme, Tron’s, X’s, and so on.

Sound Effects:

The voice acting was left in Japanese. Disappointing, but ridiculously unreasonable to expect them to dub a game like this. I have no way of knowing whether they got all of the original voice actors, but considering the state of voice acting in Japan, I imagine they did. The other half of the budget for the game went into the voices, I suspect.

Plot:

I can’t say the plot is particularly involved (in fact, the entire plot is pretty much one big McGuffin), but the interactions between the characters can get especially amusing.

Difficulty: (easy)

This may be called a strategy game, but don’t expect Final Fantasy Tactics here. Since the units are pretty much handed to you and there is little you can do to customize them, victory is much more easily assured. The largest challenges come when the game gives you a time limit of some sort. The other challenge is in spreading out EXP gain so that you don’t end up with one or two units shooting way ahead in levels while everyone else stagnates...

Replay Value:

Soldier through the game and you unlock the clear game save, which allows you to...do it all over again. Honestly, the game is fun to begin with, but begins to wear thin halfway through, mostly because the battles increasingly start taking forever.

Polish:

Despite the simplicity of the game, there are a number of extra touches, largely with the artwork. Take a look at the shadows on the sprites during battle, for example. Also, another rarity: notice that some of the character portraits (and sprites) aren’t strictly x-flipped. Depending on whether characters are facing to the left or to the right, they are sometimes redrawn as necessary to take into account asymmetrical aspects of their designs. (For example, Reiji’s white hair doesn’t suddenly move to the opposite side of his head just because he turns around, as happens in most 2-D games.)

Overall: N/A

I’m not going to give this one a numerical rating. It’s an entertaining enough game, but difficult to recommend unless you can get it cheap or if you just really enjoy a lot of the characters that are involved.

+ Plus:

Hilarious dialogue is hilarious.

- Minus:

Not much strategy to the strategy game, and not much character development in the plot, despite (or perhaps due to) having a gazillion characters.

Music: X’s intro stage (Mega Man X4) / Zero’s “fight” theme (multiple)

I’m listing them first even though these guys don’t even show up until two turns into Chapter 20. As a unit, I find them to be pretty solid attackers, though their skills are situational at best. Unlike a lot of units (particularly the ranged ones), X & Zero have little trouble breaking through enemy guards. I’d say + is their best normal attack. It deals good damage, breaks through virtually any guard you’ll ever come up against, has fairly wide attack coverage, and as a bonus it doesn’t juggle the enemy very much at the beginning, giving you a window of opportunity to get a decent cross-hit in. You’ll probably want to open every battle with it.

Attacks

• X-Buster & Z-Saber - 9 hits - Damage: 100% - Block: 55% - XP +6%
  X shoots three times with his regular arm cannon, then backsteps and charges up for a super-shot. Zero waits until about halfway through the attack, then dashes forward and does a triple-slash.
• + Tornado Fang & Kuuenzan - 11 hits - Damage: 115% - Block: 63% - XP +5%
  Zero does four quick slashes and then hops and performs a circle-slash in the air. X charges a Tornado Fang and dashes forward with it preceding him on his arm cannon. After passing through (or under) the enemy in this way, he finishes off with a Rising Fire uppercut.
• + Frost Tower & Hyouretsuzan - 11 hits - Damage: 114% - Block: 72% - XP +3% - <D>
  X starts off with a tornado on the end of his arm cannon (he terms this a Storm Tornado; it’s not precisely the same thing, but whatever). He then dashes forward and uses a Frost Tower that freezes the enemy. Meanwhile, Zero opens with a flaming upward slash (Ryuenjin). He does a Kuuenzan double-jump circle-slash, and then on his way down he uses a Hyouretsuzan (down-stab ice spear) on the enemy that X has frozen, shattering the ice.
• + Twin Slasher & Raijingeki - 13 hits - Damage: 123% - Block: 84% - XP +5% - <S>
  X releases an uncharged Tornado Fang (three drills at different heights). Meanwhile, Zero charges up his saber. X leaps into the air and shoots three Twin Slashers while Zero stabs forward with his cyan blue charged saber.
• + Nova Strike & Shippuuga - 11 hits - Damage: 120% - Block: 68%* - XP +3%
  Yep, a Nova Strike on a Normal Attack. This is one of the only Normal Attacks in the game that has an in-game damage rating of “S” (though in practice, it’s actually weaker than their + attack except against light enemies that get juggled easily, as this is their only attack that will land every single hit regardless of enemy weight). In terms of animation, X uses a Spin Wheel and then executes a Nova Strike (without the armor). Meanwhile, Zero dashes through the foe and performs several circle slashes on his way back to the right.
  *Note: Despite the relatively poor block rating, this move appears to have a curious property, in that the Nova Strike at the end will erase any block remaining, regardless of strength, even if the attack itself doesn’t actually break through the guard.
• Ultimate Armor & Rakuhouha - Special Attack - 23 hits - Damage 491% - Block 100% - <S>
  X and Zero use a variety of special weapons and techniques (“We’ll be fine as long as I have my special weapons”), some of them ones you see in their other attacks, some of them new (Double Cyclone, Triad Thunder, among others). X finishes off by donning the Ultimate Armor and then using a Nova Strike through the enemy.
• Hadoken & Genmu Zero - Multi-Attack (2-4) - 10 hits (per target) - <S>
  An homage to the gag weapon Hadouken from Mega Man X1, even though in this game Ryu and Ken and Chun-Li and probably others casually fling around Hadokens without blinking twice (meaning it’s not as overpowered here). Zero’s slashes during this move are reminiscent of the way X uses the Beam Saber from Mega Man X3 and his attack is also found in other games (such as Marvel VS Capcom 3). In addition, at the start of this move X uses his cross-over super-shot also from Mega Man X3.
• Rising Fire & Ryuenjin - Support Attack - 18 hits - Damage 144% - Block 77%
  Zero dashes in while X stands back on the right side shooting his X-Buster. Zero executes a circle-slash and then some regular slashes. After X blasts a charged shot, Zero does a Raijingeki and X drops what looks like a Spin Wheel on the target; Zero then uses a Ryuenjin on one side while X on the other side contributes a Rising Fire fireball straight upward. They finish off with X using a charged version of the Rising Fire (aren’t you glad you don’t have to worry about weapon energy?) and Zero using a down-stab. Note that unless you cross-hit this one, they will let the enemy land in the middle of their attack, thereby interrupting their own combo.

