Mega Man X2

The Mavericks were thought to have been completely eliminated, but this was not so. X, the new leader of the Maverick Hunters, sets off with his fellows to eliminate the rest of the threating robots.

Eventually X discovers that though his partner Zero had destroyed himself to save his friend, his body still exists—though not in one piece. Three new robots—Agile, Violen, and Serges—use Zero’s parts like bait in order to lure X into his destruction. But if X doesn’t retrieve his friend’s body, to what horrible use will it be put?

Sigma is back and so is Zero—do Zero and X remind you of anybody?

Anyway, this is a sequel as sequels go. Nothing much to say here.

Play Control:

Basically the same as the first game’s, although I find myself fighting with the air-dash more than I should be.

Graphics:

The graphics look pretty similiar to the first X game’s. They’re detailed yet clean and crisp.

Animation:

The sprites are nearly identical to the first game’s.

Music:

Decent, although nothing really stands out.

Sound Effects:

Essentially unchanged.

Plot:

Generally not too bad; however several characters’ speeches (particularly Sigma’s) don’t change to take certain plot elements into account, which makes it a little odd.

Difficulty: (normal)

About typical for the X series.

Replay Value:

I find myself going back to this one a bit less than the previous title.

Polish:

After the first game nearly knocked you over with its extra touches, this one pales in comparison. The air-dash was a nice addition however.

Overall: 79%

There’s nothing really outstanding or bad about this game. I did prefer the first one more, however.

• Wheel Gator (Use Strike Chain. Stay on the ground unless he goes under.)
• Bubble Crab (Use Spin Wheel)
• Flame Stag (Use Bubble Splash and his pattern of attack is different!)
• Morph Moth (Use Speed Burner)
• Magna Centipede (Use Silk Shot)
• Crystal Snail (Use Magnet Mines. Attach one to the wall behind you, then hit the snail. Often he will shoot from his shell and hit the mine you planted on the wall!)
• Overdrive Ostrich (Use Crystal Hunter)
• Wire Sponge (Use Sonic Slicer to slice and dice!)

Yes, there are hatches here but they operate very oddly. Anyway...

Agile:

The first time, climb the wall opposite from him, and when he fires his curved shield, drop off the wall and fire from the ground. Repeat. The second time, use Magnet Mines, or, better yet, the Dragon Punch. (Just make sure you’re standing next to the hole in the center of the floor before you let one fly...otherwise you’ll land on the spikes.)

Violen:

The first time you meet this guy, it’s hard to predict what weapons you will have, since if you defeat too many of the Mavericks, Violen and his two buddies will leave and you can no longer fight them. So fool around with the weapons you have if you’d like; I use the X-Buster on him both times. The second time, hide behind the blocks to avoid his mace.

Serges:

The first time, fire at him when he is planting bombs. Use super-shots to clear out any bombs he manages to place. When fighting him in the fortress, use your Armor to blast all of the cannons, then use powered-up Sonic Slicers on Serges himself. Try standing under him—it’s easier to dodge there.

Zero:

You may or may not have this battle—it depends on whether you got all the parts. Sigma still says the exact same thing, though, which is a little odd, but at any rate, if you find yourself fighting this guy, use the X-Buster or...? Zero always manages to stay one step ahead of X...

At any rate, this is a tough battle but if you use the walls to your advantage, air-dash a lot, shoot when he’s firing so he won’t block, and have full Sub-Tanks, you should be able to beat him.

Sigma 1st time:

What a speedy pain! Use the X-Buster and stay away from him, on the walls if he’s firing.

Neo Sigma:

Use the Strike Chain and remember that you can get energy from the robots Sigma is dropping. Or better yet, use a couple of Dragon Punches to finish him off quickly.

Generate your own passwords with the Password Crack or Generator!

