Megaman Zero 2 Review

Megaman Zero 2 is the frustrating younger brother to the superior Megaman Zero. This game, while good, has less interesting level design that diminishes skill and adds in too much of a luck requirement. While it's a good game and I recommend playing it, it is very easily the second weakest of the four Megaman Zero games.

Unlike the first game, this game has cleaner graphics that indicate newer, more current and in good repair technology. This changes the mood of the game drastically compared to the first, and I'm not sure I like it, although that's just me, as I have bias to post-apocalyptic settings.

What makes this game frustrating is the level design. There are too many environmental hazards that remove your ability to quickly and accurately control Zero. There are places where you need to swing and grapple around, which is incredibly difficult due to the way the grapple can only be shot in 8 directions. There are long levels where you have to content with slippery ice with one-hit-kill spikes plastered everywhere. There are places where you have to make leap-of-faith after leap-of-faith on unpredictably moving platforms. Now, all of these things are staples of the Megaman games, but this game uses them poorly and it ends up being overly frustrating, as opposed to being a welcome challenge where your quick wits and fast reactions are the only things keeping you alive.

This game is noteable in the series for restoring some old gameplay mechanics from older Megaman games that were missing in the first Megaman Zero, namely, ability stealing, and adding a few more mechanics that would appear in multiple forms through the rest of the Zero series. For instance, there's the "Form" changing mechanic which allows Zero to modify himself to have certain abilities depending on how you use him. Many of these abilities are earned again in the later games through different methods, as only Megaman Zero 2 has the Form changing mechanic.

Overall, it's not a bad game, just far from the best in this series.