Skills

• Zero Buster: Lv.? - XP 15% - Normal Attack range +1
  Zero has no range traditionally, so he has to whip out his buster to extend his reach. Of course, X could just shoot things from a distance, but that’s not the way this game works.
• Body Parts: Lv.? - XP 25% - DEF +15%
  It’s like an armor capsule, only temporary, and not nearly as effective.
• Tenkuuha: Lv.? - XP 20% - Cancel enemy counters
  An amusing take on Zero’s technique by the same name which destroys enemy shots.
• X-Buster: Lv.28 - XP 35% - ATK +15%
  X charges up his X-Buster. Or something.
• Hidden Power: Lv.34 - Auto (XP over 120%) - Self
  10% increase to all stats. Pair them with Ulala and you’d get this and Range+2 at the same time.
• Unbending Love: Lv.43 - Auto (XP under 100%) - Self
  20% reduction in skill XP costs. Only a couple of units get this ability (including Kogoro & Mii who get it around the same level). 20% off a 15%-cost skill isn’t much, but this affects your Solo Unit as well. Try pairing this with Marching Orders or...

Music: Gesellschaft battle (Mega Man Legends 1)

Tron appears fairly early in the game and is one of my favorite Solo Units. She has a couple of useful field map abilities and her music is great.

Attacks

• King Servbot - 19 hits - Block 68%
  Tron opens with a Beacon Bomb. If the tag is made, two Servbots come in and grab the enemy, holding him in place briefly (making this a perfect time for attempting for a cross-hit). Another Servbot drives by in a Servbot Borer drill tank. Tron jumps into the picture and directs more Servbots to toss those round skull bombs they use in Misadventures with the right skill and high enough stats. Another Servbot uses a bazooka. Yet another drops down on a hand-held helicopter. Then comes the Lunch Rush. Finally Tron hops onto the head of a Servbot that has expanded in size, and sits on his head while he hammers the enemy with a giant mallet. He finishes by spinning off the field.
  Note: The Beacon Bomb will not tag if the enemy is juggled over it, or if the enemy has a block (shield) active. If the bomb fails to strike, the first two Servbots do not appear, so you miss out on two hits, but the rest of the attack still carries out like normal.

Skills

• Beacon Bomb: XP 35% - +1 Support Attack
  Too bad that support attack doesn’t include Servbots.
• Energy Canteen Delivery: XP 30% - Heal HP 30% (Ally)
  Every time I use this, I picture Servbots running across the map to deliver an Energy Tank, and the recipient thinking, okay, what do I do with this?
• Servbots’ Devotion: Auto (always) - Self
  Give full HP when rescuing, plus cost is only 50% XP. Too bad the turn of a unit with this trait never comes up when I actually have to rescue someone...

Vile exists in the game as an enemy, and as such I have not gone through completely calculating his abilities, as they are hard to test (getting enemy units to cooperate is very time-consuming, you know). Below is a brief summary of his moves.

Attacks

• Normal Attack - (MAP) - <D>
  
• Rising Specter - Special Attack - 10 hits - <S>
  This is his special attack (that switches to a “demo” as the game calls it, as opposed to the normal map attack in which he simply donks the target over the head). He shoots a homing rocket fist first (reminds me of the Infinity Gig), which leads to a fiery explosion, then Vile tops it all off with a giant blue shoulder cannon laser.
• Splash Hit - Multi-Attack (2-4) - 6 hits (per target) - <S>
  Vile’s Multi-Attack. He dashes through the group for initial hits, then leaps into the air and drops grenades on everyone. A giant purple tornado is produced, tossing the victims into the air. (Note: Number of hits varies depending on how many people he snags in the attack. It works out to 6 per target.)

Skills

• DEF +15% - Auto (HP under 30%) - Self
  As he gets lower in health, he gets tougher to kill.
• Nullify Ailment <Poison> - Auto (always) - Self
  Robots are immune to poison, duh. Something they forgot in Mega Man 10. Well, heck, even X & Zero can be poisoned, not to mention KOS-MOS & T-elos and probably every minor enemy robot in the game...
• ATK +15% - Auto (50% chance when HP under 50%) - Self
  Level 35+ only.
• Nullify Ailment <Down & Stun> - Auto (50% chance when HP under 80%) - Self
  Level 35+ only.

Vile comes back in later missions in his Ride Armor (how classic). He loses his Special Attack but his Multi-Attack now requires less EP. Oddly, all of his attacks are now executed on the map and do not have attack demos. Having said that, when you defeat him you knock him off his Ride Armor and he then turns into his regular unit (above) with all of his original special attacks (and a few new skills). He actually has more HP after he leaves his armor than before...

Attacks

• Normal Attack - (MAP) - <D>
  
• Multi-Attack (2-4) - (MAP) - <S>
  

Skills

• Nullify Ailment <Poison> - Auto (always) - Self
  
• Nullify Ailment <Down & Stun> - Auto (always) - Self
  Interestingly, all of the Ride Armors (including the minor enemies) in the first mission where Vile’s Ride Armor appears have these same two skills.

Just for fun, I’m adding some remarks on the rest of the cast. None of this has anything to do with Mega Man in particular.

