Mega Man ZX

This model starts off with a double-arm charge shot, meaning you can charge up, and if you just release the button without pressing it again, your character shoots off a single shot and still has a charged shot in reserve. Or you can tap the fire button quickly after releasing it to shoot both shots at once, which results in a slightly larger (and assumably more damaging) shot. Also, the super-shot has little pink shots circling it—these pink shots can get deflected by things like slopes and move off in separate directions from the main shot.

ZX cannot fire two super-shots like X can; you can, however, charge both your buster and your saber at the same time, just like in Mega Man Zero. Unfortunately, however, this model does not have Zero’s traditional double-jump. If you slash while pressing while you are in the air, or slash more than once while in midair, your character performs a circle-slash.

Arguably the most useful model in the game; this one will be your main navigation aid and your main boss-basher. This model can air-dash, including straight up. It can also hover (press jump while in the air). Note that, breaking every X and Zero series tradition, Model HX can dash, air-dash, and hover all in one jump. This means you can dash-jump off a ledge, air-dash again while in the air, then hover your way down (or hover first and then air-dash, or whatever). Model HX catches some serious hang-time.

This model’s weapons are two sabers. By pressing both the weapon and sub-weapon buttons with the right timing and sequence (main, sub, main), you can perform a small cross-over attack which shoots a slash a short distance forward. Charging up with this model produces thunder balls which have semi-homing capabilities. Charging up to the second level and holding while releasing the fire button produces a vertical tornado directly in front of your character. This model’s thunder-based attacks can stun enemies, activate machinery, and put out fires. The lower screen of this model shows the energy meter of enemies that you hit, and of bosses. For Pseudoroids, it will also show what part of their body holds their Biometal.

This model is most at home underwater. It can perform an air-dash while underwater, and you can do this as often as you like (not just once per jump like with Model HX). Double-jump (or air-dash) to activate swim mode; you can maneuver your character freely with this. You will get knocked out of it if you take damage, however. While you are swimming, pressing the attack button will cause your character to twirl her lance all the way around herself (you can keep tapping the button to make her twirl it continuously for effectively forever). Otherwise, she just slashes with it.

This model has only one lance and you can’t do triple-slashes with it; because of this, her attacks are relatively slow. The charged shot creates an ice platform that you can stand on. Shove it around by slashing at it. It’ll float when underwater. Charge up to the second level and hold while releasing the fire button to form a slow-moving ice serpent that will circle toward any enemies that might be on the screen. This model’s ice-based attacks can briefly freeze enemies.

The lower screen of this model shows you your surroundings. A Cyber-elf points out items you can pick up that are within range. This model does not slide on ice.

This model shoots using the big things he carries on his back. You can fire by using either the left or the right arm, or both at the same time. Model FX cannot move while shooting, which is one of its disadvantages. Your normal shots are a rapid volley of small fireballs. They’re more powerful than ZX’s regular shots, though not as strong as charged shots.

You can use the lower screen to customize the paths that the shots fly in, which is rather cool. You can also shoot straight up by holding while firing (in this case your customizations are ignored and the shots just fly straight up). Charging up produces a larger fireball which can destroy certain objects. Charge up to the second level and hold while releasing the fire button to produce a flame along the ground. Fire-based attacks can burn things.

This model can stick to ceilings and ledges; press to latch on. To drop off, hold and press jump. If you are holding onto a ledge, you can hoist yourself up by double-tapping , or just jump. Also, Model PX is invincible while dashing.

This model fires up to four small daggers with each press of the button. If you are standing on the ground, all four daggers go forward, but if you’re in the air or hanging onto something, some of them are thrown angled downward. Charge up to toss a large throwing star that goes out a short distance, stops and hovers for a moment, then returns to you. This is considered a saber weapon and can inflict multiple hits on enemies. Charge up to the second level and hold while releasing the fire button to produce a sphere shield around yourself that will negate the damage of one hit and then vanish.

The lower screen of this model shows you a radar view of the current screen; this view will reveal hidden passages and breakable walls. Enemies are marked on the radar with “!” symbols.

On the surface, this appears to be a logical duplicate of Model ZX, just with new graphics. However, this model has OIS mode (even though it has no weapon energy meter) and most of its special moves are only available when OIS is active. Since this model has no weapon meter, its OIS lasts until it is canceled or you switch areas or take damage.

In OIS mode, your buster shots will be super-shots all of the time (which means you can’t fire while moving), and if you charge up, you can get two super-shots just like with Model X. You can no longer charge your saber, but you get lots of combination moves activated by pressing different directions on the control pad while using either of the two weapons. For example, + saber is a flaming uppercut slash that is fire-based. + saber flings a slash forward that is thunder-based. Slash while in the air and you get a spread of slashes in all directions that are ice-based. + buster (while on the ground) produces a ground-slam move that kicks up boulders. If you charge up partway first, then hold + buster, you get a fan-shaped burst of shots. Charge up fully and he sends laser beams up and down across the screen. And so forth.

