Megaman Zero: Extras Pt.2 (Tips & Such)

Right, so since this game has a tendency to kill you a lot I just thought I'd offer a few things I've found to help.

A cheap shot
If you've played Mega Man games before, you're probably familiar with the whole "charge your weapon before heading through the boss doors" thing, so that you have a strong attack ready right off the bat. In this game, the boss will always have a little introduction animation and also usually some speech. Once this is over and the "Warning" appears on the screen to signal the start of the battle. If you charge up your buster beforehand and let go of the button once this appears on the screen, Zero will fire the instant the battle starts.

Some bosses will hover at the start like Harpuia or Leviathan, in these cases you'll want to use the shield boomerang. I'm a little unsure as to whether this works against the Orochi Arm or not, since I think its core is blocked off at the very start of the battle.

On second thought...
It probably sounds obvious, but you'll probably be wanting to keep your weapons charged pretty much all the time. Sometimes it isn't really necessary, but if you're not familiar with the layout of the stages it can save you a fair bit of frustration (at least until your hand cramps). There are a ton of instances where something will show up on the screen and you'll only have a split second to react before it smacks you in the guts or shoots you in the face, even very early on. Freaking out and and randomly firing that charged shot can save your life!

Hard mode? There's a charged shot for that.
What makes this game's more difficult setting tricky is the inability to level up your weapons, meaning that for the most part you can't utilize the elemental weaknesses of bosses... with one exception. The Shield Boomerang comes with the ability to charge by default and only gains a longer range while leveling up. It's a difficult weapon to use in some ways, the main one being the fact that you can't dash while holding it. You can however, still use your sword without interrupting the charging process, so keep that in mind.

Use Elves
It takes a long time to get enough E-Crystals to feed all the cyber elves in the game (a very long time) but they can be a huge help if you are struggling. Naturally, the ones that are the most helpful are the three that evolve twice; Winkie, Shelter, and Totten. However just for these three you will need a total of 9500 energy crystals. Fun fact; if you want to raise every cyber elf in the game you'll need a total of 24100 EC. If you manage to do that and get Jackson, you'll need an additional 4500 EC to raise him too. I played through the entire game, going through every area after missions but not doing any EC farming from enemies and ended up with a total of about 4000 EC at the end. Yeah. If that's not exciting, then I don't know what is.

Weapon Levels

Z-Saber
Lv.2: Can perform a double slash
Lv.3: Can perform a triple slash
Lv.4: Can perform a charged attack
Lv.5: Charge takes a bit less time
Lv.6: Can perform a jumping, rolling slash (use many jumping slashes to learn)
Lv.7: Can perform a dashing, rolling slash* (hit enemies with the sword while dashing many times)
Note: I probably just suck at using it, but I find the dashing, rolling slash completely useless. I never even bother learning it.

Z-Buster
Lv.2: Can fire four shots at once*
Lv.3: Can charge the buster 2 levels
Lv.4: Charge takes a bit less time

Note: There is some debate over what this actually means. I've seen people say that it lets you fire three more basic shots after shooting a charged shot, though there's not really any way to test this since you don't get the fully charged shot until after you get this ability. I've also seen someone say that it allows you to rapid-fire the buster, but I personally never noticed any difference. However, since I have an emulator I turned on the "auto fire" option and I got this;

Then I tried it on a new game and yep, it only shot out three. I have no idea how you would actually go about executing this though, because no matter what I tried my non-autofire shots always come out in regular, spaced out single pellets. Nobody knowing how the heck to do this was probably the reason why it was never in any other games.

Triple Rod
Lv.2: Can extend the rod once after striking for a double attack
Lv.3: Can extend the rod twice after striking for a triple attack
Lv.4: Can perform a charged attack
Lv.5: Charge takes a bit less time

Shield Boomerang
Lv.2: Slightly extends the range of the charge attack
Lv.3: Slighty extends the range of the charge attack

Aaaand that's all I can think of right now. If there's something else you think I should put here leave me a comment.