YMMV / Mega Man X2

• Anti-Climax Boss: Most of the X-Hunters in the endgame (except for Serges) fall into this.
  • Violen uses the exact same attack patterns he did when you faced him in the main stages. The only difference is that he summons blocks around the room to interfere with your movement a little and change up the bouncing patterns of his mace (not that it followed much pattern before). If you could beat him in the first part of the game with your limited power-ups and health, coming here now likely with a fully upgraded X makes him laughably simple to defeat.
  • Agile becomes some sort of flying saucer that will dart back and forth along the top of the screen trying to drop spiked platforms on top of X — these aren't instant death spikes either, they just deal damage. And for his other attack he occasionally summons a swarm of missiles from one side of the arena. It's possible to climb the wall and just shoot Magnet Mines at him, easily evading his attacks. Or, even easier, he's fought in the stage you get the secret Shoryuken move in, and he's in perfect position for you to hit him with it instantly and kill him before he ever gets an attack off.
  • As truly epic as the fight is with the music and story, the fight against Zero has him suffer from a very predictable and exploitable attack pattern. He starts off the battle by firing a triple-shot, which can easily be avoided by just climbing the wall. After he finishes the triple-shot, he'll either do it again if X is on the ground, or if X is still wall-climbing he'll dash to the other side of the room under X and punch the ground to send a wave of debris up toward him. You can charge up a charge shot while wall-climbing, then either drop down and fire it, or let him dash toward you and jump over him to the other side of the room and fire from there; either act will bait him into doing the triple-shot again. Thus you can lock him into an attack loop where you can easily avoid most of his attacks while easily finding opportunities to get off your own. In fact, some players find battling Zero easier than the optional X-Hunter duels and will skip them to save significant play time.
  • The final battle with Sigma Virus was clearly designed under the assumption that the player would be coming off the above battle immediately beforehand low on energy and Sub-Tanks, as the battle is by far the easiest of the three SNES game finales. His first form is very vulnerable to Sonic Slicer and goes down in comparatively few hits, and while his second form is a Damage-Sponge Boss with an invisible HP bar that's twice as long as normal, he moves slowly and his only attacks are Collision Damage and a laser beam that is very easy to avoid by just climbing a wall to be above him. Making it even easier, his second form is a Mook Maker who spawns normal enemies to attack, and they die easily and will leave power-ups behind.
• Complete Monster: In the manga adaptation:
  • Serges—all but stated to be the reincarnation of Dr. Wily himself—is Sigma's Mad Scientist and the leader of the X-Hunters, a Maverick task force under the direct supervision of Sigma. Fully supporting Sigma's cause as a way to defeat the successor of Mega Man, Serges closely assists Sigma in his plans to exterminate humanity and personally purges lesser Reploids. Upon being defeated by X, Serges tries to activate a system of killer satellites to fire lasers at multiple countries out of sheer spite, willing to throw the whole world into chaos if it meant winning and mocking the legacy of Dr. Light.
  • Flame Stag was one of the few Mavericks who survived the first rebellion and joined the remnants of Sigma's army. A vicious Psychopathic Manchild even during his days as a Maverick Hunter, Flame Stag mercilessly bullied lower-ranked soldiers to the point that X himself had to reprimand him for his behavior. Holding a petty grudge against X for standing up to him, Flame Stag sided with Sigma to fight X in battle and have his revenge. Assigned to a facility inside of a volcano, Flame Stag gladly goes along with a plan to cause chain eruptions around the world and block the sun just to face X again.
• Contested Sequel: In many ways, X2 is a Mission-Pack Sequel to X1. Some portions of the fanbase are fine with this, and feel it ultimately means that this game can be described as "X1 but more", while other portions feel that the lack of innovation in this title (aside from minor things like introducing air dashing to the series) make it inferior. Inferior or not, it’s still rare to find people who outright dislike the game compared to its more divisive sequels.
• Disappointing Last Level:
  • The X-Hunter fortress stages are collectively easier than X1's Sigma Palace, and with the exception of the relatively impressive fight with Serges, the bosses are underwhelming as well.
  • The final stage is a mild example. It's just the first part of Magna Centipede's stage with the music from the intro stage playing. However, the location does tie in with the story and the boss fights that are now found here are the real attraction.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Green Biker Dude, a Red Shirt who rides with X to the Mechaniloid factory, then proceeds to do a wheelie before he dies. He even got his own his own fangame and a fanmade mod which alters X to look like him!
  • Magna Centipede, due to his awesome design and being a robotic ninja hacking centipede.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The Ride Chaser was introduced in this game, but its main purpose — to get the Heart Tank in Overdrive Ostrich's level — could easily be circumvented with a dash jump/charged Speed Burner combo, and the game didn't force you to use it. Later games (with the exception of X6) had Ride Chaser levels as a staple, which are some of the most frustrating platforming segments in the entire series.
  • This is the game where Zero started to become more prominent in the series, with a sidequest to put him back together and hints about his origin. It gave the series more depth and a recurring character, but it also led to Zero eventually overshadowing of X as he continued to get pushed to the forefront, which would culminate in X getting shafted from the lead role in X7.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why does the final confrontation with Sigma take place at the Central Computer? Because it was the centrepiece of the entire game. If you look closely, you’ll see that the stage’s starting area is where the X-Hunters hold their meetings. As a computer that connects to the entire world, it was the perfect place to upload the Sigma Virus and have Magna Centipede distribute it over the internet, ensuring it would live on in case their plan failed.