Energy pellets refill your life meter. The small ones refill 2 units—not a whole lot, but it can really add up. They will also fill your Sub Tanks if your life meter is full.

These globes are the same as energy pellets except that more energy is refilled. You can break them with a saber-type weapon into four pellets of different kinds.

You can find these lying around stages. They totally refill your energy meter. If your health is already at max, then one of your Sub Tanks will be entirely filled.

The colored pellets are weapon energy. They refill the weapon meter of your current model. If you aren’t equipped with a model or your current model’s meter is full, the energy goes to another model that needs it.

These are the same as weapon energy pellets except that more energy is refilled. You can break them with a saber-type weapon.

These are essentially currency. Use them to repair Biometals and play mini-games. Each small one you pick up gives you 4 EC.

These give you 16 EC when you pick them up. You can break them with a saber-type weapon.

These allow you to retry after you die. Generally you will find them lying around stages. They are dropped by enemies, but rarely. You can carry up to 9 of them at a time.

The Heart Tanks of this game; these add to your maximum health. Curiously, there are only 4 in this game rather than 8, which means each Life Up increases your health meter by 4 units here instead of just 2.

These are permanent containers that can be used to store spare energy and carry it around until it is needed. They are reusable and can be refilled as often as necessary. To fill a Sub Tank, acquire energy when your energy meter is full, and the energy will go to your tank instead. Tanks are used off the subscreen and refill your life meter. You can use a Tank that isn’t yet full, but it might not restore all of your energy.

Collecting these lets you view infomation about enemies and bosses in the lab at Guardian HQ.

This boy was a lone survivor of a Maverick raid that killed his mother. He was found by Giro and went to work for him as a transporter.

This girl was a lone survivor of a Maverick raid that killed her mother. She was found by Giro and went to work for him as a transporter.

He looks and sounds like a she. It doesn’t help he’s got the traditional feminine “ette” on the end of his name to boot. At any rate, this is the owner of the transporter business Giro Express and holder of Model Z.

The sister of Ciel and leader of the Guardians, an organization that fights Mavericks.

This is essentially the replacement of Cerveau; he spends his time in the lab at the Guardian HQ and can help you to repair Biometals and view your Secret Disks.

The president of Slither Inc., and carrier of Model W. His ultimate plan is the fulfillment of “Project Haven.”

This guy appears at first glance to be a lackey of Serpent, but then he shows that he has his own motives.

She doesn’t talk much, and she’s usually seen with Serpent and Prometheus.

He jumps around a lot, sometimes making little hops and sometimes leaping clear across the screen, so you’ll have to keep on your toes. If he gets close to you he’ll grab you and throw you away. He charges up before several of his attacks, and when he charges he recovers health (except on easy mode). When he knocks the flaming blocks from the ceiling, he’ll follow up by dashing through them, so climb the wall and dash-jump over him. He can form energy spheres that appear wherever you are (so move). His ultimate attack involves him turning himself into a fireball and air-dashing across the screen accompanied by smaller fireball shots. Dash under or between these.

The Biometal is in his head, which makes him exceedingly annoying to get a L4 Victory on. If you aim low, for his feet, you can avoid damaging his Biometal except for when he is crouching to charge. The problem is, he likes to charge. A lot. And he heals while charging. Have fun.

This guy spends a lot of his time drilling into the ground and coming out of the ceiling, and vise versa. The main issue here that you have to worry about is dodging all of the rocks and boulders he kicks up. He can shoot a flamethrower that goes all the way across the screen and then up the wall, and toss fireballs that you can dodge between.

The Biometal is in his arms, which can make it a little difficult to hit him without harming it, but if you shoot a thunder ball so that it comes in from above, you can usually strike his head instead of his arms. You can also hit him from the front with saber slashes as long as he’s not in certain frames of animation. This is risky though.

He hovers in the air, and there are no walls. When he makes an X-shaped dive, he leaves his legs behind in the corners, and they spin and shoot small pink electrical bolts at you. Then he’ll come back and reclaim his legs. He can also shoot bolts from his legs while they’re attached to his body, as he moves up and down on one side of the screen. And he can do a sort of triple-slash while on the ground, complete with the slash shot at the end. His ultimate attack involves him hovering in the center of the room and firing beams in various directions. You get warning before they fire showing you where they will hit.

The Biometal is in his wings; try to aim for his legs while he is hovering on one side of the screen, and avoid striking at his body or head.

