At last, Zero has reached Neo Arcadia’s core. Copy X awaits him at the center, but you can’t just expect the savior of humanity to waltz out and greet us at the front no matter who he resembles. A small batch of guards await, as do the revived Mutos Reploids and X’s Guardians. But it’s nothing the legendary Reploid hasn’t cut through before!
For a hobby project of nine year old human Copy-X is surprisingly well put together. But Ciel is far from the apex of her mastery.
The tragedy is not that X lost the will to fight, instead he lost the will to show mercy.
Thank you for LP of the first game! It was fun.
PS: I’m suffer from MMZ fanfic brainrot. The idea of Ciel having some of Dr. Wily genes? Because he was greatest scientist of ages past and not that people remember Wily Wars…
Neo Arcadia’s Pantheon budget has been dreadful this past year.
Zero has fought alone for a year, but even a legendary Reploid has his limits. His equipment has dulled, and so has his desire to keep up his aimless fight. He’s resolved himself to find the Resistance again, no matter where they wound up after Neo Arcadia’s defeat.
After the experimental nature of Zero 1, Zero 2 is slightly more in line with other Mega Man games. Slightly. The Resistance now has a budget higher than Ciel’s pocket change, which means missions feel just a little more formal. You’re still being graded on your performance, but this time around there’s more of a reward for keeping up a high rank. And while Zero keeps his blade, gun, and boomerang, he also has a new weapon at his disposal! It’s… uh… well, interesting in concept at least.
Part 1: Departure
Zero seems to be on his last legs in his battle against Neo Arcadia. Lost and alone in the desert, even he won’t last much longer against the relentless force he’s faced over and over again. With whatever power he has left, Zero makes one last charge to escape to freedom and meet Ciel again.
The stage is set and Zero has his tasks. First on the list is to take out one of Neo Arcadia’s munitions factories. Destroying the facility itself seems nonviable, but destroying the facility that powers it should be doable. All that Zero needs to do is navigate the maze inside to find and destroy all the generators. Simple, right?
As someone who had a lot of trouble with this series, I wanted to say thank you for this LP! I missed your previous work, so looking forward to more (and am gonna go back and watch the X series as well!)
The Forest of Dysis lies within one of Neo Arcadia’s restricted zones. However, there is something of interest dwelling within its ruins, and Elpizo has sent some soldiers to investigate. Sadly, like many of the Resistance’s operations, it’s doomed to fail without Zero’s intervention. It’s up to him to find whatever Elpizo was looking for, and the soldiers that got lost trying to find it the first time.
The Resistance could use some more supplies, but it would also be helpful for Neo Arcadia to have fewer supplies. Could it be possible to accomplish both things at once? Why, of course we can! We just need a good train robbery and we’ll be all set! Just as long as they don’t retrieve their stuff partway through the mission. And provided there’s no sort of panther Reploid on a nearby train either.
We’ve got one last job before Elpizo puts his plan into motion. There is a computer facility in Antarctica that bolsters Neo Arcadia’s defenses from a great distance away. Hacking the computers should be the final step that will allow the Resistance to strike at their foes. And note that when I say “hacking,” I do mean physically and with a sword.
Elpizo’s plans are now in motion, and so begins Operation Righteous Strike. But considering how bad an idea this is, Zero follows Elpizo and his battalion into Neo Arcadia with about a minute of lead. It’s, uh, still not close enough, apparently.
After the catastrophic failure of Operation Righteous Strike, Elpizo has gone a little mad. He now seeks to destroy Neo Arcadia completely, though his means of doing so are currently unknown. Which means that Zero has to follow him and stop him before his plans come to fruition, because even if Neo Arcadia is the enemy, we don’t want them all dead.
Elpizo’s another step ahead of us, as he’s not even around to greet us as we continue into the Crystal Caverns. The mechanics of said cavern is some kinda mysterious natural phenomenon, but it makes for good platforming, at least. Plus, something familiar may have crashed here as well. By which I mean that definitely happened, else that would have been a non-sequitur.
There’s something Elpizo wants back at the Computer Zone, and unfortunately there’s an entire layer of defenses nobody bothered activating! Which means we won’t be repeating that stage, but we will be running across its roof this time. Can Zero survive being pelted by snowballs as he tries to breach this building again?
So according to the mission select, it seems like this is our last chance to catch up with Elpizo. Our track record so far has been very bad, but maybe we can at least get through without one of the Guardians getting in our way? Ah, no, probably not. Only death could stop them from flinging themselves into fights with Zero.
Elpizo’s in Neo Arcadia, and the only thing stopping him from achieving his goal is a very tired ghost. Meanwhile, Zero definitely doesn’t have permission to enter, so he’s gonna have to take the long way in. Four temples lie between him and Yggdrasil at the center of Neo Arcadia, and today we’ll be taking on the first two.
