Mega Man Zero

"An utterly repetitive and outright bland side scrolling game."

Mega Man is one of the most endearing franchises that Capcom is persistent in continuing. Mega Man Zero, the latest installment of the Mega Man series, takes place on a system where 2-dimensional fun is still treasured and gameplay, the raw core of every game, must not be anything less than utterly satisfying.

Graphics: 6

MMZ is a very well animated and colorful adventure. The sprites are of fair size and well animated. Backgrounds are colorful and bright allowing enemies and items to stand out clearly. As with most other GBA games, there's quite a bit of slowdown here and there that can hamper gameplay at the most inopportune of times. While it was nice of Capcom to include such vivid and detailed animations for the many pawns you will face in the game, having more than two enemies on the screen at any time with some activity going on will cause a noticeable hiccup in the graphics department. Speed as a means of sacrifice i can handle, but there are times when the laziness of the game artists shows and weighs down the graphical experience of the game. Granted, GBA games are not the most aesthetically mind-blowing of games around, but it's nice to know that they at least try. For one, the developers ''cheated'' by giving Zero a pistol blaster instead of the hand-cannon he's usually accustomed to, so that there's no inconsistency as to which hand his blaster rests upon; he simply switches hands depending on the direction he's facing. There is also very little diversity when it comes to the hordes of drones that fill your standard Mega Man game. In several levels the game simply decides to throw the same enemy at you over and over again with some larger enemy thrown in for variety here and there before you face the main boss. While every level has your standard Mega Man themes, i.e. ice, fire, desert, etc, the terrain can become extremely bland and monotonous, with very little detail or nuances. For a system that should rival the power of the Super Nintendo, MMZ is a lackluster effort.

Sound: 5

MMZ doesn't even approach the other recent Mega Man games in terms of sound quality. While the PSX has more capabilities due to it's CD-based medium, even the Mega Man X games on the Super Nintendo had more upbeat tunes. The music for the game is simply too dreary and depressing. While you're in the midst of dramatic dialogue or cutscene it's quite appropriate but it can hamper your concentration after some play time. The voices in the game are nothing more than your standard yelps and shouts from Zero as he pushes past the enemy battalion. Quite simply, the audio is another example of the mediocre effort put forth by Capcom.

Gameplay: 5

MMZ has been hailed as the second coming of Mega Man games (sorry folks, but that was Mega Man 2). Mega Man Zero plays closest in style to the ''X'' series of games that originated on the Super Nintendo and was later continued on the PSX. It has your standard Mega Man gameplay fare - you can only aim and fire in 2 directions and your movement is extremely limited. The toughest challenge of the game is working with such limited command of your character; timing each shot and memorizing enemy patterns are necessary to progress through the game.

While MMZ does have such extremely limited gameplay structure that ultimately makes it more challenging than more recent 2-D offerings, at the same time the gameplay is overcomplicated and frustrating. The ''X'' series of games introduced several new innovations to the series; the ability to slide down walls, dash, and dash and then jump great distances. There are times when the game will request of you all your available faculties, but with the GBA being what it is with a limited control layout, it can become quite frustrating.

MMZ does employ some fairly innovative (or frustrating, if viewed from another perspective) gameplay innovations yet unseen in a side-scrolling Mega Man game. Zero has a number of different weapons available to him. His standard blaster and Z-sabre returns, as well as a spear and a discus. Throughout the game, as Zero uses each weapon at his disposal, he will gradually gain new abilites with each weapon. While it's an interesting RPG element that adds some feeling of accomplishment after mowing down rows upon rows of enemies, each weapon upgrade is fairly important if you wish to progress through the game smoothly; it's pointless and repetitive to have to sit and destroy a group of respawning enemies over and over simply to gain abilities that should have been given from the start of the game or earned after defeating a boss. It's worth noting that the Z-sabre and the blaster are really the only useful weapons in the game.

The Cyber-elf system is a Pokemon-esque collecting element that adds yet another feeling of needless repetition. Each Cyber elf has a special ability that will somehow make little Zero's adventure just that much easier. Cyber elves vary in the effect that they will have on the game usually depending upon their size; smaller ones will simply reduce a boss's life for one round, while larger ones have a more permanent effect, such as increasing Zero's life gauge. Any time a Cyber elf is used, it is lost forever, which isn't of any particular consequence being that the smaller cyber elves (that usually have the same effect) are quite plentiful and larger ones have permanent effects on the game.

Of course, nothing in life is free, and while obtaining all of the game's 70 Cyber elves, many of which are randomly generated, is a challenge in and of itself, actually gaining access to the elves themselves is another exercise in utter repetition. In order to use most elves, they require energy crystals that are dotted here and there in levels and occasionally dropped by enemies. Being that some of the larger elves require several thousands of crystals to become usable, and another component of the game consists mostly of destroying a set of quickly respawning enemies in the hope that they might be so generous as to drop energy crystals. Not only does the repetitive nature of the gameplay serve to artificially lengthen it, it also needlessly bogs it down. Normally, such gameplay facets could be ignored if they were not integral to the game; the later levels are almost impossible without the aid of weapon enhancements or Cyber elves. If you're not prepared to spend a great deal of the game killing the same enemies over and over again, be prepared to be killed over and over again by the game's steep difficulty curve.

Many a hardcore Mega Man fan cried at the revelations in MMZ's level structure, as it's quite a departure from other MM games. Instead of a master screen where you choose which boss you'll face next, you choose to go on missions in which the end boss (if any) is unknown. This can be quite frustrating at first because it doesn't give you a change to properly evaluate whether or not a boss might have a weakness to a weapon you've gained from a previous boss, as per classic Mega Man games go. Furthermore, there are several missions that are strictly do-or-die. If you fail, you never get another chance to complete them. While you don't gain any boss's special weapons or abilites, you do gain Elemental Chips, which are functionally the same but aren't as cool, and don't require any technique.

Past Mega Man games basically gave you unlimited lives - you could always continue your game from where you left off. MMZ bucks this trend heavily by only giving you one life per level and only 3 continues. Once those 3 continues are gone, kiss your game goodbye. Of course, finding more continues is possible if not frustrating. With so many death pits littered throughout the game, having to start over from the beginning of every level (or waste a precious continue) is not an uncommon occurrence. Having to constantly replay each level over and over again is another example of how needlessly repetitive MMZ is.

Overall: 5

While many gamers might see MMZ as the continuation of a series that's roots belong in the 2-D realm, MMZ has quite forgotten what it is to be a Mega Man game; the semi-nonlinearity of past games is gone; the straight up action and platforming has been perverted by the clear influence of the GBA Castlevania games; lastly, the game lacks any sensible level of challenge in which the gamer must rely more on his wits and reflexes than his patience.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/02, Updated 06/11/03