Mega Man Zero

"Simply Refreshing."

Rockman Zero (GBA Import) by Evan Kao

Ah, the Mega Man series. One of Capcom’s many franchises that have beaten so far into the Earth, it’s being burnt to a crisp by the core. The last couple Mega Man X games have left a pretty nasty taste in my gaming taste buds. Honestly, while they were still somewhat enjoyable, Capcom obviously tried to milk as much money as they could for minimum effort. So with the creation of a new Mega Man game and a whole new series at that, the obvious question comes to mind: Did Capcom actually try to create an enjoyable and ORIGINAL game to satisfy not only hardcore fans but any old Joe? Or did they screw up yet again? I really don’t know whether or not I should be surprised at the answer…

The game starts off with a small intro with a bunch of Reploids (the human-looking robots) running away from Neo Arcadians (bigger, stronger, killer robots) who are tearing them apart like a knife through butter. The intro is interspersed with colorful and detailed still-frames that make scenes more dramatic and interesting. You’ll first notice the visuals are vibrant and thorough with lights dimming and glowing in the foreground and background. Some might even find the new art design of the backgrounds more appealing than those of the PSX games. The sprites may not seem as fluid as their Playstation brethren, as expected of course, but it’s obvious that the sharpness in their design far surpass the abilities of the 16-bit Super Nintendo. When you actually get to play as Zero, your initial opinion will be reinforced and then some.

As the little blond scientist named Ciel and what seems like a tiny faerie awakens everyone’s favorite immortal Zero from his deep slumber, you’ll hear a nostalgic tune from the original Mega Man X (Rescued by Zero). You’re given the mission of protecting Ciel from enemies, and will now be able to finally kick some robot ass, although be forewarned that Zero’s new armor design might seem a little, uh, weak, and he doesn’t use a Z-buster, but a tiny handgun (SOOO not cool). Nevertheless, Zero moves a lot faster than those sprites in the intro did, especially with the dash function, and now that there’s action, you’ll find everything fast and flowing just like you dreamed your little handheld could. Eventually, you’ll hit the first boss, gain your precious Z-Saber from a mysterious-looking symbol, and finish the mission by teleporting to the Renegade Reploid base through a…uh, teleporter…

So far everything looks good. Being a whole new series with a new art designer on a completely different system and game medium, there are no rehashed and overdone graphics here from previous games. Everything seems absolutely fresh. But can the rest of the game compare to that first thrilling minute of gameplay? Yeah, it does, as you’ve probably guessed by now.

Back at the base Ciel will explain what’s been happening since Zero’s been sleeping. Like the average English-speaking American, I can’t read Japanese, so like me, you’ll have to get your story information off message boards, sites, or FAQs on the internet (if you actually care for it). Or you can also just wait for the American release. Whatever you want. But just to have an idea: It’s 102 years after the Mega Man X series, Sigma is dead, and the people have their peace, forming the town/city/country called Neo Arcadia. Unfortunately, they think Reploids are dangerous and must die, so they send other dangerous robots to kill them. Ciel apparently worked in Neo Arcadia, but got disgusted and decided to leave to lead the Reploid resistance. But who leads Neo Arcadia against the Reploids? That’s right, the original protagonist, X. Kinda interesting, no? Yeah, something’s not right in my explanation, but that’s what you get for relying on the information given by people who endlessly debate whether or not the original Mega Man is X or Zero is a transvestite. It’s a good enough gist though.

So now where to begin? How about stage structure? Unlike every traditional Mega Man game to date, a boss’ face will not represent a stage area. In fact, instead of every boss having its own stage, it’s more accurate to think of every mission as having its own boss. While bosses are still usually fought at the end, they may also be fought in middle of a mission, or even at the very beginning. Missions can be accessed by talking to Ciel, who’ll brief Zero on their objectives and also save his progress. You’ll only be given three missions to choose from at the start, but after completing one, new ones will open up, and as expected, there are a total of eight. However, they are missions and not individual stages, as the starting missions will actually open up new missions within the same vicinity, but not in the exact same area or format (so you can relax if you thought Capcom was just being lazy again). Another fresh take is that every mission is different from another in set-up, so that objectives range from rescuing fellow Reploids to finding all hidden bombs before time runs out to protecting the base by slashing through an entire ARMY of enemies. You’ll also be given the Escape option from the very start, but you can’t return to the mission if you choose to use it, although interestingly enough you will be able to revisit almost every area because they’re all connected to the Reploid base some roundabout way.