Heart Tanks

• Wire Sponge’s stage: In the beginning of the stage, go left and climb the wall.
• Wheel Gator’s stage: It’s by a wall of spikes. Jump and use a mid-air Speed Burner to get to it.
• Bubble Crab’s stage: It’s up—way up—in the open sea area. Either use the Bubble Splash to jump to it, or climb up the right wall and jump and dash at the same time.
• Flame Stag’s stage: It’s in a volcano. You might have to sacrifice a life to get it.
• Morph Moth’s stage: In the beginning of the stage, when you reach the first building, note how your helmet targets the wall. How to get up there? Hit the robot to your left with the Crystal Hunter and it will create a nice block for you to stand on.
• Magna Centipede’s stage: It’s up a passage in the ceiling. Don’t set off any alarms to reach it.
• Crystal Snail’s stage: This is a great one! Take one of the big mechas you can ride and go left and down. There’s a pit down there. Dash to the left and make a huge leap out over the pit. As you start to plunge, press up and the jump button to eject X from the robot. Use the Strike Chain to pull yourself the rest of the way over to the ledge where the tank sits.
• Overdrive Ostrich’s stage: The heart’s on a carpet of spikes. You’re supposed to ride a hover-bike over them. I can never get one up there, so I use an air-dash and a powered-up Speed Burner to get myself over to the tank.
  
  After that I usually hit the spikes and die...but it’s worth it.

Sub-Tanks

• Wire Sponge’s stage: It’s on a ledge. Stay high.
• Bubble Crab’s stage: It’s above the water. Use the Bubble Splash to get up there; jump again once you’re on the surface of the water. X can actually jump on water. Don’t believe me? Follow the giant fish to its berth. Take it out, then experiment jumping on the water. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.
• Flame Stag’s stage: In the beginning of the stage, lure the big robot upward. Don’t let him hit any breakable blocks because he’ll self-destruct. When you get high enough, use it to leap up to where the tank is.
• Magna Centipede’s stage: Oh, the fun one! It’s in a passage in the ceiling. Have fun getting up there. (Want a clue? Try using an air-dash coupled with a powered-up Speed Burner.)

Enhancement Items

• Targeting Helmet: Finds secrets. Get it in Crystal Snail’s stage.
• Air-Dash Boots: They’re in Overdrive Ostrich’s stage. You need the Spin Wheel. Look for areas that the Helmet targets.
• Explosive Armor: It’s in Morph Moth’s junkyard. You need to use the Spin Wheel to cut through the ground.
• Double-shot X-Buster: It’s in Wheel Gator’s stage. Look for a passage leading up. You’ll need to air-dash over to a section of wall hanging down, then drop off that and air-dash again to the other wall, where you can climb up and get your enhancement. Corybell reports that you can also get over there with the Strike Chain, but...as you might be guessing, I haven’t tried it yet. (You gotta get it here; Zero won’t give it to you this time.)

General Tips

• To fill your Sub Tanks quickly, go to Bubble Crab’s stage, and when the giant fish opens the horizontal door, hang onto the wall to the left. You will drop into a secret room. Power up the Silk Shot to draw lots and lots of energy capsules to you. (Any empty room the Helmet targets is probably a room like this one, where you can use the Silk Shot.)
• If you find yourself needing to refill life or weapon energy during a stage (such as in the fortress), try the bird-dispensing machines. Stand near one and rapid-fire the birds that come out; when you defeat them, they will careen forward before blowing up. If you place yourself at the correct distance the birds will disintegrate on top of X’s sprite (they don’t harm X because they are already technically dead). This means any power-ups they drop get absorbed into X immediately. Tape down turbo on the fire button and you should be able to restock your energy supplies effortlessly.
• Use the Crystal Hunter in any area with spikes to make your life easier.

Weather Changes

In the Weather Control stage, try hitting the weather control orbs with the following weapons to change the weather as listed. I suggest steamy or foggy, personally. You don’t want rainy.

• Bubble Splash: Rainy
• Speed Burner: Hot and steamy
• Crystal Hunter: Foggy

Locations of X-Hunter Rooms

Once you defeat two Mavericks, Agile, Violen, and Serges will deploy. They will randomly choose stages on the map screen; watch quickly as they teleport in to see who is where. If you don’t like the stage they are in, enter a stage you’ve defeated and use the Escape Unit (Exit) and they will reshuffle. Note that these guys will disappear permanently if you defeat too many Mavericks, so if you want all the parts, hunt them all down before defeating any other Mavericks. Therefore you’ll want to take out two important Mavericks first. I suggest Wheel Gator and Bubble Crab. (You can, however, enter stages as often as you like; as long as you don’t defeat any Mavericks, the X-Hunters will stick around. So I suggest going and getting all of the enhancements and as many Heart Tanks and Sub Tanks as you can get to make your life easier. Exit stages by either using the Escape Unit or by killing yourself off and continuing.)

