YMMV / Mega Man Zero 2

• Anticlimax Boss: Elpizo. If you can avoid his six-orb energy absorption attack, you can pretty much dodge anything else he throws at you. His second form is arguably even easier, basically being a large floating target in the middle of a large empty walled room with easy-to-dodge attacks. Compare this with the spike-laden stage that you have to traverse to get to him, as well as the Boss Rush in-between. A few blows from your charged Z-Saber will destroy his second form in a matter of seconds.
• Breather Boss:
  • Somehow, Harpuia got easier. Besides his EX Skill, everything is heavily telegraphed, and while his A.I. isn't as broken as it was in the last game, he can still be knocked into a predictable, easily dodged combo. The only way he'll pose any threat is if you let him set up his Options and do nothing to immediately destroy them...which more or less means standing there and doing nothing.
  • The Armed Phenomenon forms of the the Guardians take away their maneuverability and generally telegraph every single move they have. Fairy Leviathan does have some issues with certain tells for when she charges, but otherwise all of them are easier than the normal forms of the Guardians, which is fairly impressive for Harpuia. (The story itself at least implies Harpuia is trying to fight off the Baby Elves' influence and invoke Suicide by Maverick, but still.)
  • For normal bosses, Phoenix Magnion if you figure out his gimmick. He'll only ever counter your attempts to hit him; so if you just use a weak slash and then catch him with a charge shot when he retaliates, you can completely control the flow of the fight. If you have the Lightning Chip, it's entirely possible to stop him from ever once attacking.
• Moral Event Horizon: Elpizo crosses it when he destroys X's physical body. This even applies In-Universe, as he is the only Final Boss with no dialogue between changing forms for Zero, while Zero does talk a little with Weil, Copy X, and Omega.
• Player Punch: Elpizo aims for getting the Dark Elf, and to do so, he had to destroy the the seal, X's body. When Zero finally catches up to him near the seal, he forces Zero to watch by binding him with the Baby Elves' powers as he stabs X's body, destroying it and releasing the Dark Elf.
• Power Up Letdown: Ultimate Form, though downplayed. While the form certainly is all it's cracked up to be, the requirements to achieve it this game pretty much lock you into D-rank forever on that file, meaning the bosses will not use their EX-Skills on you, thus not only are you deprived of a better challenge worthy of this form, you're forever locked out of any EX-Skills you weren't able to get before getting this form. Legacy Collection's Casual Mode is the only way you can use Ultimate Form AND have ranks higher than D.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The weapon proficiency system, despite being somewhat more streamlined, retains the same problem of feeling more like a chore than a worthwhile progression system. Many players feel that they need the higher level weapons in order to stand a chance against the game's considerable difficulty, which encourages grinding in the opening stage for several minutes to max out weapon levels.
  • Like in the previous game, using Cyber-elves will penalize you rank. Unlike the previous game, your rank actually matters since you need at least an A to obtain EX Skills from bosses. While using a few Cyber-elves doesn't make this impossible, the fact that the Skills aren't even that amazing and you still need to grind out the elves make the downside feel like an unnecessary overcorrection. This is compounded by the fact that Cyber-elves are still the main collectable, so you're being actively punished for engaging with one of the major systems of the gameplay loop.
• Scrappy Weapon: Erase Form allows Zero to destroy some enemy projectiles with a Z-Saber slash. Except the Shield Boomerang can already reflect the same projectiles without any sort of timing, plus Erase Form also nerfs the sword combo for some reason. It's probably the most pointless of the Forms, as every other one has some sort of niche.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While Zero 1 overall is considered a decent game, it also has its issues both gameplay- and story-wise and many consider it the weakest of the Zero series, not the kind of game that would reach the all-time greats as a whole. Luckily, Zero 2 streamlines the grinding issues Z1 had in both the Cyber-elf and weapon skill departments, introduces EX Skills you can acquire by beating a boss with Rank A or S (thus giving actual incentive to go for such ranks and suffer the wrath of an entirely new attack outside of being a hardcore player), replaces the divisive Triple Rod with a more convenient Chain Rod, and includes two additional Sub-Tanks (meaning you don't have to risk any Cyber-elves and thus lower your rank). It also puts a much larger emphasis on the story and characterization compared to the rather bare-bones plot of the first game, something the later entries would follow up on and which the series as a whole would be known for.