Pair Units

• Kogoro Tenzai & Mii Koryuji (original)
  I suppose if the game could be said to have main characters, these would be it. She needs to wear more clothes, but otherwise the team’s not bad. Self-healing only, but it’s cheaper in XP. Although you have them from the start, they (somewhat surprisingly) don’t take part in every single chapter.
• Chun-Li & Morrigan Aensland (Street Fighter and Darkstalkers)
  It’s amusing to pair these two together, but they actually cooperate well, with some great quotes between them. Their Multi-Attack is also amusing with the possible dialogue exchange you can get (“Don’t slack off just because there’re two of you.”). Chun-Li’s rapid-fire kick is on +, for what it’s worth.
• Frank West & Hsien-Ko (Dead Rising and Darkstalkers)
  Despite seeming like a completely incongruous combination, these two grew on me. Their quotes are fun and they really bounce off each other well. I guess their similarity is they both pull out everything plus the kitchen sink to use as weapons. They get their Multi-Attack fairly early, though too bad it’s pretty basic: just repeats the same attack twice and it’s over, although Frank getting hit with the pan at the end is a comedic touch. (Notice that during their + attack, that same pan gets tossed into the air and it misses him then.)
• Ryu & Ken Masters (Street Fighter)
  Good and solid attackers with few useful map skills, although Ken has a fairly unique ability to give First Critical to an ally instead of himself. Their + is a repeated series of fireballs, and + Ryu actually holds the enemy in place for a bit (assuming he makes the tag), which can have strategic use. There is some pretty funny dialogue possible if you pair these guys with Flynn.
• Reiji Arisu & Xiaomu (Namco X Capcom)
  I would like this pair if it weren’t for all of the spanking references. Probably would make more sense if I was more familiar with the game they come from. Still, during their Support Attack (and +) Xiaomu traps the enemy in a blue sphere hovering in the air (my favorite of this unit’s attacks), and + she freezes the target in ice, both of which can prove handy for landing other attacks. (They also have one of the most comical Multi-Attacks I’ve seen.)
• Haken Browning & Kaguya Nanbu (Endless Frontier)
  Seriously, woman, put some clothes on. Okay, okay, I’ll stop harping on this. Just note that this game’s rating probably could have been lower if it weren’t for half of the female cast’s choice of wardrobe. All right, so that’s not entirely the fault of the game developers as they are mostly using preexisting characters, but still. At any rate, this unit has pretty good range when navigating the field map. Also, + causes her to fling her sword’s chakrams all over the place, which is pretty nifty.
• Akira Yuki & Pai Chan (Virtua Fighter)
  I like how these two are animated. A lot of attention was put into their motions despite being (for the most part) pretty basic punches and kicks. They lack the flash of a lot of the other characters, but are still pretty solid.
• Jin Kazama & Ling Xiaoyu (Tekken)
  Similar to Akira & Pai but oddly they just don’t seem to be quite as well animated. They aren’t bad, however. Their Special Attack is also similar, although they shift the background to a dojo for the express purpose of being able to knock the target through a wall.
• Kite & BlackRose (.hack//)
  I know I wasn’t going to say this anymore, but what is it with the male characters being totally clothed from head to foot, and the females wearing almost nothing? Well, still a good team with fun attacks, nice music, and useful skills focused mostly on healing.
• Soma Schicksal & Alisa Amiella (God Eater)
  They mostly use large, serpent-like weapons which hit quite a big radius. They’re right up there with Cloud in the department of speak softly and carry giant swords (well, okay, so Cloud only accomplishes the second part of that).
• Gemini Sunrise & Erica Fontaine (Sakura Wars)
  One of the few teams to lead with a female; I suppose Gemini is what the Japanese think of as a Texas native, and Erica is how they view nuns. I like most of Gemini’s attacks, but Erica’s cat suit doesn’t do it for me. Their skills aren’t typically of much use, though Erica does get Estelle’s Nurse at a higher level.
• Zephyr & Leanne (Resonance of Fate)
  Not a bad team; I find I end up in a position to use their Special Attack more frequently than just about anyone else, which is just luck of the draw. Both it and their Multi-Attack use the same theme of them swinging on a rope (and then falling), which I’m sure makes sense to someone who has played their game.
• Ichiro Ogami & Sakura Shinguji (Sakura Wars)
  He wields dual-swords like a certain someone whose last name someone else in this game stole, and she reminds me of Kaoru. Er, don’t ask. Once this unit gets Cpt. Command: Wind, you’ll pretty much want to have it up at all times (either this or Flynn’s Marching Orders). He also later gets a skill to boost the defense of all allies, but I usually can’t detect the benefit of that one as much.
• Dante & Demitri Maximoff (Devil May Cry and Darkstalkers)
  I love this team. They just bounce off each other so well and most of their dialogue is pretty funny. (“Are you mocking me, Dante?”) They do have a habit of spouting random English. As a unit, their attack power is pretty good (though they get their attacks late) and their skills are mostly focused around maneuverability on the field map. Also, take note of that (poorly named) Guard Cancel skill: don’t be so surprised when you get that extra attack as to waste it. Warning: Once they finally get their + attack, Demitri has to tag the opponent (can’t be guarded or juggled) or you lose out on a good deal of the hits (and damage) of the attack. (Actually, their Support Attack works much the same way.)
• Yuri Lowell & Estelle Heurassein (Tales of Vesperia)
  Yay, Tales. It’s probably bad to like a unit just because of what game they come from, but then again, that’s pretty much the way Project X Zone is designed. I guess it would be more accurate to say I want to like this unit, but in battle their juggle is terrible. On the other hand, outside of battle Estelle’s Nurse spell heals everyone in the party, which, though it is pretty pricey at 80% XP, is still the cheapest way to go if you have more than 2 units injured. Dispel is also cheaper when multiple units get inflicted with status ailments at once (like, say, due to a boss’s Multi-Attack).
• Kurt Irving & Riela Marcellis (Valkyria Chronicles 3)
  They use guns, which in my experience seem to juggle enemies more than melee attacks, for whatever reason. However + (and +) causes her to go into her Valkyria mode briefly (also seen in their Special Attack). This unit has an ally heal and a self-heal that auto-activates randomly.
• Toma & Cyrille (Shining Force EXA)
  Cyrille backs Toma up with magic of various elements. In particular, + freezes the foe in a chunk of ice. Handy for setting up support attacks.
• KOS-MOS & T-elos (Xenosaga)
  It was probably pretty obvious early on that this team-up was eventually going to happen; T-elos just didn’t strike me as a dedicated enemy. I know it is deliberate for story reasons, but I’m not much of a fan of the monotonic voices, and their map skills aren’t overly impressive either. And I’m just pretending their Special Attack doesn’t exist...
• Chris Redfield & Jill Valentine (Resident Evil)
  They show up in the prologue but then are among the last to join in the actual game proper. One of Jill’s quotes amusingly involves her telling Chris not to shoot fire like Ryu & Ken, yet some of her own attacks involve her lighting herself on fire, so I’m not sure it’s consistent.

