Mega Man ZX

"A fantastic endeavor into a classic series."

First let me start off by saying, I love Mega man. I love the games love the characters love it all. So this game is a welcome addition even if you aren't directly playing as X, Zero or any other traditional mega man hero (Bass anyone). This game is quite different in fact; you play as kids, kids whom gain the ability to become Mega man in a sense. Well you may be confused so I'm just going to start the review and hopefully you'll get it.

Story 9/10
Now I never played the zero games at all but I can understand the basics of this games story. Basically a man named Serpent is the head of Slither Inc. which at the beginning you believe is a company which wants to help the earth, but it's not quite like that. Serpent is in fact lying to people to gain power for his secret bio-metal. I shall reveal no more except that the girl's story (Aile) delves a little bit deeper into the whole thing.

Graphics 9/10
Now there not quite on par with Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, but there still very nice. Everything is colourful the backgrounds do not feel out of place and they add to the atmosphere of the game. The character designs are pretty good and I love the anime cut scenes.

Sound 8/10
Not allot to say here really, its what you'd expect, no music gets caught in your head and at times you characters battle noises get annoying, as well their some bosses which voices may very well drive you batty. But other than that it's pretty nice.

Game play 10/10
What can I say I love it, so basically right of the beginning of the game you gain the Bio-metal X which is basically the remains of the legendary Hero X. It allows you the kid (either Vent or Aile) to transform into Mega man x, you get all the powers Charge, Jump Dash wall kick. Not too far into the game you also get the ability to double merge 2 Bio-metals (X and any of the others ones gained). All the Bio-metals you get automatically fuse with X and give you new powers and weapons. You can switch to a new different bio-metal at any time during the main game play, making it very intuitive and fun. Some Bio-metals give you swords or large arm cannons as weapons, and all have their own cool abilities as well. Now this game breaks the traditional mega man concept of choosing a level and going to it. The world here is interconnected such like Metroid or Castlevania. You take on missions at Tran server stations and usually go to a new area in which you will fight a boss and gain their bio-metal. It's somewhat repetitive in this sense but never dull, as all the levels enemies and bosses widely differ from the next. You can also gain helpful items and health upgrades as you go along which add to the depth.

Replay ability 9/10
if you're like me, you going to want to collect everything in the game to make your character as powerful as possible, this can take quite some time and skill since the game is quite challenging. As well you can play as 2 different characters one of which is a girl for the first time in Mega man history. The stories are mildly different and upon beating the main game you unlock hard mode. After beating the game with each player you get a cool feature for the next game which will add a new challenge. If you own mega man zero 3 or 4 you can access several extra bosses found in either of those games.

Overall 9/10
All in all I love this game, if I were you I'd buy it but, it's not the kind off game you can't beat in a week or 2 if you rent it. But still it's a very well made game with allot of fun elements a fun fighting system and a fairly large world.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/08

Game Release: Mega Man ZX (US, 09/12/06)