Mega Man Zero

" What? Zero in his own game? No way! Yes, It’s true finally Zero gets to star in his own game, but how is it?"

What? Zero in his own game? No way! Yes, It’s true finally Zero gets to star in his own game; Mega Man Zero for the Game Boy Advance. But how does it stack up to previous mega man games and other Game Boy Advance Games? Read on to find out!

Well, At the end of Mega Man X6 Zero goes away and supposable dies or something close to that. Mega Man Zero takes place 150 years later when X has gone insane and his mavericks are terrorizing the world. A small group of resistance fighters goes off to revive Zero as a last attempt to destroy X and restore peace. They successfully revive zero and that’s where the game starts.

There is a horrible problem though, Zero knows nothing of his path, but he slowly remembers things throughout the game while getting more pieces of the truth from the resistance fighters. Has your old bud X really turned evil? There is only one way to find out!

There’s nothing really new to this game if your familiar with Zero already, he has a buster and a saber and you beat up evil robots. The cool thing is that some of the robots are based off things like Leviathan (one of the bosses) is based off the huge sea dragon in mythology.

The game isn’t that long though. I took me about four hours to complete it the first time and a little while ago I zoomed through in one hour. It does provide sufficient enjoyment if you like challenging games, and or mega man games.

There is one major flaw in this game that really makes me mad though. That is that there is no “steal the bosses weapons” instead when you beat a boss you get an element for your weapons or a cyber elf. Cyber elves are the substitutes I guess; you feed them and download them and they have abilities like some recover health. Overall there are about 70 cyber elves; they’re a neat feature, but not a substitute for stealing bosses attacks.

The controls can be a pain too if you leave them on the default controls, because of the fact that you have to press L + B to use your secondary weapon while trying to move. I use the second weapon control so it’s R.

Anyway.... I think I’ve blabbed enough on with the ratings!

Game Play 7/10:
Well mega man games can get kind of repetitive and Mega Man Zero is no exception. Most people simply use the Z-Saber the whole game, which is probably why they don’t like it (if they don’t). That is exactly the problem though, Gamers these days aren’t as good at games making them sink to using the stronger weapons that are cheap or Game Shark. This game is no help though, The Z-Saber is so tempting to use that it’s almost impossible to not use it more than your other weapons. Anyway what I’m getting at is, If you have any self control the action will be fun, but if your cheap and play just to beat the game than you won’t like it.

Graphics 9/10:
Well has Capcom ever let you down with graphics? Not in this lifetime! Any Capcom game has awesome graphics and Mega Man Zero is no exception. The graphics are beautifully sprite shaded, making it look like a cartoon in some cases, but keeping the mega man aspect in the game. Basically what I’m getting at is that any Capcom game has the top notch of graphics.

Story 10/10:
Well I’m a sucker for sequel stories so I gave it a 10/10. The story is more in-depth than most next-generation console games I play which are an advantage. Basically Mega Man Zero is a sequel to Mega Man X6, taking place 150 years later where X has supposable gone mad. Ciel and a group of resistance fighters revive zero to stop X. The story line gets more in-depth as the game goes becoming a mystery of is it really X? End of line, Awesome story.

Length 5/10:
This is what kills MMZ, and most other mega man games with the exception of a few. The game will probably last you 5 hours to go through, unless you go for every secret and cyber elf. The game only has about 10 stages, then 3-Neo-Arcadia end of the game stages. This is the huge let down of this game and all mega man games.

Sound 7/10:
I don’t listen to sound very much, but from what I hear it’s nothing special, just average music. There was no orchestra to blast me away or awesome sound effects, but you can’t really expect that from a handheld game. What I’m getting at is it’s just an average solid music worthy of nothing, but not horrible.

Replay Value 8/10:
Mega Man games replay value always remain high because the game is so short that it’s easy to beat it then a month later pick it up a gain and beat it, then keep on doing that. If you’re a mega man pro you can unlock Jackson mode, hard mode and ultimate mode which is fun, but hard to do except hard mode.

Overall 7.6, rounded up to 8 because I like the game and it’s over .5 meaning it should be rounded up:
Well, Mega Man Zero is nothing special, but can be fun.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/03, Updated 08/28/03