• Desert Base: [Need: Spin Wheel] Near the beginning of the stage, cut through the weird-colored rocks instead of taking the ladder down.
• Energen Crystal: [Need: Ride Armor] Use the Ride Armor to break crystal blocks and get to the ledge near where you find the walker. Climb the vertical tunnel using the jet platforms.
• Weather Control: [Need: nothing] Where the large lifts are rising, slide down the wall.
• Robot Junkyard: [Need: nothing] In the area with the long vertical shaft and the ladder, the room can be found down the passage that a Joe is guarding. (Discus Joe?) Destroy the Joe, then dash-jump off the wall under the Joe’s ledge to get up there.
• Volcanic Zone: [Need: nothing] Have the second bug break open the upper wall.
• Central Computer: [Need: nothing] Race the falling rocks (dashing does the job) to the gate in the far wall.
• Deap Sea Base: [Need: nothing] Follow the giant fish to the door.
• Dinosaur Tank: [Need: nothing] Take the second vertically-moving platform all the way up the spike-lined tunnel.

The Flaming Dragon Punch

After the fireball in Mega Man X1, everyone was of course expecting something similar in Mega Man X2. Well, it’s there: You can get Ryu and Ken’s Dragon Punch in this game. (So when will X learn Chun-Li’s Lightning Kick?)

Anyway, this one is very tricky to get and you have to do it in Agile’s stage in the fortress. It’s also not very useful since it fires upward, and it’s even a tad dangerous because it has way too much horizontal reach. You don’t get control back until X lands, which means he could very easily land on something unhealthy like spikes. There are some robots that the Punch is good for: Agile and Neo Sigma, for instance. Like the fireball in Mega Man X1, you have to be at full energy to pull this move off, and you have to be standing on the ground. Press forward, down, down-forward and the fire button to execute it; luckily Capcom made it a little easier to do in this game than in Street Fighter where it originated.

In Agile’s stage, once you navigiate the vertical shaft that you need the jet platform for, continue right and let the bats follow you. Shoot one of the bats underneath the ladder with the Crystal Hunter and you can use it as a platform to get up to the ladder.

Probably the easiest way to get to the capsule is to take advantage of the enemies around you. Just make sure you have a full Sub-Tank before you do this. At the first sea of spikes, you’ll find a bat to the right; wait for him to come forward, then leap into him so that he damages you. This will make you briefly invincible to the spikes so you can just dash across. Do the same for the next obstacle course.

At the final section, where the spikes curve around in a reverse “C” formation, make sure one of the bats from the left follows you (don’t shoot the enemies here!). Then, again let the bat hit you before leaping out into the spikes. If you’re quick, you can drop down and air-dash back to the left, where the 1-Up is, before your invincibility wears off. (This is the somewhat cheap method; technically speaking you’re supposed to use air-dashes coupled with charged-up Speed Burners to make it through, but do what works for you. You can even try the Crystal Hunter if you want.) Since you get a 1-Up immediately before this section, and it comes back when you die, you can take as many stabs at this as you wish.

Once you’ve gotten through, slide down the left wall—don’t fall! If you hang onto the wall it’s slower, but you can’t miss the tunnel. Eventually X will drop into a hidden passage. Stop and use a Sub-Tank if you need to before going further—you must be at full energy for the capsule to appear. Walk left to hear the most uncharacteristic words I’ve ever heard Dr. Light utter.

Note: It is possible to get the Dragon Punch by going up the final passage from below, rather than taking this way through the stage. However this typically involves a combination of luring an enemy over and using the Crystal Hunter on it, then Speed Burner’ing your way up. Use whichever method is easier for you.

When you defeat Sigma, you see X and Zero standing in front of some water (a lake or ocean or whatever). The sky is different hues and looks really nice against the water. I don’t have the text memorized, but I seem to recall that it says things similar to Mega Man X1 (i.e., why am I here? Why am I fighting?) but in a slightly different way. After that, X rides a hoverbike on the highway; I seem to recall Zero being there as well depending on the plot. (I’m told this happens if you beat the game without getting any of X’s enhancements. I noticed Zero there from time to time but never paid attention to why he was appearing. Thanks to Danny for first pointing out to me the possibility as to why this might be happening.)

The very end of the ending (the “Thanks for playing” part) actually reminds me of endings to Sonic the Hedgehog games. Depending on whether you saved Zero or not, one of them appears in front of the logo to show off his triple shot (and then stand there blinking). If you met the fake Zero, the real one is here. If you didn’t save Zero, the gray one is here, and you have no clue as to why he’s gray (unless you’d played the game through the other way!).