Mega Man Zero/Cyber-Elves

Zero can collect "Cyber-Elves" which have a wide variety of useful effects. However, they die when used, so you get docked mission points for using them, more for each elf used, and how rare it was. Avoid using them if you want a high rank.


 * Passy: This unique cyber-elf resurrects Zero, therefore starting the video game.

There are three normal kinds of Cyber-Elf:


 * Nurse: Nurse elves often improve Zero's health by increasing the life energy gauge, becoming Sub Tanks, or dropping life energy. They are good to use in a tight pinch, such as in boss fights.
 * Animal: Animal elves come to Zero's aid by improving his abilities or providing a few skills of their own. They are useful against hordes of enemies, and can provide backup.
 * Hacker: Hacker elves are capable of altering data, giving Zero more time under a time limit, getting rid of certain enemies, weakening bosses, or even eliminating the threat of instant-kill spikes from the game.

Along with these elves, Jackson, a very unique Cyber-Elf, will become yours, should you collect all the others, feed them to completion, and get through the game without using any and save the game clear data.


 * Rare: A one-of-a-kind Cyber-Elf with the very special ability to make you invincible. He requires the most E-Crystals to raise, but the rewarding effect makes you untouchable. The only exceptions are falling into pits and getting crushed.

In order to raise all the normal cyber-elves, a total of 23150 crystals is required.

Locations of Animal Cyber-Elves
"Satellite" cyber-elf is a definition that is actually introduced in Mega Man Zero 3. Here, it refers to cyber-elves that once activated are not used up until the end of a mission (or the beginning of one, if they were activated in an intermission).

Why this distinction? Because you might want to fight all the bosses at their full power and still use all the cyber-elves in the same game to unlock the Ultimate Mode, and in order to do so the best strategy would be not ot use any cyber-elf until before the last mission. Well, the "satellite" cyber-Elves prevent this, because once you use three at the same time, you cannot use any other elf until the beginning or the end of next mission. Therefore, you might rather choose to use one of them per mission, thus getting just a small score penalty.

Locations of Hacker Cyber-Elves
In order to get a high score, ignore cyber-elves in boxes during the missions: you can come back later to collect them.

Rare cyber-elf
In order to obtain this cyber-elf, you have to fulfill three requirements, also described in the Unlockable secrets page:
 * 1) Collect every Cyber-Elf;
 * 2) Raise every Cyber-Elf to maximum level (requiring almost 23400 EC);
 * 3) Either one of the following:
 * 4) * Beat the game not using any cyber-elf;
 * 5) * Beat the game using all other cyber-elves (this actually unlocks Ultimate Mode, that includes this cyber-elf).

Although many guides claim the opposite, beating the game in Hard Mode and/or at rank A (or S) is not a requirement to unlock Jackson.

Checklist
In order to unlock the Rare Cyber-Elf, it is necessary at least to collect all other cyber-elves, therefore this section offers a quick checklist.
 * Cyber-elves from enemies can only be obtained during the mission.
 * Cyber-elves from the bosses cannot be missed.
 * Cyber-elves from the crates can be collected after missions, to save mission time (and improve the rank).