• Game-Breaker: The X-Buster upgrade is astonishing, allowing you to place two charged shots in reserve. This 1-2 punch even bypasses the usual Mercy Invincibility of many bosses, letting you take a large bite out of their life. The main con is the time needed to charge up two balls, but the payoff is very potent. The upgrade was intended to need the Leg Upgrade to get (requiring beating Wheel Gator and a long trip into Overdrive Ostrich's Desert Base), but you can actually reach it with no items, just a very tricky jump. While doing so is difficult, this means you can pick up the upgrade as soon as you start the game.
• Goddamned Boss: Wheel Gator spends a lot of time hiding in his arena's oil pool, and he cannot be damaged until he surfaces. Each time he is hit with his weakness, the Strike Chain, Wheel Gator immediately resubmerges, leading to even more waiting. It's much more quick and efficient to defeat the maverick with the X-Buster; he remains surfaced for much longer.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In Bubble Crab's stage, on the floor underneath the subtank, it's possible to dash jump and reach the subtank without using Bubble Splash.
  • The miniboss of Crystal Snail's stage has some odd detection issues on when the player enters its lair and the fight begins. Various exploits with special weapons or the Ride Armor let players enter the room without triggering the battle, and the miniboss can be skipped.
  • During the fight with Serges in the X-Hunter base, he moves his tank forward each time you destroy two of his turrets, removing one of your platforms so you only have two when he switches to his second phase. However, if you use the Giga Crush to destroy all four turrets at once, he only moves forward once before switching phases, giving you an extra platform to stand on and putting Serges much further back on the screen, making the second part of the fight much easier.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Zero easily defeats a copy of himself, he boasts to Sigma that "There is only one Zero!" Jump 100 years later, and his original body is used to wipe out around nearly all life on Earth while he is trapped in a copy body.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The charged Crystal Hunter was essentially the Speed Gear 23 years before Mega Man 11.
• It Was His Sled: The plot "twist" that Sigma was pulling the strings on the X-Hunters is barely a spoiler, considering his face is on the front of the box. Not only that, but it was already an established series tradition at this point — Mega Man 3 - 6 used very similar twists.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Green Biker Dude is a Red Shirt who rides with X to the Mechaniloid factory that serves as the intro stage. His Ride Chaser is shot and as he and the bike explode, he pops a wheelie. Fans knew him for a whole 5 seconds, but will never forget him. X8’s voice actor for Zero was interested in voicing this character, hoping he would appear in some sort of Gaiden Game.
  • Magna Centipede is some kind of Robot Computer Hacker Ninja and exudes Rule of Cool.
• Older Than They Think: This was the first game to imply that Zero was created by Dr. Wily, and that Wily was still around somehow, but due to the "Blind Idiot" Translation, most American players missed it.
• Memetic Bystander: Again, Green Biker Dude. He doesn't even have a full-sized sprite, being further away in the background than X.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Green Biker Dude, who's onscreen for a measly 3-4 seconds before dying (with style).
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The game somewhat de-emphasises combat in favour of platforming compared to the first game, meaning you’re less often under the pressure of low health. What’s more, the buster upgrade makes this one of the easiest games to do a buster-only run on (see Game Breaker above).
• Shrug of God: Regarding the Serges speculation:
  Keiji Inafune: "I get a lot of people asking me if Serges is Wily. I always give them the same answer, 'He might be...he might not be.' (laughs) I think this is one of those things that is best left without an official comment. As creators, one of the fun things we get to do is plant seeds of imagination in our players and let them come to their own conclusions."
  • Dialogue from the Japanese version of X2 and its manga adaptation implies that Sagasse/Serges is Dr. Wily.
• That One Achievement: The "Covert Ops" achievement in the Legacy Collection release, which requires you to beat Magna Centipede's stage without getting caught by security (this includes the searchlights and the body scanner before the Raider Killer). The searchlight sections provide the biggest headache, with the last one in particular requiring a very specific and easy-to-flub air dash to get through undetected, and the falling ceiling section can easily trip you up as well if you aren't careful. If you screw up even once, you'll have to play the entire stage all over again for the achievement. On top of this, you don't get the achievement until you beat Magna Centipede himself, and you can't get it if you're replaying the stage after beating him.
• That One Attack:
  • Magna Centipede's viral infection, which slowly debuffs and disables X's abilities for the remainder of the fight with each consecutive infection, until X can no longer charge his buster, can only fire one buster shot at a time, and has drastically reduced jump height and dash distance. The attack is also unavoidable and requires furious Button Mashing to get out of before the actual infection happens. Fortunately, if you have Silk Shot, it will destroy his tail and render him unable to use it.
  • Violen's ball and chain flail is quite obnoxious. After Violen throws the weapon, it bounces erratically six times before returning to him. The ball doesn't follow a discernible pattern, and it's the boss' most damaging attack.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The X-Hunters are woefully underdeveloped. Serges at least leads the Unification Project and is implied to have ties to Dr. Wily, but Agile and Violen have little to their personalities at all. Their spiritual successor team, the Four Guardians from Mega Man Zero, are a glimpse at would could have been if they were written better.
  • The Fake Zero seen just before fighting Sigma if you gather all of Zero's parts. He doesn't so much as speak a single line or even fight X before he is destroyed by the real Zero. Especially when you consider that Zero Nightmare and Omega later in the series would show us that even a copy of Zero can still put up a fight.
  • Zero himself, for that matter. You'd think bothering to track down the X-Hunters to defeat them and gather all three of Zero's parts would earn you a better reward than "skipping a cool boss fight". Nowadays, completing that sidequest most likely would unlock Zero himself as a fully playable character, which back in the day would have been an incredible reward. Combine that with the missed opportunity to fight Fake Zero and you realize Mega Man X2 could have been far more awesome than it ultimately was. Had they made Zero unlockable and Fake Zero a proper boss, Mega Man X2 just might have gone on to be as fondly remembered as the first game.