*sits calmly in chair, thinking of the best game ever - Scribblenauts*
*picture of Zero appears on screen*
"Oh god... How could I..."
Megaman Zero
Capcom has this thing about their Megaman Franchise and the future. They made a game about a Robot that in the future will save the world over and over again from some never-dying old dude and his army of robots. (Speaking of which, he was made in 200X - Realisticly, Megaman has 2 months to be built in real life). Not happy with it, after around half a dozen of sequels they decided to make it darker and edgier. So now we're in the future of the future and we have Megaman X, who is totally more awesome than regular mega.
STILL not happy, and with the GBA lacking any good Megaman Game to be played, they decided they should take it even FURTHER to the future. As expecteed, the future of the future's future isn't all that different from the future's future or the future itself. This is where Megaman Zero's storyline happens: A hundred of years after Zero "dies" in the Megaman X storyline. And yes, it got even MORE Darker and Edgier than Megaman X.
And lets's not consider the future of the future's future's future here. Megaman ZX went further into time.
Megaman Zero is a platformer/action game. You control Zero and you destroy the never ending ranks of the Pantheon Warriors, built to mimic Megaman X's architecture.
You're set in a distant future where Megaman X was sealed to contain an evil curse made the Scientist Weil to the Dark Elf. However, X is still around, since another Human Scientist named Ciel made a pirate copy of X using the sealed body as a model.
Nuff said, this clone has a lot of cloning blues issues, and hates being told he's a clone. Plus, considering he's the copy of a great hero who defeated Mavericks (Robots who are a threat to humans), he tries to save humanity from an energy crisis, by "terminating" most of Reploids (Humanoid Robots), dubbing innocent ones as Mavericks if he has to.
And since this Copy X is (almost) as powerfull as the original X, its to no wonder that he managed to take over the world in no time. He's a tyrant heading a regime of Reploid anhialiton troughout the entire world, living in a little human paradise of his own, Neo Arcadia, where he rules, while controlling an enormous army of Mechinaloids (non-humanoid Robots), Reploids and other clones of "original X".
Ciel, Copy X's creator, however, completely disagrees with his view, and thinks Reploids are allowed to the right to live, just as humans do, and thinks that an energy shortage should be solved by finding an alternate source other than the world used "Energy Crystals" that are running low. But she's powerless to fight him, and so she runs from the Human Heaven led by Copy X and forms a Resistance, along other Reploids that were previously doomed to be "terminated".
Ciel however, thinks that Copy X is too strong for any regular Reploid to fight, and she must find another Legendary Reploid from the past to fight him. Luckly for her, she manages to find Zero, the playable character just in the brink of time, and gets him to fight for her side.
Let's review the above storyline:
X, the previous Hero of the Story is now the big bad while Zero, the previous Rival who had lots of Fans, is now the Hero. And Professor Light's stand-in is a CHICK!!!
How cool can THAT be?
The game is played like most of the Megaman X series. You can dash,
climb walls, use your buster gun and of course, there's the trademark Z-saber. While you dash, your hitbox becomes a bit shorter and many enemiy attacks can be avoided while running to their faces for a quick slash this way. There are none of those overpowered airdashes though.All the games consist of your usual "Choose one of 4 levels and beat the boss of the stage" followed by a Storyline Mandatory Stage, which sometimes can be just one huge boss rampaging around a field. Repate again and then you get the final stage boss rush. Pretty much what makes any Megaman Game.
This game is HARD. The gameplay emphasis on Speed A LOT. This is easibly noticed in Boss fights. After meeting a boss and hearing its Hannibal Lecture, you get a Warning on your Screen and the battle starts. All bosses are run on "Attack Patterns" but this doesn't mean they are easy. Their attacks are wide. Some are strong, and a few others are unpredictable and really fast. Some boss work with counter attacks, and overall, you will die more times faster than you can tell your sorry a** that you've been doing the same thing as itself in battle. And that's what makes the game great. Battles are heated up, and you will be constantly avoiding Lazers by dashing under them, following with a 3 HIT-COMBO SLASH OF DOOM, and then proceeding to climb the wall while the enemie's megaton punch crushes the ground in front of it.