She flies off the top of the screen, then hovers downward on a tornado that looks like a top. She follows you as you move around, then when she gets low to the floor, she drops down. Wait until she’s almost ready to drop, and dash out of the way and be ready to jump the streamers. She can also shoot tornadoes across the screen, and pink slashes. As an ultimate attack, she can spin herself into a tornado in the middle of the room and continuously shoot slashes to the left and to the right, going from higher to lower and then back up again. She’s invulnerable while doing this. Run or dash in a corner of the room away from the tornado, and jump only the lowest slash (the rest will go over your head).

The Biometal is in her neck, which for all intents and purposes means her head. Try to aim at her feet; one trick is to charge up to the second level with Model LX and hit Hurricaune with the ice serpent shot just as she’s coming down from the top of the screen.

This large Pseudoroid hovers in the center of the room; the Biometal is in his head, which is right where you’d expect to aim. You can shoot him from underneath and miss the Biometal (try Model FX), although you won’t damage him unless his mouth is closed. Or you can hang out on the wall with Model FX and customize your shots to aim out and downward; if you shoot him directly in the center of the top of his head, you won’t damage the Biometal.

For the most part you want to stay on a wall during this battle (jump over the ice on the wall if necessary); most of his attacks will miss you if you are high enough. Avoid the beams of lights that he shines, and the ice serpents he sends out cannot exit the water, so you can avoid them by climbing out of the water. Just watch out because Lecanchor can also send ice across the surface of the water and nail you up there; this attack will also knock you off the wall if you’re touching it at the time.

She starts out looking like a little mermaid (a weird mermaid), then you see that she’s really the bulb attached to a giant lantern fish.

She shoots ice bolts at you, straight forward and diagonally downward, while also moving up and down. She can also send out an ice chunk that drops smaller pieces that drift downward like snowflakes and freeze you if they strike you, or form ice spikes on the ground otherwise; destroy this attack with your own shots. And she can suck you toward her, or form an ice chunk then send it toward you on a laser beam (slow this down by shooting at the ice chunk on the end). Not to mention, the lantern fish itself can fire a large torpedo from its mouth which goes across the floor and blows up if you don’t destroy it before then. If you get close to Lurerre and damage her, sometimes she’ll disappear and then the big fish will try to chomp you.

Note that the Biometal is in her little head; aim carefully at her feet (fin?) if you don’t want to hit it.

The most unique thing about this guy is his giant missile attack. You’ll know it when you see it because Protectos will duck down inside his armor. Stand behind him to avoid being harmed by the explosion. (Remember you can drop down through ledges by pressing + jump.) Protectos can also shoot small grenades along the various ledges that will blow up in different directions, and he’s also equipped with missiles that drop from the sky, and small homing missiles that you can destroy. Finally, he can form a spherical shield around himself that you have to remove by hacking away at it before you can damage Protectos again. Aim for his head so you don’t hit his chest, where his Biometal is.

You’ll want to stay on the walls for most of this battle, though you need to jump off and switch walls at times to avoid him. He kicks up sand, and can hang from the ceiling. Sometimes he tosses balls that bounce and roll around the room, or grenades that leave behind dark spheres. Purprill can spin into a top and bounce around the room, then he’ll stop at one wall and start tossing out rocks. Climb the opposite wall to avoid this.

The Biometal is located within his two big arms. This makes him rather hard to hit without damaging them, although you can aim for his feet while he’s clinging to the rope at the top of the screen—as long as both arms are up.

This is a cannon that shoots spiked balls that explode into a ring of gas. You can’t harm the cannon with your attacks, but you can rotate it. If you point it directly at a solid object, such as a wall or ceiling, it will hit itself with its own cannonballs and blow up. You can also aim the cannons to point at each other if there is more than one in the area.

These cannons don’t do anything until they are hit, then they spew things (fireballs, popcorn, etc., depending on the model) into the air in arcs. Destroy one, then quickly move to stand where it had been, and any shots should just go over your head. You can also shoot them from a distance.

Perhaps the least threatening enemy in the game; this thing comes out of the ground when you approach, though you can see its tip even before then, so you have some warning. After revealing itself, it just sits there and occasionally fires shots straight up.

This cannon tilts away from you first, then slings a rock at you. The amount of time it takes to wind up can give you a chance to destroy it before it fires.

These come out of a bomb that usually appears from bottomless pits. Most bombs release three groups of bees; they will fly toward you one at a time.

Piranha fish that swim about, trying to run into you and damage you bodily. If they have any other attack, I’ve never seen it.

This floats on the surface of the water and tosses grenades that also float and explode into multiple shots that go off in different directions.

(These sound like names I’d come up with.) This is a large vending machine that tosses out bouncing balls. When you destroy it, all the balls inside fall to the ground along with the rest of the shrapnel and can damage you.

