Mega Man Zero
X’s long-haired pal stars in his own game. Is it worth your time?
Tags: Mega Man Zero Categories: GBA Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jul 26th, 2003
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Man Zero (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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It’s amazing that despite dozens of Mega Man games and spin-offs, the games are still as fun as ever, because the core gameplay of the series has always been strong and entertaining. From time to time, Capcom tampers with the gameplay to keep things fresh, which is a risky venture considering the gameplay is what keeps people coming back in the first place. With Mega Man Battle Network, the classic platforming gameplay was left behind in favor of something more like an RPG, with mostly good results. Mega Man Zero also changes the Mega Man formula, but in a much more subtle matter. In this case, though, the results are mixed.
Mega Man Zero’s story takes place a hundred years after the timeline in the Mega Man X series. When last we left X, he was fighting off the Mavericks, reploids (Cyborg-like robots) that defected from society and started attacking the peoples of the world. And he must have done a darn good job of it too, because by the time Mega Man Zero’s story begins, Mavericks are all but non-existent. Unfortunately, he may be doing TOO good of a job. Now, him and his Maverick Hunters are hunting down innocent reploids and “Retiring” them, and Zero is awakened by Ciel, the human leader of the reploid resistance group, to help her and her band of rebels fight X.
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In the graphics and sound department, the game is about on par with the Mega Man X series, with good animation and some very nice effects on the visual side and sound effects seemingly ripped straight from the console games and music in the same vein. Both suffer a bit of repetition, but on the whole the presentation is what we’ve come to expect from the Mega Man games over the past years.
Mega Man Zero is touted as being the “most challenging Mega Man game yet”, and many see it as “A cross between Mega Man X and games like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”, which both sound very nice, but are really only half true. In any case, differences between Mega Man Zero and the Mega Man X series are quite numerous. And while the controls in Mega Man Zero are very similar to those in Mega Man X, the enemies feature similar character designs, and the presentation is similar, this game a whole new animal.
Rather than choosing a themed level from a menu, players walk around the rebel base until they find Ciel, who will give Zero his pick of missions. Some missions take place in previously cleared areas, and some take Zero to new areas, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of variety to them. To be fair, there’s a desert area and a mission on a moving train, but most missions take place in similar-looking old, broken down building structures.
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The missions themselves at least have a bit of variety to them: Some are timed, some an element of stealth involved, and some require the safe escorting of a comrade through hostile territory. All in all, though, it all just boils down to a lot of jumping and shooting, Mega Man style. And I have no problem with that. And of course, that means that every mission has an end-level boss that will give you a new ability… kinda’. Unlike the Mega Man games, Zero only occasionally gets a new weapon from bosses, while at other times getting Cyber-Elfs (One-time use creatures that assist you by shooting enemies or refilling your health), or “elements” (Which allow your normal weapon to do things like shock enemies or set them on fire).
“So where does the Super Metroid-esque level design come into play?” you ask? Really, that’s just another way of saying that you have to walk to get to the area you want to be in. After completing a mission, the area it was in opens up, and to get to it again, you have to do a lot of walking. Sure, some areas may house the doorway to other areas, but the levels don’t seem to interconnect like those in games like Super Metroid, so it all boils down to an annoyance if you want to replay a level.
And you will have to replay levels, even if not in a mission. Most of Zero’s abilities only grow through use, so rather than finding power-up upgrades, Zero basically has to go out and “Level up” his abilities like in an RPG. And again, this is one RPG element that may have been better left behind, as it makes for even more pointless time spent going back and forth fighting enemies just to get your gun to charge up, or to be able to swing Zero’s sword twice in a row.
And the “high difficulty” isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, either. While I certainly wouldn’t mind a more difficult Mega Man game, most of Mega Man Zero’s levels are about the same difficulty of any other Mega Man game. The challenge actually comes elsewhere. For starters, when you save, you save your amount of lives too, and there are no continues. To make matters worse, if you fudge a mission by not beating it within a time limit, or getting trapped, or losing all your lives, that mission is considered failed and cannot be taken again, locking you out of whatever you would have received from beating it.
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This is the difference between difficult and unforgiving. Even in the easiest of Mega Man games, you’re probably going to die a few times in a level before you get it down, but in Mega Man Zero, that just isn’t an option. This seems less like an increase in challenge and more like a roadblock placed in the game, and it only acts as a way to prevent you from enjoying the otherwise fantastic gameplay.
In the end, that’s basically what this comes down to- the ability to use both the gun and sword (And later, other weapons as well) gives the game a fantastic amount of variety that could have made it the Mega Man game to date, but time and again this freedom is overshadowed by the shackles of restrictive design that was intended to make the game harder, but ends up sucking the fun out of things.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| -Fun gameplay | 7.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
-Frustratingly difficult -Somewhat bland level design |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Mega Man Zero probably could have been a much better game if its designers hadn't intentionally set out to make it difficult, resulting in a game often more frustrating than fun. | |
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Tags: Mega Man Zero
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jul 26th, 2003 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
