i went in to mega man legends 2 cautiously optimistic. legends didnt play very well, but its charming characters, innovative art style, and intriguing worldbuilding and story elevated it into being something memorable
and for the most part, and despite largely feeling like an expansion of the first game, legends 2 manages to keep whats great about legends 1 and actually made the game fun to play. dualanalog goes a long way in a third person shooter like this. it controls better, the levels have some variety to them, youre not stuck on just one island anymore, instead going to various points across the world on this globe-trotting journey in the search for the mother lode, the very thing the first game was building up... and then it ends. im sure you all know how. but its a very abrupt cliffhanger. it makes me realize that its a problem both legends games have. they spend each game building up to this big thing, with all these dangling threads, teasing us, and then ending the game before we get any conclusion. it makes the experiences feel less fulfilling as i dont feel like im getting a full package, even though neither game is very short.
there are also some rather glaring flaws in the game. no matter how high your attack is, you rarely seem to do much damage (i used speedup a LOT in this game), you earn a ton of zenny but eventually the prices in the game begin to skyrocket to ludicrous amounts that you'll need to grind a rare bird in order to make any money late-game, which leads into the next problem, weapon upgrades cost an insane amount and its impossible to know which weapons you should stick with because some of them suck and if you upgraded them thinking that they could be good when improved, like say, the machine gun, well you're shit outta luck because you just wasted all your money on that. oh you got the energy sword from either getting 100 questions right in a row, or by forking over an insane amount of zenny? well using it launches you into the enemy youre trying to attack, damaging you before him somehow and if you wanna upgrade its range, you cant begin to comprehend how much thats gonna cost. doesnt help that some special weapons are the only reliable way to damage bosses, so if you chose one thats not great, then youre in for a slog of a fight. the balancing of money and damage in this game needs a serious overhaul. also you can spend money upgrading a weapons "special" but you have no indication on just what the hell that even means. and if you die in a dungeon its game over and back to the menu, which i find is a bit unreasonable even for the era, especially given how much progress you could lose, and how annoying the dungeons can be to navigate, and how bad some bosses can be.

i wish legends 3 happened, i truly do. but if legends were to ever come back, these games should probably get remakes first, because a collection wont really fix the problems rooted in these games.