Another thing about the gameplay is that Zero has forgotten his abilities from before. He will only be able to us regular shots with the buster and a single slash with the saber at first. If you kill a few more enemies with each weapon, you get triple slahes, rapid fire, rolling/upwards/downwards aerial slashes and charged attacks. Charged attacks are a staple of boss destruction: they are powerfull, have elemental affinity and they are fast in execution. Plus, you can copy the bosses abilities in-game to change your charged attacks, so they shoot lazers, Ice dragons, 3-ways and more!
In the second game, Zero has more abilities at first, but since most his weapons are damaged, he will be still slightly out of touch. In the third and fourth game, he's in top shape and will use charged attacks and triple slashes from start.
Each game also feature two extra weapons. One is always the Shield Boomerang, which is a bullet deflecting shield that can be thrown like a boomerang (duh!). The other one is either a spear, two knifes, a chain whip of sorts or his fist, to steal enemy's guns. their usefullness is always worse than the two main weapons.
There are other gimmicks to the game, including Bodies, which can be elemental, not have knockback, auto charge shots, etc. And Cyber elfs, who can turn enemies on-screen into items, expand your max health, reduce charging time, shoot bullets for you, cut Boss health in half, heal you, etc.
But most come at a cost. In fact, Cyber Elves drastically reduce your Level Score forever! Use more than a few and you'll never have an S-rank again. The reasoning behind this is that Cyber Elves DIE to use their powers, and it reduces your score to murder them needlessly, or to have to rely on them.
This is a personal oppinion, but the character Zero, himself is also probably the coolest video game character you will ever meet, and that's because he has all the good parts of a badass character, but doesn't have the bad ones.
The moment your Big Haired, Big Sword and all Badass Looking Hero talks, you'll hear all sort of s**t like "I couldn't protect her", "I just want to know my place in the world" and "I am but a copy, unworthy of existing". Zero has ALL the reasons to be like those people, and there's plenty of moments where he completely averts all of those. The moment he gets to know he's a copy too, he shrugs it off and destroys his original body. While the games aren't showing him and he's away from the resistance, he keeps fighting hundreds and hundreds of enemies that come after him, untill the fight is meaningless, since he didn't have a good reason at that time to fight - and still, he doesn't go bawwww on himself and on the player about those issues and just keeps fighting. Throughout the games, all bosses will mock him for being "a legendary Hero who is hopelessly trying to save the world from all evil" and in the end of the last game, as his final words, he repies back that he "Never called himself an Hero, nor did he ever cared for a bigger reason to fight other than to protect his friends".
In summary, he's badass, but he's not emo!
He is still very emotionless, which, while it helps against possible puketastic "power of friendship freakouts" in his character, it kinda bothers to think he's just like a war machine and nothing else. To sum this all up, his thoughts are much of a mistery to player, and that's both good and bad considering how different that makes him to other similar characters.
Aestheticly, the game doesn't say much. It was on the GBA and it didn't have much power to make many layers of 2D grounds or a great layer of 3D animation. Still, by looking at ZX and ZX Advent, the sequels for the DS which does have the power to be better, one could guess that they really aren't aiming at pretty and memorable levels with any games of the series.
I could say this game wasn't made for eyesugar. The sprites are all above average, and despite Zero's weapons being an entirely different layer to his body, you'll never notice it, nor will you see stuff going inside walls and s**t. So all I can say is the graphics are average, both on characters and enviroments.
Same goes for music. Level Music sounds like "Platforming stage music" and boss music sounds like "Boss Battle music", and later may get stuck in your head for a while, but not that frequently. There's nothing really great about them. There are no real memorable music in this series. Maybe every player can find one or two that they'll like a lot to go listening to it again. I know I have my own.
And finnally the longevity. How does the game fare troughout the series?
Well:
1 - "Hey, this is Great"
2 - "THIS IS ********' EPIC!!!"
3 - "It kinda feels a little too much like 2 but still... Great!"
4 - "Well, this is kind of a let down. Seems a bit repetitive after 2 and 3... At least they made it epic here and there... And I can't complain about it as a single game."
Still, the storyline gets a conclusion. While you could play at least up to the end of 2, if you like the game, it's entirely up to everyone wether or not Megaman Zero 3 and 4 are still bareable to play... or to consider to be part of discontinuity in the case of 4.
Rating: No rating for you. I dislike Rating systems.
