Mega Man Zero

"Good, bad, I'm the guy who foolishly bought a MegaMan game."

A spin off of a spin off. It seems kind of ironic. But when you're a company, like Capcom, and like to milk the hell out of your famous franchises, like MegaMan, it only comes naturally I guess. MegaMan Zero is a spin off of the MegaMan X games, which were a spin off of the original MegaMan games.

Story- MegaMan plots have always been cliché, and this time is no different. Now it seems whenever Capcom wants to make a new MegaMan series they just like to go further and further in to the future. Nothing wrong with that I guess. Anyway, 100 years after the MMX games (or whenever Zero has ACTUALLY died) a war between robots is being waged, again. Well, seeing how they have already used a mad scientist and a computer virus as bad guys, they've tried something new and unpredictable, the good guy is now bad. Yes, our beloved X from the MegaMan X games has gone super paranoid and is retiring (a nice Capcom term for slaughtering) any or all reploids (that's a fancy Capcom term for robots) for no reason to protect humanity from reploids going berserk.

A group of rebels are trying to stop X's retirement plan. Now because they're not doing so hot, Ciel, the rebel's leader, goes looking for a legendary hero. That hero is Zero.

Graphics- ZERO STILL LOOKS LIKE A GIRL! Yes, a pointless little detail, but just incase the box art didn't tip you off, I figured I would. Now Zero has always been a man...well as far as robots go, he's a male robot okay! Even in the first MMX game when I thought he was a girl, and they called him, a him, I just thought it was a typo. Anyway, Zero is a dude, just incase you are new to the MMX games or something.

After the jump from NES to SNES there really isn't too much room for improvement in the MegaMan games for graphics...unless they go 3-D. Its nothing breath taking, but it looks good and gets the job done.

Now what is a bit different is the drawing style. But most MM series have their own style, but I like this ones. I also hate it. I can't explain it. I like that its different, but it also looks kind of...not good.

Sound- All things considered (its coming out of a little mono GBA speaker) the sounds are pretty good. The music isn't anything to special or memorable, aside from the X theme in the beginning of the game, but it gets the job done.

Gameplay- It seems when your out of good innovative ideas you just go with anything. Now innovation isn't necessary in MegaMan games, but that's never stopped Capcom from trying.

It controls like a regular MMX game, just that you can change your weapon to the Z-saber or a spear or the typical blaster. Also you can dash, which is nothing new.

Now the new stuff I hate, very much. First up, they have these little guys called cyber elves, they can save you from falling in to a pit, heal you, all kinds of good things. As well as some can increase your attributes like the items you'd find to increase your life meter or the X-capsules. Nothing wrong with changing capsules to elves you have to find, or so it seems at first. The problem is for attributes enhancements elves you have to feed them energy crystals. To get those crystals you have to kill lots and lots of enemies. And the biggest problem I have with them is that they hurt your score. Now that's just stupid. Never before have I ever heard that making yourself stronger hurts yourself. That's just stupid!

Not only do you have to kill bad guys to power up your elves to power up Zero, but your going to have to kill a whole lot of them anyway to up your weapon skill level. Now I do like RPGs, but I do not play action games to spend pointless hours just leveling up! That's stupid! Action games are not based on the abilities of the character, they are based on the abilities of the player. Now if I had to unlock some skills by beating a boss or finding an X-capsule (or a damn elf that wouldn't need powering up) I'd be happy. But to turn this in to a hack and slash game just to get stronger is just ludicrous!

Challenge- The game is very challenging, at first. But after you get some of the elves to up your abilities it will get easier. Now if you want to unlock everything...you'll have your work cut out for you. To get perfect scores on all the levels and do it without using any elves seems almost impossible to me. My hat's off to anyone insane enough to pull it off.

Length- Short, I beat it in a bit over 3 hours, and at least half of this was spend mindlessly slaughtering enemies to try get enough crystals to power up an elf of mine and to improve my weapons skills. Now actually, it was probably more like 4 to 6 hours, I did die a lot, and the game didn't record all of those failed times. Still, the game is way to short, even for a MegaMan game. But if you want to unlock everything, it will probably take you a horrible frustrating week, if not longer.

Replay- Now, there is a hard mode, as well as you could try to find all of the cyber elves, as well as unlock a game with all elves including a secret one. But over all, you'll probably feel so let down by the end of the game you'll not even care.

Overall- Its a good game idea, and it starts off great, but its all downhill from there. I just hope that when Capcom makes a sequel that it won't have those horrible leveling skills and having to power up those damn elves, or at least make it easier.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/02, Updated 09/22/02