A sphere with an outer shell. When it opens to fire, it will open horizontally or vertically. You can only harm it while it is open, and even then, you can only strike it from the direction it is vulnerable. When destroyed, this sphere will explode into a ring of gas that can damage you if you are too close. For this reason it’s a bad idea to use saber weapons on them.

This chain shoots out across passages and generally gets in your way. Destroy it by hitting the side where the chain comes out. The chain itself acts as a platform that you can walk on and grab onto, but it can shock you if it feels like it.

These little robots hop around the ground and occasionally shoot at you. They are mostly a problem when they take you by surprise.

You can destroy the propeller on top separately from the cannon itself. If you destroy the propeller first, the cannon will drop to the ground, stranded. If you destroy the cannon first, the propeller will drop to the ground and start moving like a wheel.

A crab that crawls along the ceiling and occasionally drops bolts below it at three angles. You can’t hurt its shell, so you have to hit it when it is coming toward you or while it is shooting. There are three variations of this: fire, electric, and ice.

Similar to the Rattrap, this one is invulnerable until it opens to fire. It can fire its purple shots at almost any angle, and it shoots almost immediately upon opening, so be ready to dodge. Amusingly, it shoots larger, more damaging shots the longer it survives.

These float slowly toward you before shooting. Really, they should never get around to actually firing, because you should have taken them out by then.

These large enemies open from the front and shoot electric spheres, or chunks of ice that can freeze you, or a flamethrower, depending on the model. You can stand on top of them if you can get up there without hitting the face (a normal jump won’t do it).

A polar bear robot that tosses large snowballs at you. Because of the arc in which they throw, you can stand just in front of them and they won’t hit you.

This guy appears mostly in windows and shoots twin flame jets downward. You can avoid damage by standing right underneath him. When he runs out of fuel, the jets stop. Sometimes he’ll drop the tanks at this point and then dip down to get another load. You can destroy his shoulder cannons separately from the rest of him.

The Galleon are the “Joes” of this game. The hunters are just ordinary solders that move around and shoot from their arm cannons, very much like the Pantheon from the Zero series games.

This is a large canister covered with spikes. Sometimes, the middle part lifts up and the Galleon inside fires at you. Other times, a cannon lifts from the top and shoots. You can only damage the thing while it is attacking.

When you approach this cannon, it will lift onto a cushion of air and run away from you. If it lands on lava, it will toss fireballs at you.

An anemone that spits out little electric fish from time to time. The fish are the real worry. They remain behind even after you destroy the anemone.

Small flies that dart around and generally get in the way. Destroy them as soon as you see them so they can’t swarm you.

These moths flutter around dropping snowflakes below them. If the snowflakes stick to you, they will interfere with your movements for a few moments, making it hard to dash and jump.

This is a Mettaur that moves around waving a police baton when it spots a foe. As with all Mets, it is protected while its helmet is down.

These cannons sit on platforms. They can make tricky jumps even more precarious. It’s easiest to take care of them from a distance, but you can also claim their perch by coming in from above with a saber weapon.

This immobile cannon is so easy to destroy that you’ll probably never see it fire.

A small cannon that releases rat robots. The rats will self-destruct if you don’t destroy them after a preset time. The cannon itself is invulnerable until it opens to release a rat.

These Mettaurs split into three tiny Mets when you destroy them, just like in the original series.

These come seemingly out of nowhere and swoop toward you at the worst possible moments. Mostly an issue when they come in at a bad angle, making it hard to hit them, or catch you while you are trying to make a jump.

This underwater enemy darts around and occasionally shoots a spread of shots at you. Mostly, though, they just get in your way. They can go through walls and everything.

A small tank that moves back and forth. It fires missiles from its back that arc toward you. You can destroy the missiles or avoid them; they will survive the destruction of the tank that fired them.

These are wheels that roll along the ground.

This often hangs out in the background. If you are in human form in Innerpeace, they won’t attack. If they turn red and come to the foreground, they can damage you. They bounce around and try to strike you. If they aren’t destroyed after a preset amount of time, they self-destruct.

This moves back and forth, and is guarded from the front with a shield. If you hit the shield repeatedly, you can cause it to tilt upward. Or you can just strike the thing from behind.

Damage the head and neck to cause the base to drop to the ground. You can stand on the base without harm while the head is not visible. The head will return after a few seconds pass.

This strange thing almost looks like a Cyber-elf. It has a high amount of hit points and tends to disappear when it takes too much damage.

A spider that climbs up a fence in the background, then back down the other side. You can only strike it when it is in the foreground. It shoots electrical shots downward from its back.

These things hang out on the ceiling, then start spinning and come crashing downward trying to hit you. Then, like yo-yos, they return to the ceiling again. Some variations of these also shoot at you.