Unfortunately, what I feel is a minor downside is that despite the variety in all these missions, there’s a real lack of theme to them. What made some levels in every previous Mega Man game so cool was the fact that environments were interactive. Chill Penguin had a stage full of ice that made X slip and slide, and had big enemy-spewing igloos that you could break with fire. A heart tank in Boomer Kuwanger’s stage could only be obtained by defeating Boomer Kuwanger first and then returning to the stage and using his weapon to ‘catch’ it. Flame Mammoth’s stage took place in a factory filled with lava that cooled down after you beat him. All these special environmental details were what made Mega Man levels such a blast to play. In Rockman Zero, this kind of environmental interaction is barely noticeable. But like I said, it’s a minor point, and probably won’t affect most people.

Continuing on about missions, at the end of every mission, you will be given a grade (Best S, A, B, C, D, E, F Worst) based on certain criteria: how well you carried out the mission objective, how quickly you finished it, how many enemies you killed, how much damage you took, how many lives you used, and how many elves (the next subject) you used. The scores range from 100 to -100. The better the rank, the better your “codename” will be, and the better you’ll be treated by comrades within the base. The worse, the worse. Rank will also determine the difficulty of a boss, since if you’re on A or S rank, bosses will gain new moves (which are worth watching – Think Supaa Saiyajin!). Higher rank may also give you access to more places (well, honestly just one place: Ciel’s chemistry room). I’ve even heard that with a higher rank, enemies will fear you and run away, but I really haven’t noticed anything to that effect. It should be noted that you’ll also be graded if you escape, and your rank will plummet. In addition, your rank is cumulative, so if you get 95’s on every mission but get a 70 on the last, you’ll still get an A.

Now to make a rough transition into the game’s next innovative invention: Cyber elves. There are a hundred elves hidden throughout the game. They can be separated into three main categories: Healing/Life Enhancement (Red), Ability Enhancement (Green), and Defense Enhancement (Blue). In each category, there are three types of elves, small, medium, and large. Usually, the medium and large ones will have permanent effects on Zero, such as adding a whole bar of life or doubling defense. These bigger elves must be upgraded before they can be used by feeding them energy capsules found everywhere and dropped by nearly every enemy you kill. You have to be careful when using elves of any type and size however, because once you have, they’re gone forever, never to be used again. Now as you’ve figured, these elves completely replace Sub-tanks, Heart-tanks, and Light Capsules. Fear not if you think the exploration element that made the X series so much fun is gone. Several of these elves are concealed in places so obscure or hard to reach you’ll be scratching your head so much your house will be covered with that special head snow called dandruff. Another note: Permanent faeries will lower your grade for every mission by quite a bit no matter what, so using them destroys your chance of ever getting a high rank.

Another big change is the complete revamp of the weapons system. After the first stage, you’ll start out with a handgun and the Z-Saber. Later on in the game, you’ll be able to acquire two more weapons if you know where to look (though seriously, the Z-Saber is still the most practical choice). This allows you to play in several different styles, choosing whatever you like best. A very cool detail in the game is the discrepancy in animation for killing enemies with different weapons. Using a handgun to destroy enemies will result in the usual explosion, but using a Z-Saber to kill an enemy results in the enemy (even a boss) being sliced in half, accompanied by a big splash of red (which is another subject of debate: Has Capcom gone gore-happy and decided to incorporate a little RE everywhere or is it just a small innocent animation to enhance the coolness of the Z-Saber? My guess is the latter, but the former wouldn’t be surprising).

Weapons can also be leveled up after being used enough times. When they do, new abilities are learned, like a somersault slash or a rolling saber-dash attack, but Zero really doesn’t gain any Street Fighter-esque moves like he does in the X series, and there are no special weapons to be gained from bosses (who will instead drop elves). However, certain bosses will drop Elemental Chips that will partly give your weapon that element; partly, because only when you fully charge up your weapon will you actually end up using that element. Charged elemental weapons also have some nice touches like freezing or electrocuting an enemy. Using the right element on a boss is absolutely devastating, and it isn’t hard to figure which one to use considering there are only three elements, which can be a plus or minus depending on what you like. Elemental Chips may be considered the “special weapons” of the game but they also have unlimited use.

Phew, that’s it for gameplay. Onto the controls. Capcom has so gratefully allowed us to somewhat modify the controls. The default uses the L button to dash, which may seem like a hassle at first, but you’ll get used to it and it’s much faster than double-tapping forward all the time. If you don’t like it, you can change Dash from L to R, but in my honest opinion that doesn’t really help things. Capcom also added the handy feature of setting a secondary weapon, which can be used by holding R and pressing B (attack). This allows you to completely forego the hassle of having to turn to the Start Menu and switching weapons from there. If you don’t like this set-up either, you can choose another, although once again, you’ll probably find the default to be the best.