Solo Units

• Valkyrie (Adventure of Valkyrie)
  She adds healing abilities to the unit you pair her with, and reduces XP costs to boot. Her kind nature plays amusingly with a number of other units. Frank offers to trade her for Hsien-Ko.
• Sänger Zonvolt (Super Robot Wars OG)
  His skills just add attack and defense, though he does have a party-wide XP boost as well.
• Heihachi Mishima (Tekken)
  An ally-turned-enemy-turned-ally who is fairly dependable once he officially joins the group (everyone’s so good-natured in this game). He can add Nullify ZOC to a unit that doesn’t already have it.
• Vashyron (Resonance of Fate)
  Ordinarily I pair him with Zephyr & Leanne since he just seems to belong there, but as with all of the Solo Units, you can get amusing quotes putting him other places as well.
• Lindow Amamiya (God Eater)
  Ditto with this guy and Soma & Alisa. You do get appropriate dialogue for putting them where they “belong” but it’s okay to stick them elsewhere as well.
• Bahn (Fighting Vipers)
  The guy who likes to fight. That’s pretty much what he focuses on. He can also add +1 to your attacks during a Counter.
• Arthur (Ghosts ’n Goblins)
  The knight of the endlessly-disappearing armor. Even his Solo Attack involves him blowing himself out of his armor. Though this is played up for very hilarious effect later in the game.
• Neneko (Yumeria)
  She’s small, cute, and has a voice and music to match. She also loves the word “mystery” beyond anything else (nearly to the point of aggravation...).
• Flynn Scifo (Tales of Vesperia)
  He should enter the party with Marching Orders, which also happens to be extremely useful during Operation Crackdown (and, really, any and every mission). As a bonus, his misnamed Cure (it should be called First Aid) can heal—assuming you have any XP left after using Marching Orders. (Is anyone surprised they used Fury Sparks as his theme? Heck, they even named a chapter after Fury Sparks...)
• Devilotte (Cyberbots)
  Crazy evil insane princess with a good enough temperament to put up with the rest of the group for the sake of getting home. She’s mostly comedic relief. Spelling out her entire name is even worse than with Estellise.
• Imca (Valkyria Chronicles 3)
  She adds a nice Range+2 on someone who doesn’t already have it, though this usefulness is diminished a bit by the fact that she joins after Marching Orders becomes available. Also notice her +1 to Solo Attacks; it can come up unexpectedly, so don’t waste it.
• Alisa Bosconovitch (Tekken)
  Ah, the android with the detachable head. In some ways she’s more amusing as a foe than an ally. She still uses her head bomb as a Solo Unit, but it’s just not quite as funny.
• Batsu Ichimonji (Rival Schools)
  Probably unsurprisingly, he reminds me of Bahn, who seems overly more useful. For some reason, Batsu has a habit of juggling enemies out of his own reach, but that could just be my bad luck. Note that Batsu is one of the only characters who aims most of his attacks high, so you’ll need to cross-hit in midair in order to get the maximum hit rate out of him.
• Lady (Devil May Cry)
  One of the few units that can raise all stats by 10%. I haven’t noticed this being overly useful, but it’s worth trying. I find her Solo Attack to frequently miss a lot of its hits, but I’m not sure why.
• Rikiya Busujima (Zombie Revenge)
  He makes whatever unit you pair him with immune to poison, for what it’s worth.
• Bruno Delinger (Dynamite Cop)
  Arthur’s not the only one who can blow his outfit off. Luckily the king of collateral damage only takes himself out rather than the rest of your unit.
• Ulala (Space Channel 5)
  Kind of a goofy character overall, but notice her Auto skill: Range+2 to the entire team if your XP is over 120%. That’s a pretty high bar—but useful in the mission in which she joins. You don’t have to maintain XP over 120% but try to finangle it so that it hits that mark right before Ulala’s turn comes up so that she applies this status to everyone.
• Saya (Namco X Capcom)
  Her name alone is a spoiler, though I have to admit, I kind of wondered if she was eventually going to switch sides, given her casual attitude. She gives a Range+2 to any unit you pair her with, and can also boost the defense of the entire team.
• Juri (Street Fighter)
  Yet another enemy that crosses over. Heihachi’s comment about her inevitiable betrayal is amusing, especially when you consider what he might be planning himself. Juri does have a habit of moving the enemy around on you during her Solo Attack (even during a cross-hit), which can make other attacks miss a lot.

This isn’t going to go into fine detail about each mission, but just give a few tips regarding things that are good to know before going into each chapter, since you can’t change your equipment settings and such once you are in a mission.

