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sigmaxvii-blog · 7 years

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Mega Man Zero: A Star not Meant for Heroism

For years now I’ve seen but not touched. I’ve heard but not experienced. Mega Man Zero, and by extent ZX (and a lot of the X series, legends… etc.), were games I always wanted to play, but never got to. I always was a tad unhappy with myself for this, so I finally got the Mega Man Zero Collection and the two ZX games for my 3ds and preceded to, first, pick apart the 4 Zero games. Without further ado, let’s get into this subseries of Action platformers that are definitely inclined more towards the hard core.

Story:

The story involves a past well established character from the Mega Man X series, Zero (hence the game’s name), as he’s abruptly reawakened from his slumber in a far off shrine or laboratory of some kind by The Resistance. A group of reploids (robots with the ability to think and feel among the same capacity as humans), the resistance fights against Neo Arcadia, the high capital of the world who unjustly discriminates violently against the androids, due to an energy crisis. Among the resistance is a young and brilliant human scientist named Ciel, who is currently working on a new energy source that will hopefully not only get Neo Arcadia off their backs, but perhaps make the unjust treatment of reploids in the capital a thing of the past. Zero, seeing their cause a good one, decides to help them, and in doing so, throughout the games, he’s tasked with defeating the Mavericks who are allied with their enemies through several stages before taking on the evil foe at the end of the line. Several supporting characters come and go with each game (though the several friendly faces of the resistance members all appear in each adventure), and, in general, they’re all quite strong in their own way; Zero and Ciel are the stars of the show for sure though, which I’m perfectly fine with, since the two play off each other quite nicely, with Ciel being the one who is both needed to be supported by Zero throughout the games, but all the same works towards a peaceful future (much like X from the X series when you think about it). Zero, of course, is the guy everyone counts on; constantly is he called “The Legendary Reploid,” by his enemies, and he’s highly respected and revered by his friends and comrades in the Resistance. Most definitely, as expected, he’s filled with juicy one-liners and pretty speeches befitting his noble, wise, yet charismatic warrior nature. Though, it’s interesting to note that he seems to be rather… quiet in Zero 1.

Gameplay:

Being a successor to Mega Man X, the standard dashing, gunning, and slashing gameplay that’s expected is quite intact. However, developer Inti Creates put their own spin on it – that is, making the gameplay brisk and intuitive. What the X series did in controls, Zero and ZX perfected. Part of it might be because of the button mapping option given to the player, but using the R button to dash (which is how I use it in Azure Striker Gunvolt as well) is one of the crispest things I’ve ever experienced, never has it been so easy to seemingly wall climb at light speed before. Dash jump chaining into the Z-saber is one of my new favorite things now, definitely. While Zero does indeed retain his Z-saber and Z-buster (simply dubbed buster shot in the games), he also gets several different weapons besides them, including the triple rod, and it’s future counterparts, the recoil and chain rods which function similarly as a longer range tool, and the shield boomerang, which can block enemy projectiles, and when fully charged, can be thrown like – you guessed it – a boomerang! In Zero 4, however, they replaced these two additions with a tool called the Zero Knuckle, which, when it’s used to finish off an enemy, you can actually use the weapon said enemy was using (for example, you kill an enemy with a rocket launcher or hammer with the Zero Knuckle, you can now use that weapon, if it has ammo, until it runs out), which is an interesting feature. However, these extra tools are trivialized by the power of the Z-saber (it’s probably, like, the strongest weapon in all 4 games) and the utility of the Z-buster in tandem. They’re nice additions, and, aside from Zero 1, there is incentive to use them, but for puzzle solving or platforming (or the odd defend mission) alone, no real combat, which is a shame, since they are cool tools on their own (heck, the Chain rod can be used to hang off ledges and even swing across gaps Indiana Jones style, and the recoil rod can be charged and used downward like a powerful pogo stick). However, a large drawback of Zero 1 and 2 however is that, in order to use any weapon at its best (all moves, fastest charge, etc.) you need to get A LOT of kills with said weapon to level it up, which is rather tedious… Disregarding the underutilization of these tools in the face of the Z-saber and Buster, and the dreary leveling system of the first two games, the two alone make for an amazingly fast and fun experience, dashing through stages, tearing up any enemy that crosses your path with the Z-saber is something I never knew would be so brilliantly fun. Another new mechanic introduced was the Cyber Elf system, which are basically creatures that can give you a certain advantage, from healing you to making you not die immediately from falling in spikes. It’s an interesting system, and gets more interesting in Zero 4, when you, instead of getting several cyber elves, get one, named Croire, who does the same buffing and what not, but the buffs are universal and can be mixed and matched to fit a playstyle. The stage design is fine and difficulty is fine, though I was surprised by Zero 1 being quite easy, Zero 2 on the other hand was extremely hard, 3 was about average, and Zero 4 was just a tad bit harder than Zero 1 I’d say. An interesting change that was made (and one I’m kind of iffy on) is acquiring boss weapons. On the one hand, yes, it does still exist and there are some mandatory elemental chips which change how your charge attacks function, as well as several different armors and armor pieces throughout each game to be unlocked, forged, ect. Which change the way Zero plays, either giving him a special ability or changing another one. However, aside from these, the way they handled weapon getting is… odd. Each stage is scored based on a number of factors (Damage taken, damage done, time, etc.) and this score determines if you get the bosses weapon in the next stage you beat. If it’s a B rank or lower, you’re out of luck. Zero 4 actually changed this for the better and, if you did the hard version of the stage (which was based on the stages weather conditions) you would automatically get the weapon regardless of rank, but the boss would be able to use their special move on you during the battle, and some things in the stage might change. Granted, I found that, for the most part, the abilities, called EX skills, were largely useless… aside from a flaming upward slash, the EX skills didn’t really help in any boss fights either.

Sound:

Sound, as expected of Mega Man, is quite good, though, being Gameboy games, the quality leaves a bit to be desired, but what can you expect? It still sounds quite good and it is enjoyable. I think that the soundtracks are overall weaker than the X and Classic tunes that are so pumping and catchy, however. There’s an odd bit of Japanese voice acting here and there, but I won’t comment on the performance, since I don’t find it’s very important unless the voices are used more often the short declarations of a boss and the occasional shout from someone doing a powerful attack.

Mega Man Zero Collection Overall:

All 4 games are extremely good and fun, but also quit the challenge, don’t even get me started on the hard mode though! Getting rid of charge and the ability to level your weapons to be stronger is too intimidating for me. However, with the Zero Collection comes an interesting mode: Easy Scenario! It’s not just less enemies or, less damage taken, it makes Zero basically an unstoppable killing machine with 4 health-bars. He starts equipped with his weapons at max strength, can’t be killed in one hit by spikes, takes a miniscule amount of damage from everything, has increased speed, can unleash powerful charges at the comboing of a few buttons, etc. etc! Along with this, however, it takes the player straight from Zero 1 to Zero 4 without having to actually go back to the collection menu to choose the next game. I say that the Zero collection might be the best place for people to start out at the franchise because of this. It’s funny how Inti Creates made both very easy and hard games at the same time…

Well, anyway, I’d say, just for the easy scenario mode, this is a recommendation to anyone who is even slightly interested in trying out a Mega Man game, even if it doesn’t star the Blue Bomber featured in Sm4sh, but instead, Doctor Wily’s greatest, and most ironic, creation.

#Megaman megamanzero megamanzx Zero ciel neoarcadia mavericks sigmasgamereviews

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