And how does it actually play? You’ll have your share of frustrations just like pretty much every game you’ve played, but I say this game’s pretty solid and fluid in movement and controls, more so than its Playstation counterparts. Nothing to complain about here, only praise.

What about the challenge? Capcom did boast that they were increasing the difficulty of the series to be as challenging as it used to be, and at a first glance, they did. Extra lives aren’t called “Extra Lives” anymore but “Continues.” If you lose a life and save your game, you’ve lost that life forever. Resetting the game won’t bring it back, and losing all your lives in a mission only means you’ve failed the mission and must continue on with the rest of the game with zero continues. It is possible to gain an extra life from a common enemy, but it’s also very possible to go on for hours without ever getting an extra life. Each mission also has very few checkpoints, if any. That means if you die in a mission and decide to retry, you’ll most likely have to start from the beginning. Bosses can do tons of damage to you and some have cheap attacks. Not only that, but they now have at least two full bars of life, and some have three, giving them four to six times as much life than you do.

Reading all this, Rockman Zero does seem like a bitch, perhaps even more so than the more recent Mega Man X’s. However, they’re all really superficial changes in challenge, and Capcom’s other innovations completely undo these and beyond.

First off, there are the elves. If you use just a couple of the important ones, like the ones that increase your own life bar or defense, the game becomes several times easier. Using everything, you become a godly Zero that has double defense, 4 times as much life, 4 sub-tanks, and a bunch of other subtle upgrades. But using elves, especially permanent ones, kill your rank. And getting at least an A or S rank is the only way to get extra modes, so it has to be possible. This means beating every mission quickly, without taking much damage, and without ever using an elf. But without elves, how the hell can you beat those cheap bosses with huge life bars?

Well, to tell the truth, pretty much every boss in the game has a pattern that’s easily discernable after a couple tries, and if you can figure it out, you’ll easily avoid any damage whatsoever. And this is probably the only Mega Man game where every hit you do can do a hell of lot more damage to a boss than the boss can do to you. A charged saber can normally take off 8 small bars of life. Compare that to the 3 small bars of damage a boss usually does to you. Now if you add the right elemental chip to a charged Z-saber, you’ll be doing 12 small bars of life, which is 1/8 the life of a boss with 3 full bars (96 total small bars) of life. In most Mega Man X games, if X has the right weapon, he can still only do up to 3 small bars of damage. So looking closely, bosses in this game are much easier than previous games. Even the last boss of the game, despite his incredible power, can be beaten with whatever you started with at the beginning of the game, and it doesn’t take much luck. Imagine fighting Sigma in any Mega Man X game with no armor, no heart tanks, and no sub-tanks – IMPOSSIBLE. Definitely not so in Rockman Zero. And of course, if you’ve played through the levels enough to learn their layout, you can easily minimize your damage and will probably never die enough to care about checkpoints.

Don’t get me wrong, without elves, Rockman Zero isn’t easy, but it’s definitely not cheaper or more frustrating than say Mega Man X6.

For replayability, Capcom’s added all kinds of stuff to keep you going. The first playthrough of Rockman Zero should take about anywhere from 2 to 5 hours, but subsequent playthroughs will probably take just an hour. Capcom has added a sort of New Game+ mode, where you’ll be able to keep all the elves from your last playthrough and all the energy you’ve gathered as well. There are also extra modes to obtain, and to get them, you’ll have to meet some demanding requirements. For those who feel Rockman Zero isn’t difficult enough, they can try Hard Mode, which disables the ability to level weapons up, making the game much, much harder and more annoying, especially since that means no charged Z-saber.

If there’s a true weak point to Rockman Zero, it’s the music. While it does fit with the depressing and gloomy tone of the game, it often feels too subdued and quiet, never matching with the rocking tracks from the Mega Man X series. It doesn’t really pick up until the last couple stages, and even then the music is unremarkable and unmemorable. Sure, everything sounds pretty crappy through that tiny GBA speaker, but Castlevania: COTM churned out some pretty nice tunes and even a good song given the equipment, so there’s really no excuse.

The Bottom Line: For anyone who’s about to lose faith or already has in the Mega Man series, Rockman Zero has the potential to restore it. Beautiful, new graphical style, music that’s at least not terrible, a non-convoluted storyline, and fresh, innovative changes to an antiquated system, along with added value in replayability, Rockman Zero is a great start on a whole new series. It’s a game that should most definitely be given a chance whether or not you think Zero’s new costume makes him look like a pansy.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/02, Updated 08/15/02