• Prologue 1: The Wanderers
  The tutorial. Introduces Kogoro & Mii.
• Prologue 2: Where the Strong Survive
  More tutorial. Jin & Xiaoyu, Akira & Pai, and Ryu & Ken appear.
• Prologue 3: The Swords That Smite Evil
  Adds Haken & Kaguya and Sänger Zonvolt. Introduces Solo Units and breaking things.
• Prologue 4: The Man the Devils Fear
  Dante & Demitri and Valkyrie form an unusual alliance. Toma & Cyrille and Arthur join the fun.
• Prologue 5: Dead Re-Rising
  Chun-Li & Morrigan, Chris & Jill, Frank & Hsien-Ko, Bruno, Rikiya, and Heihachi all go on a cruise.
• Chapter 1: Welcome to the Koryuji House
  Well, we’re back where we started. The real game begins here, but as you might expect, it’s still pretty simple. Still, you can start paying attention to who gets what EXP since you’ll keep your levels from now on. (One of the hardest aspects of this game is keeping everyone’s levels even...)
• Chapter 2: The Fighting Vipers
  Bahn shows up for the first time to give this chapter its name. As a side note, notice how the mission starts with no chapter announcement? This is pretty common throughout the game and generally means more enemies and/or allies are going to show up after a turn or two. The mission objectives usually change when this happens.
• Chapter 3: The Further Misadventures of Tron
  You get two great units here, Frank & Hsien-Ko and Tron. The Servbots talk about the rocket Tron is building, placing this after Legends 2. Tron commissions Frank and Hsien-Ko as Servbots #43 and #44. If you sidetrack instead of just killing all of the enemies, you can go into the shop and break all the guitars.
• Chapter 4: Arisu in Wonderland
  “I’d guess somewhere up high. That’s usually how intros like these work.” You pick up Reiji & Xiaomu. As usual, don’t forget to scrub the environment for treasure and breakables.
• Chapter 5: The God Eaters
  Soma & Alisa make an appearance along with Vashyron, who is misplaced from his own team. That’ll be rectified shortly.
• Chapter 6: Justice Among the Skyscrapers
  Gain Gemini & Erica. Pay attention to the sparkles on the field map here. They are treasure, but they can be hard to see, especially when they hide behind obstructions or underneath breakables. Always do a lot of camera turning with the control pad.
• Chapter 7: The .hackers
  See, what did I tell you? You now have complete sets of Soma & Alisa and Lindow, and Zephyr & Leanne and Vashyron. Doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use them together. Also gain Kite & BlackRose. Yes, the main reason the display of the chapter title is usually delayed is to prevent spoilers regarding who is going to join you.
• Chapter 8: The Domain of Dreams
  Ryu & Ken are paired up with cute little Neneko who really somehow sets off their characters. But then, just about everybody is funny when paired with anybody else in this game. At any rate, when you have just the one unit, you might want to head toward the upper left, because that’s where the rest of your team is going to appear. In typical video game fashion, you can break the pots. Notice the objectives: the mission ends when you defeat either of the two bosses. For the most EXP, beat them both down to near death before finishing either one of them off.
• Chapter 9: Justice Over Evil
  Your team starts off separated; the gate drops eventually, though. When Ichiro & Sakura join they’ll be near where Kogoro & Mii’s group started.
• Chapter 10: The King of Iron Fist
  At the hilarious start of this chapter, Demitri is attempting to have a quiet evening alone in his castle, sitting on his throne with a nice glass of blood-red wine, when he’s interrupted first by Heihachi (who decides to help himself to the vampire’s dinner table), then by Dante, then by the entire rest of your gang, who just barge right in without knocking. (“You realize this is my castle, right?”) A little surprisingly, Heihachi turns out to be an enemy and he calls a bunch of demons to crash through the castle’s windows. Demitri pairs back up with Dante when he joins the group to help oust his unwelcome houseguests. When all is over and done with, Heihachi returns to make amends and become a Solo Unit once again.
• Chapter 11: Across Infinite Time
  Haken & Kaguya join after a bit. Before then, you can pretty much just send two teams down either side of the walkway.
• Chapter 12: Fury Sparks
  Amusingly, this chapter starts with a friendly duel between Yuri and Sänger. It’s done as a boss battle in terms of game mechanics, but you don’t have to actually defeat him. Just attack him a couple of times to trigger the next story scene. (You could heal up with the Special Gel you got out of that chest at the start, but that’s rather overkill.) You’ll have just the one unit for a turn, but then the rest of the crew will show up.
• Chapter 13: Valkyries’ Adventure
  Valkyrie rejoins and you gain Kurt & Riela. There’s a funny conversation here where Valkyrie dubs herself No. 17. (Poor Riela; her vaunted Valkyria power only amounts to an Over Limit...) In terms of game play, halfway through the mission your units are shunted off the magic circle so that a giant tank can appear. Don’t worry, you don’t have to fight the tank. Notice the treasure chests up the ramps. They initially look pretty hard to get to, but as you work your way up to the top to challenge the bosses, you’ll eventually get to them. As usual, split into two teams and go up both sides at once for efficiency. (May even want to send a couple of units up the middle as well.) Selvaria will probably wander down toward the right.
• Chapter 14: Eternal Rivals
  A rather amusing start; I’m just glad Flynn wasn’t joined with Devilotte as a Pair Unit. Instead, you get two new Solo Units. Notice you can destroy the sandbag barriers. This map is fairly straightforward, though the towers can obstruct vision sometimes.
• Chapter 15: The Gain Ground System
  As a new twist, you have to “talk” to Arthur and Lady to rescue them. Arthur is right near you, but Lady is all the way across the map. Don’t worry, the enemies won’t go after them, so you can take your time. Both of them become Solo Units once you free them.
• Chapter 16: Detestable Golden Sunny Demon
  Jin & Xiaoyu rejoin, and you gain Batsu. (Note: You can ignore the guillotines; they don’t hurt you.) This mission has an interesting race: you have to chase down four goblins and defeat them all before any of them reach the gate. Only certain units start close enough to the goblins to have a chance. Use whatever Nullify ZOC abilities you have to zip past the non-goblin enemies, use Flynn’s Marching Orders every turn, and go all out on the goblins. Until you defeat the goblins, your remaining teammates (the ones too far away to assist in the race) can mostly gather XP to use in the chase. Note that the mission doesn’t end when you get the key, so you don’t have to worry about rushing to get the treasure chests.
• Chapter 17: Operation Crackdown
  The game is finally ramping up the difficulty. This is the first mission with a time limit in turns (there was one during the prologue but it doesn’t count). However, it’s a very generous one; I was able to complete all of the objectives with 9 turns remaining and that was without even trying. Still, feel free to divide your troops into two teams and take them up either side of the map. Use Flynn’s Marching Orders to expedite things. The first statue, in the front center, is very easy to get to. To blow up a statue, all you have to do is Standby while standing alongside any side of the statue; but note that this does forfeit that character’s turn. Note: The mission ends as soon as you fulfill the objectives. So blow up four statues and rescue Imca, then go around killing all the enemies and finding treasure. You should have plenty of time to finish off all of the enemies here. Though if you are concerned, you can keep someone within 1 turn’s movement distance from the final statue to enable you to end the mission at any time.
• Chapter 18: Light and Darkness
  The intermission before this chapter is something of a spoiler, since it shows which units you will have for the next mission—including the guy you were supposed to think was dead. At any rate, your team has been getting pretty large, so they split up here. During the intermission, feel free to grab needed equipment off the guys you won’t be using; you can put it back later. Otherwise, this is a pretty straightforward battle. You finally get Toma & Cyrille again. Remember them?
• Chapter 19: Thus Spake Eternity
  So you’re led to believe the calibration tank has KOS-MOS inside, but turns out Alisa was busily repairing herself. Instead, KOS-MOS shows up escorting Mr. Big Evil Bad Guy for no obvious reason. T-elos finally joins up with you, again for no real reason.
• Chapter 20: The Maverick Hunters
  Ah, the mission we’ve all been waiting for! This chapter takes place in an environment modeled after Cyber Peacock’s stage. You start on two platforms. May as well just take the obvious paths to the south next to each respective group. Team 1 can head in the direction of the helmet capsule while team 2 wades through all of the enemies near Skeith. Notice that X & Zero will appear right near the Sub-Tank that’s on the path to the helmet capsule, so you might want to get as close to it as possible before then to avoid having the Reploids end up surrounded all by themselves. As a side note, ignore the helmet capsule you’ll find in the stage. You can’t do anything with it; it’s used in a story scene later on. The Sub-Tanks you find scattered throughout, on the other hand, you can break for items (they are basically treasure chests, despite using the “break” icon instead of the “treasure” icon).
• Chapter 21: The House of the Dead
  In the intermission, equip Kite & BlackRose with something that lets them Nullify ZOC (either the Roaming Charm item or a Solo Unit with the ability). You have another time limit here, but this time, fulfilling the objective will not actually end the mission. (In fact, more enemies appear afterward; don’t let your guard down.) Fulfilling the objective will get rid of the time limit, though, so feel free to send Kite straight up the center to Aura. Note that the zombies that initially appear around Chris & Jill and Rikiya are so weak that you can kill them straight off with a Counter, much less a main attack. Don’t even waste turns on them; just charge straight past them and let them suicide on you. You should be able to divide your group into three teams of two: take Kite with someone else up the center, a second team to the right, and a third up the left. Have everyone meet near Aura when you rescue her, and they’ll be nicely grouped for the remaining cleanup. Remember Flynn’s Marching Orders.
• Chapter 22: God, Man, and Demon
