And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: The home stretch. A three part dungeon that concludes the game. It's all downhill from here. By which i mean it either becomes a complete joke if you said "to hell with ranks" and upgraded, or, if you're like me, it becomes a brick fucking wall due to the game becoming a huge dick.
TO NEO ARCADIA!
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Last time on Megaman Zero: Zero fended off an invasion of Neo Arcadians lead by Hanumachine, while the majority of the resistance evacuated. Once Hanumachine is felled, Zero makes plans to strike back at Neo Arcadia, however getting in is near impossible. Just then, a cyber elf appears and opens up a shortcut that leads right to the inner sanctum of Neo Arcadia. After asking that Zero eliminate the copy of it, much to Ciel's shock, it vanished. Zero then departs, ready to end this war
Alright, so the brief for this mission was pretty much contained in the last update as it's part of the conclusion to the Hanumachine incident. Also, note that you can now go back to the other areas to clean up cyber elves (for the sake of readability, I'll be lumping them together with the NA Part 1 elves). But on the way out, let's check in on some of our fellow resistors.
Zero, I was scared...! Ciel wasn't injured, was she?
Nothing too interesting. I'd talk to Dande, but nobody likes Dande
Hello son. Are you all right?
One sometimes wonders why someone who's been essentially given immortality would opt to remain old, especially when he's constantly wishing he were younger. Surely the aging process is reversable...
Thank goodness! Zero, are you alright? I thought I was doomed... Thank you for saving us, Zero...
Yeah, there's a lot of subtext there. And oh god, does it ever get worse before it gets better.
Anywho, let's get to that video, shall we? Just head to the trans server and that'll take us right up to this point:
That's boss gauntlet 1 (OF TWO) down. Make sure to note how this area has several classic Wily Castle vibes and GODDAMNED BIRDS to go with it
No post mission dialogue that isn't located in the base this time. And I'll keep that for Neo Arcadia Part 2
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And now comes the fun part: The single largest Cyber Elf cleanup I've undertaken. Two of the most elf filled levels in the game, cleaned up together. It also features 2 of the most bastard hard elves to acquire. Aren't we lucky?
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First up, let's head ot Leviathan's level. But on the way, let's make a brief detour to take the long neglected HP+ cyber elf:
Pretty simple, it's just largely hidden from view by the perspective. Once you know it's there, how to get it pretty much speaks for itself (climb ladder, dash jump, slash the container).
Now onto the hidden base itself:
First, go into the water and go underneath both subs. All the way to the left. Remember this:
Yeah, just slide down that wall until you hit the gap. Nice and easy. This however:
Is unquestionably the HARDEST FUCKING ELF IN THE GAME TO GET. And to make matters worse, it requires precise timing and resetting takes about 10 seconds or so. INFURIATING. So, how do you do it? Hop onto the higheset part of the sub. Now we just wait until the tide hits the highest point. Now we dash jump, TURN IN MIDAIR, and grab onto the right side of it. THEN IMMEDIATELY JUMP AGAIN SINCE ONLY THE VERY TIPS OF YOUR FINGERS/SPRITE/HITBOX ARE TOUCHING THE PLATFORM AND YOU'LL SLIDE OFF IF YOU'RE EVEN SLIGHTLY OFF. After that, we just keep climbing the wall until we get high enough to dash jump off it and hit that platform. Our reward? An HP healing elf. Just like the other 798073243 ones we have. I shit you not.
Fortunately, the rest are just a bunch of ladder climbing where we check out the cells from Blizzack's level:
Take note that the cells all have numbering. 1 is the first floor, 2 is the second, and 3 is the third. Duh, I know. The ladder we come in on is just to the left of this one, and it's the first floor. The other elf is just up the ladder to the left of where we came in, and up a ladder just to the left of that. Seen rather easily in the level video.
That long hallway should provide a very good landmark for where this is. Again, pretty simple. Just take your time and check each area and you should have no problem getting these even without help.
And now, we head back to Neo Arcadia part 1 (yes, you can backtrack to individual parts of Neo Arcadia)
First up, remember that section with the moving platforms near where we fought the Pantheon Aces (Purple jetpack soldiers)?
Yeah, there's another platform hidden down there. Just wait for the last one to go all the way down, then leap onto it. To activate it, I recommend just using the Saber combo, since the hits tend to do ground damage, triggering the platform. Once it gets far enough to the left, dash jump off. That'll land you onto the roof of the building filled with those rotating electro balls. There's 2 elves here, both pretty useless, but it's all part of 100% completion.
Now we head through the Pantheon Ace area for our next ones. Head all the way to the left and we'll come to this:
Forgive the misleading image, this isn't the proper way to get it. The real way to do this is to dash jump and fall straight down the hole, then once you're clear of the wall, hold right until you land on the platform. Wallsliding isn't involved at all, as you'll actually fall short of the platform doing this. Physics be damned. Alternatively, you can keep letting off buster shots as you fall, break the container, then wait for the elf to make its way to you. As for where you end up, it's just before the electro ball room on the first floor, so misses can be rather costly. Which makes this a rather unpleasant elf to grab.
Once we get back to the second floor, we head to this area:
Remember those floating enemies? Remember the pogo stick triple rod trick? Yeah, apparently they had to set an elf pair around it. Wait for the timing to sync up properly so that they're in the correct general area. Then dash jump, and hit down+attack to start a bounce, then try to keep it going until you hit the roof. It's probably going to take several tries and a hell of a lot of practice. Fortunately, falling doesn't have much of a penalty (aside from having to wait for enemy positions to be in the right spots again), and the enemies respawn. Once we hit that, there's two more elves in the bag, since they made sure to group some of the elves in this level.
And finally, let's end things off with the third area. Go through the room where we fought Asura Basara and climb the vanishing platform blocks until we hit the last section:
Just get on top of the second block (the one used to hit the last stretch to Herculious) then do a blind dash leap off to the left. Hopefully you land on top of or on the side of the platform over there. Once on top, just do a slash combo. From there, it gets rather annoying. The lack of any real background detail means we have to pretty much estimate our location. I recommend going back and forth a time or two to get an idea of where you are and how long it takes. Once you're confident, make another blind dashing leap off and cross your fingers. If all goes according to plan, you'll hit the roof of Asura's boss chamber and the final cyber elf for this area.
And that's not only the last cyber elf for this cleanup, but the final cyber elf in all the cleanups, as the ones in Neo Arcadia Tower are all acquired in the next video, and those will complete our collection. You may begin applauding.
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And that does it for this update. In the next update we delve further into Neo Arcadia in search of X.
Zero...Promise me that you will not try to push yourself too hard... If something happens to you, I can't... Just please promise me.
Watchng you fight has made me realize that the most important thing is not to give up hope!
Ciel... What made you come here...?
