New ability to destroy enemies with your hand and steal their weapon from them or to get weapons in the environment, can be used as a straight upwards attack but weapons grabbed usually aren't that useful. Removed your other weapons other than the sword and gun. Stage rankings no longer do anything but give bosses an extra attack if you keep an S rank. A weather system where you can set an easy or hard weather for the stage with hard giving you a boss attack if you beat it and both altering the stage. One elf that grows many times and equips three abilities one from each class of former elf. No longer any elemental effects other than by using EX attacks. Crafting parts for head, body, leg chips, your options are much less interesting and the guessing nature of what makes what was poorly thought out. Narratively seems like a complete afterthought, even removing characters that they later decided died in the previous game for no real reason. Normal length like Zero 2 not with more bosses and stages like 3 or shorter like the first. Better than the first but disappointing after the third.