  Same thing here, so in the intermission before beginning this mission, put Nullify ZOC on KOS-MOS. (If you forget, there’s an opportunity to change your Solo Unit settings when Bruno joins, and you can give them a Solo Unit with ZOC—e.g. Heihachi—then.) Every turn have KOS-MOS use Boost and also use Ichiro’s Cpt. Command: Wind whenever possible. Then just zip KOS-MOS straight up the right side to Aura. There are a lot of enemies, but most of them will just Standby until you attack them, so KOS-MOS shouldn’t be opposed by much. The rest of your team can fan out defeating nearby enemies and gaining XP to use on the above-mentioned skills.
• Chapter 23: Ulala’s Swingin’ Report Show
  Something a little different this time. Aura is in a statue that moves automatically every couple of turns. Some of the barrels you can destroy (they don’t explode and hurt you, even though they look like they should). Some of the barrels can only be destroyed by the statue (there’s a reason their footprint is so large; they are there to keep all units off the statue’s stopping points). The treasure boxes are, more often than not, mimics. If you release a mimic, your unit loses his turn and the mimic gets an instant turn (usually rushing over to attack the guy who woke him up). Oh, and more foes randomly show up halfway through, just to give you even more of a time crunch. Be sure to make ample use of Multi-Attacks, Counters, items, and skills.
• Chapter 24: Maidens of the Battlefield
  A welcome change of pace after all of that madness. A new boss will appear at the end of each turn for the first few turns; however, this settles down in short order. There is no time limit here, so take your time and move your units in two or three groups down either side to defeat all of the enemies and claim all of the treasure.
• Chapter 25: A Storm of Romance
  Now the band is going to travel up a rainbow to their next destination. I love the go-karts reference. You end up back in the cherry tree, where Ichiro & Sakura gain their Multi-Attack as part of the plot.
• Chapter 26: Warriors Beyond Reality
  We now rejoin with the other half of your team. Notice there are a lot of breakables. The yellow things are treasure chests. Juri is pressured into joining the group right before the chapter title; you now have one Solo Unit for every Pair Unit.
• Chapter 27: The Dimensional Cliff
  Everyone starts so far away from the action that you’ll probably spend most of your first turn just moving units around. (The grid is also oddly offset from the angle of the stairs.) Keep groups of units together, though. (You may need to send someone to save Toma & Cyrille who are likely to get blocked off on the stairs.) After the first turn, Vile shows up on the upper ledge to the left (right near the treasure box there), and after the second turn, Phantom comes through the entrance at the lower center of the map, so try not to end up with anyone surrounded alone. Remember too that Vile will get an instant free turn when he falls off his Ride Armor.
• Chapter 28: The Realm of Overlords
  And you thought the previous missions were messy and chaotic. This chapter starts you in predefined groups, so it’s best to generally stay with those groupings; however, I often send two units down to the lower right to kill the enemies there and break the pillars. Until you rescue Aura, you’ll likely want to use your other two groups to build XP to enable your third group (the one with Kite) to burn that XP with Multi-Attacks. Also add gratuitous use of Marching Orders / Cpt. Command: Wind, and Nurse / Evangile. You can save time by Countering all non-boss units rather than attacking them directly. If you’re high enough level, Kite should have a Range+2 skill that you can use as a fallback if needed.
• Chapter 29: An Unbeatable Love
  After you move a character up the stairs to the level with the bridge in the center of the map, Vile appears. (For some reason, he shows up in one location for the dialogue, then teleports elsewhere on the map for the actual mission.) At the end of that turn you will temporarily lose X & Zero from your party. Pay attention that the subsequent time limit is 9 turns overall, but you will have already spent 3 or 4 turns or so getting to this point, so don’t get lax. Also notice rescuing Zero does not end the mission, so you might as well do it as soon as possible so that you can get X & Zero back on your team. (In fact, rescuing them or defeating Vile both lead to exactly the same plot sequences, just one right after another in the latter case.) X & Zero acquire their Multi-Attack as a result of this story.
• Chapter 30: City of Mercy
  There are a lot of enemies (and a lot of boss-level enemies), but this mission is relatively straightforward. (The title appears almost immediately—that’s a rare thing lately.)
• Chapter 31: Key to Another World
  Lots of enemies to start with, and then a turn into the mission even more enemies appear (hey, more EXP!). But overall this is a pretty basic mission. Keep everyone together and work your way steadily forward. (The story scenes will make the most sense if you take out Eins first and Due last, but it really doesn’t matter as you have to defeat everyone either way.)
• Chapter 32: Dead Rising Again
  Back here again. You can break the guitars all over again. Unlike the previous map, there are a few treasure boxes scattered throughout. Also notice the wide disparity in the zombies’ levels. Be sure to pay attention to the target’s level before you attack, because (amusingly enough) the zombie’s color has nothing to do with his power level here. Be warned that you have almost no units that can heal allies here (mostly just Chris & Jill, and Haken & Kaguya’s super-expensive Love), so you may need to rely on items.
• Chapter 33: Die Even Harder
  A pretty straightforward mission (no, you don’t lose Toma), but beware that more enemies will eventually appear in the pool, so don’t let anyone get stranded down there.
• Chapter 34: Is Paris Burning Again?
  Your group starts out separated by that wall again. So this pretty much determines for you who goes after which bosses. The wall is temporary; it goes away when the rest of the enemies show up.
• Chapter 35: The Dark Savior
  You only have seven units, but the match takes a while anyway due to the sheer number of enemies and the distance you have to travel. Note that Ulala’s 120% buff is pretty much the only hope of getting a party-wide Range+2 here, so you may want to try keeping your XP high. I usually take one group of 3-4 units down the left side, and everyone else up the right, though the ones who battle Eins will still have to catch up. Before you can reach Drei, more enemies show up. Below Jedah there are once again two branching paths, so you may as well go up both sides simultaneously for expediency.
• Chapter 36: Nemesis
  A new objective for once. And a new item to play with. As with Tales games, it’s a challenge to decide who gets the Faerie Ring. You could aim high (Haken & Kaguya’s Love drops to 104% with it on, for example) or you could give it to the unit whose skills you utilize the most. As you might expect, more enemies show up before you can reach that pod near the center of the map. Keep in mind the paths are very winding here and not only can it take a while for units to catch up if they fall behind, but also the narrow paths make it very easy for enemies to trap your units. Bear in mind where the enemies can move when you position your own people to avoid getting penned in.
• Chapter 37: A Familiar Future
  This time you have an even division of 3 units per team, positioned on opposite sides of the map. Note that no matter how you set up your Solo Units (unless you leave somebody out altogether), you will end up with a situation where at least one unit doesn’t match up with the plot regarding who is where (because only eight people were “lost” but 3 Pair Units with 3 Solo Units in the “lost” group makes nine people total). This doesn’t matter for game play, though; as in the rest of the game, the Solo Units can teleport to wherever their Pair Unit is regardless of where they were during the story scene. (Ken’s response here is hilarious.) At any rate, the real fight is triggered when you have any unit end his turn on that large circular platform in the center of the map. So avoid stopping there (you can zip in and grab the treasure chests as it only matters where you’re standing when your turn ends) until you have gathered everyone and are ready. Due shows up to the lower left, and Vile appears toward the upper right. Most of the minor enemies that accompany them can be eliminated with Counters or Multi-Attacks. And since Vile effectively has two health bars, it’s not uncommon to actually end up taking Due out first.
• Chapter 38: The Lord of Puppets
  If this map starts out looking rather calm and empty to you, you’d be correct in being wary. More enemies are going to appear and they will do so in multiple places across the map (mostly next to those various stone slabs with the glowing gems). I usually start out by taking half my units up the stairs on the path that leads eventually to Seth, while moving the other group down the stairs toward the left. But don’t let any individual unit get separated from his grouping.
• Chapter 39: The Devil Never Cries
  Oh-kay, so the baby in the background is beyond creepy, plus he’s in the backdrop of every battle field just to creep you out more. The protrusions from the ground mostly can’t be broken and often get in your way, so be careful. Split your units into two teams to go to the left and right, and keep them grouped, because more foes are going to appear at the northern and southern sides of the map. When this happens, having your units off to the sides helps prevent them from getting buried in the midst of Raptor’s camp, which in turn means you can go straight for Jedah if necessary.
• Chapter 40: Treasure on the Horizon
  You may initially wonder why only six of your teammates were cloned—and multiple times over—rather than the entire party. The answer actually has nothing to do with the plot and is found in their technical commonality: all of them were enemy units at some point during the game. (Sänger only temporarily and only as a duel, but still qualifies.) This means the developers already had their assets readily available, so they were easy to use. Considering every single enemy on this map is basically a boss, you may wish to speed things along by spending your XP mostly on Special Attacks and Multi-Attacks. (No need for Marching Orders here, though you may need to divert some XP on healing.)
• Chapter 41: The Winged Wanderers
  For once the intermission does not spoil for you which units you are going to have with you. Equip everyone but don’t bother with Solo Unit pairings because you’re going to have to redo them all anyway. Put some form of Nullify ZOC on Kogoro & Mii. When the mission starts, try to zip them up the stairs past the enemies while your teammates occupy the foes. Be prepared for more allies and enemies to show up in stages. Also be prepared for lots of heartwarming speeches.

