I definitely liked this one more than the first game in terms of level design, the bosses are cool, the set pieces are cool, and the weapon upgrade system is more fun here. I also remember liking the soundtrack of this game more. In comparison, I don’t like Elpizo nearly as much as Copy X, he’s a pretty flat villain. The chain rod is also very finicky and that’s not fun since it would’ve been such a cool tool if it worked properly. I definitely want to return to this game someday and get more deep into the Elf system and to revisit the story.

P.S. I didn’t mention this in my review of the first game but Leviathan is very epic.

It doesn't have Z1's huge lives issue anymore and that goes a long way but man...this level design is horrendous. Half the time it's like they forgot what screen size they're working with. This game has SO many blind jumps. The train level is atrocious and absolutely unfun. It's just a straight line filled with enemies that just appear too fast to reasonably react to littered throughout. That being said, movement and combat are still fun. Overall it's not a big enough improvement to validate a higher score than the first game.

I wanted to write a detailed review about this game, but "GT" went to the character limit, and excluded my words (this company is on my blacklist along with Keiji Inafune), but I'm going to give a nice summary in questions.

Is it one of the worst games in the saga? Yes

Is it one of the worst games I've ever played? No

Is the game known for having really bad level design? For sure

Is he unplayable? No

Did I have fun after screwing up the game's rule of using the saber instead of using the buster with the quick charge cheat? Yes

Do I hate this game like some must? No

Is this game bad? X6 level, it's bad, but if you play another way it becomes a little more fun

Do I recommend this game? So, if you want to know the Zero saga; maybe (but I recommend playing buster with a quick charge cheat), but you might not like it either, it's a very controversial game like X6, but unlike X6, the story matters and I found it much more interesting than Mega Man Zero 1 ( In fact, I found the game more fun than the first), so if you care about the lore, do what I said, but if you just want to play a good game in this saga, maybe 3 and 4 (I haven't been much yet in depth on these two, but they say they are better than 1 and 2), but it's that thing, maybe you miss an event from the previous games, do it at your own risk.

Damn, does this game just repel players. Its not necessarily bad, I enjoyed a lot of it. My problem comes from its notoriously bad level and boss design. To talk about the levels, there is one shot spikes and pit everywhere. This is nes era level of horse shit but worse. One of the levels is the sky level in mega man 1 with the little dudes that you have to jump on shoot you but imagine you couldn't see the next one. A lot of the game is just memorization. People argue that other action games are also just memorization but I disagree. MMZ is more memorization because you are so incentivized to never take damage. Even games like souls lets you get hit and give you healing resources. Every MMZ boss has a fuck load of health, you have very little, and the game constantly punishes you for getting a low rank. On top of the fact that they deal a fuck ton of damage too. Thats not to say that I was struggling, I beat some of the bosses first try, like the panther dude, and the snow guy. Having to perfect every level and do it all over again if you wipe is just not fun to me. So many attacks are also just give the lowest possible reaction time. The gba has a small screen but damn you cant see half the shit thats coming at you until it already hits you. It feels like a port of a snes game like the donkey kong country game boy port, where you can't see shit at all. Could I just smash my face against the game until I like it? Sure, but you could say that about any game. I just don't care much about trying to master one of the 6 MMZ games. If I'm being honest, most the problems would be solved by zooming the game out.