• That One Achievement: Like with the first game's Ultimate Mode, earning Ultimate Form requires you to use all Cyber-elves before finishing the game, and this form is earned upon loading that game's save file. Unfortunately, that means that your Cyber-elf use from the previous game is carried over, and therefore getting anything higher than D Rank is impossible. Worse, unlike the other games, there is no option to start a completely new game with this Ultimate Form, meaning you cannot have both A/S Rank and Ultimate Form ever, no matter how many times you start a New Game Plus from that same file. Only in Collection's Easy Mode can you have both Ultimate Form and a rank above D. This is probably why the requirement for Ultimate Mode in 3 and 4 completely dropped the need to use all Cyber-elves and simply required each game's respective collectibles (plus fully growing your Cyber-elf in the case of 4).
• That One Boss:
  • Phoenix Magnion is confusing. He'll avoid your initial attacks and then counterattack with one of his own, at random. He's fond of Teleport Spam, especially after you attack him. He can only be attacked while he's launching an offense of his own. Worse, the area has "holes" where blasts of magma will shoot out at intervals; during your first fight, depending on which room you're fighting him, the holes are either scarce or covering the entire floor. During the rematch, the design is always the latter one.
  • Kuwagust Anchus becomes nigh-impossible on Hard Mode if you have an A or S rank. He moves quickly and his grab moves are hard to avoid, especially one that comes after he sucked you in with his tornado. His A/S rank attack is really hard to dodge: He has to be attacked, in-flight, to avoid taking damage, while you're troubled with the wind blowing against you. You have to attack him enough or you'll eat quite some damage. The game doesn't hint at that at all. Or you can just hit him once with Chain Rod with right timing to derail his attack, as shown here.
• That One Level:
  • The Power Room stage, filled to the brim with lava and exploding Telebombs and not much room to maneuver. The stage design is very different from the others, where you have to find 4 chambers with generators; it doesn't have a finish, and you only fight the boss when you destroy the final generator. And to top it off, the boss is an absolute nightmare. Worse still, one of the Cyber Elves hidden here is pure Guide Dang It! material. You essentially have to play Space Invaders in one section, kill every enemy while being blocked by moving platforms that hurt you if you touch them, and after that have to hit the fast-moving UFO in the three seconds from when it emerges to when it leaves.
  • The Bombardment Aircraft. You start off leaping between moving shuttlecraft which shoot at you while you're using them as platforms, on top of Pantheons shooting at you on top of them, requiring perfect timing so as to not to be knocked into the massive Bottomless Pit. Once past that section, you have to fight a miniboss who fires fast-moving, area-damage missiles at you until you hit it. When you hit it, it drops a row of bombs which can only be avoided by standing exactly where it was previously hovering. Then you navigate through a series of timed stage hazards that will eat right through your tiny lifebar and require expert timing to pass unharmed. Then you have to do a Hold the Line section protecting Ciel for 90 seconds, which counts for basically your entire mission score. If she gets hit, goodbye A or S rank. Naturally, this is a Bullet Hell sequence plus the Pantheons who you have to hit while blocking every bullet. This also ends with a very powerful boss. ^note It should be noted that the miniboss, a gunship styled after a ladybug, is extremely weak to Ice, to the point that if you're not playing on Hard Mode, it's possible to off it in one shot by using the Chain Rod's charged attack and the Ice Chip. Defending Ciel also becomes trivial if you simply park yourself right behind her and hold out the Shield Boomerang, which will deflect the vast majority of the crap that section throws at you.
  • The Shuttle Factory, which is also long, contains lots of lava and other stage hazards, and a tough fight against Fefnir at the end.

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