  Warning: As soon as you drop the barrier, a slew of enemies will appear, and they’ll likely all get their turns in a row. Gather as many units near the center first as you can. (Notice the new objective: “save the world”!) Meden cannot move but makes up for this with a huge attack radius. Also notice that the platform he stands upon limits how many characters can reach him to attack him at once. But you don’t want everyone targeting him anyway; the bulk of your units should actually be attacking the other enemies to gather XP so that you can use Special Attacks on Meden (and to heal as needed). Make sure you are at full health before you attack Meden! His counter costs 0 EP (so he’ll be using it a lot) and deals around 10,000 damage to start with (not an exaggeration), ramping up to 14,000 as he gets lower in health. A unit with less than 14,000 max HP shouldn’t even bother attacking Meden at all unless you can turn aside his counter, unless you like suicide. Note that when Meden gets down to about half health he’ll panic and summon yet more enemies. By that point, though, they are little more than XP fodder.

You have 15 save slots available. Be sure to leave a slot free for making your clear game save once you beat the game.

When you load a clear game save, you start over at the very beginning in the Prologue missions—yes, with the tutorial messages still. (You’d think they’d suppress the tutorial messages in a clear game since you obviously know how to play by now.) You keep all of your items and Database entries and records, and unlock the ability to customize the music in the options. Surprisingly, you don’t keep your levels, and in fact enemies give less EXP than normal when playing a clear game save. I guess the idea is to make a subsequent play through more challenging since you will be under level. Having said that, some boxes do drop different items on a clear game, and these new items are quite a bit more powerful, combining several properties into a single item, which helps even the score.

Tips

• Heal up before attacking boss units; their counterattacks hurt. You usually have an abundance of the 10% HP self-heal items (Restore Pills and First Aids). Alternately, you can use a skill to nullify enemy counters before attacking.
• If you attack an enemy but can’t quite finish him off, rather than wasting a full attack from another unit on him, what I like to do is either weaken a bunch of enemies and then polish them all off at once with a Multi-Attack, or alternately allow the foes to commit suicide by killing them with a Counter.
• Since you can never get a +1 attack in a Counter anyway, you may as well simply repeat whichever attack is the most useful for the situation at hand (based on whether you’re aiming for XP gain or sheer damage or whatever).
• When you see a graphical effect on a unit as his turn comes up, one of his “Auto” skills just activated. If you aren’t sure which one it is (some of them trigger randomly), you can open the unit’s “Stats” screen and page over to the “Skill Effect” section to find it. (Though some of them, such as ones which heal or cure status ailments automatically, don’t leave behind lasting status effects.)
• Cross-hits generally work best when triggered near the ground; otherwise, most of your hits will miss. The “Fixed enemy launch height” skill doesn’t completely undo juggling; it just normalizes it. It’s funny when one of the most challenging aspects of the game is keeping enemies near to the ground—especially since most of the moves love bouncing them into the air or flinging them across the field.
• Although overall the game is pretty basic, there’s an interesting strategic balance between deciding whether to keep a combo going or let the enemy hit the ground, and whether (and when) to summon support:
  • You can only exceed 100% XP using cross-hits, so if you’re not already at 100%, it’s sometimes helpful to hold off on calling for support until you are. On the other hand, waiting too long may leave you with no regular attacks to use to keep the cross-hits going.
  • If you want to execute a cross-hit, it’s sometimes better to let the enemy land first, although this will break your combo and restore the enemy’s block if he has one. Still, if the enemy is on the ground (and has no shield) you can usually cross-hit him right there by launching multiple attackers simultaneously. (This also works at the start of battle if the enemy has no block.)
  • You can earn low-level consumable items by letting an enemy land and then breaking through his guard. If you start to run low on recovery items, doing this deliberately might become a viable stop-gap strategy.
  • Combos are good for extra XP. Cross-hits are good for extra XP (and getting XP over 100%). Criticals are good for extra damage (and EXP). As these can sometimes be mutually-exclusive, decide what you need most and act accordingly.
• Cross-hits require two different units to be attacking the enemy simultaneously, but Solo Attacks and Support Attacks both count, so you don’t need your main unit attacking to gain XP if you summon both of your back-ups at the same time.
• If you don’t want to memorize the statistics of every attack of every unit in the game, here are some general rule-of-thumb trends that you can keep in mind. These don’t hold for every single unit, but they are consistent enough to make worth noting:
  • + is usually the unit’s best guard-break attack. Typically you want to start off the fight with this.
  • Neutral and + usually are best for XP gain.
  • + very often is the attack that deals the most hits.
  • + is typically the most damaging attack the unit has (which might be because it is the last one learned).
• Once an enemy is KO’d, you can keep attacking him for XP and EXP, but if he touches the ground at any time the battle will instantly end, so you have to juggle him in this case.
• Keep an eye on your Mochi Balls in particular. They heal your entire team and are common enough that you often have a full stock of them. As the in-game tutorial points out, once you have the maximum number, any extras you find will be wasted, so there’s no point in keeping the count at 20.
• Status boosts do not stack. For example, you can only have one “Range+2” in effect at a time as it is applied as a status effect, not a raw increase. So you can’t stack two of them to get a total range+4; the game doesn’t operate that way.

Tidbits

• Tron mistakes X for MegaMan Voulnutt at first, but the translators made a minor goof here and spelled her line “Mega Man” which implies original series Mega Man. (Tron says “Rock” in the original Japanese.)
• Characters in this game have more knowledge than they would just from their games alone; I’m assuming they learned these things in some prequel crossover game that was never released in English. For example, KOS-MOS has X and Zero in her database, the Servbots know who Maverick Hunters are, and Tron knows Vile’s name.
• X and Zero talk about how they destroyed Vile a long time ago, but he’s appeared in games as late as Mega Man X8, so I’m not sure where in the timeline this one takes place. (They took Vile’s appearance from Maverick Hunter X.)
• The Database (“Crosspedia”) entry for “Cyberspace” talks about it in the context of Cyber Peacock’s stage, even though the word can be used in a generic sense as well—and in fact, during the story scenes the characters use the term in the generic sense.
• X’s total aresenal in this game would seem to be: Storm Tornado (MMX1), Spin Wheel (MMX2), Tornado Fang (MMX3), Triad Thunder (MMX3), Rising Fire (MMX4), Frost Tower (MMX4), Twin Slasher (MMX4), Double Cyclone (MMX4), and the Ultimate Armor (along with miscellaneous capsule upgrades). Half of his weapons come from Mega Man X4, but there’s nothing beyond that, so this might help place this game in the timeline. I don’t know whether I missed a weapon in the list or they intentionally gave him exactly eight.
• X doesn’t change colors as he utilizes different special weapons.
• One of Zero’s quotes has him mention that he is an A-Rank Hunter. Isn’t he supposed to be S-Rank?

Quotes

(Some of these are paraphrased.)

Alisa:	What makes androids and Reploids different?
X:	Maybe that we can’t take off our heads. What do you think, Zero?
Zero:	No comment.
Zero:	I feel that I must warn you as a member of the Bonne Pirate Family that if you should commit any crime...
Tron:	I would never think of doing such a thing while in the company of Maverick Hunters!
X:	That just makes me more worried about what you would do when we aren’t here...
Flynn:	Wow, a sword made of light. May I see it?
Zero:	Only I can wield the Z-Saber properly.
X:	I hope he doesn’t ask to see my X-Buster next.
Devilotte:	Pretty soon I’ll have enough power to conquer the galaxy!
X:	She’s starting to sound like she has some pretty serious ambitions.
Zero:	Be careful, kid, or we’ll end up having to take you down.
Servbot:	Dante! Demitri! Let’s give it our best!
Demitri:	Why must we fight alongside these things?
Dante:	They seem to have a lot of guts to me.

The screen goes red upon Meden’s defeat, instantly ending the battle and transforming the field to a broken, reddish version of the original. Meden and the rest of his family are resurrected (even if you defeated them) to appear in the closing sequence. Meden still seems puzzled as to why the key to the Portalstone doesn’t wish to change the world, but in the end he smiles and the entire family accepts their defeat quite graciously, saying goodbye as they disappear back into the Portalstone that birthed them.

The surroundings return to normal and now the only remaining issue is how the crew will get themselves back to their home universes. I’m not sure why Mii didn’t just offer to zap everyone there. Instead, they discuss various methods of using the devices you’ve seen throughout the game. Some utilize the Cross Gate in the middle of the city and that Celeste ship in the sky; some use the Geo-Fortress’s transporters; some take the Chaos Gate through The World; some travel through the realm of the demons. They depart in groups, and each character gets a chance to say a few lines in farewell. (Until you see all of the Pair Units and Solo Units ungrouped and standing individually on the map together, you really don’t appreciate just how many characters are in this game.)

In the end, Mii and Kogoro are left standing alone in front of her mansion. Considering this is basically how the game begins, I was half expecting something to jump out at them and start the whole thing over again. But, the game actually has a peaceful ending, as the two walk into her mansion together. (I’m not going to say anything more about that.)

Wait through the credits and press a button on the “The End” screen to reach the intermission where you can make your clear game save.