Mega Man Zero 3

" A nice change in pace"

It appears no matter what is done to the MMBN series some Megaman fans just don't want anything to do with it and wish Capcom would go back to the blue bomber's roots. The funny thing is, most of these people I see who complain about such things don't seem to relize that Capcom already gave into their demands with the Zero series, and with it's latest installment, MM fans have nothing to complain about.

Gameplay

More of the same of course. MMZ makes homage to the classic style gameplay of the MM series, but Capcom fortunatly hasn't forgot to add new things as well, so I can actually talk about something in this section... Last time Zero had the ability to gain new forms according to how the player played and adjusted accordingly, but this time around Capcom took the custimization approach. Now Zero can obtain chips that give Zero different atributes and skills, these are split up into three categories: Head(ex:auto recover), Body (ex:Ice element(, and Foot (ex: Double jump). Kinda like X's armour capsules the chips are hidden through out the levels and must be found and analyzed before use. Besides that everything is pretty much old hat except for a simplified cyber elf system which also act as improvement to Zero's abilities, and the fact that this game is about two levels easier on normal mode which I think is good since MMZ2 didn't get the sales it deserved because of the hardcore difficulty.

Graphics

I still have yet to see a Capcom game with bad graphics, MMZ3 is no exception. The sprites are detailed and easy to see, and the enviroments are colorful (althouhg a bit drab) and very neat looking. Plus the cutscenes are reason enough beg Capcom to drop the battle network anime show and start one of the Zero series.

Sound

I also have yet to see a Capcom game without good sound. MMZ3 shares a great soundtrack of catchy toons and some epic scores. I even ripped the last boss music and listen to it off and on.

Replay value

Just like the last two, MMZ3 has an unlockable hard mode availible for play after completeing the game which is always fun to any MMZ fan of someone looking for a challenge, and the game apeals to completist with many armour upgrades, and chips to find as well but to most these thing probably won't be much of an incentive to keep you sitting with your GBA for hours on end, and the extras to unlock are kinda pointless. After you beat the game you get the hard mode like I said before and you also get a boring little mini game. Ohter can be unlocked with satisfing certain conditions through the game but these condition are extremely disfficult to reach and aren't really worth it. You might play through it, go back for some of the chips and armour, and maybe even try hard mode but after a few weeks you'll probably put it back on your game shelve or whatever you keep your games in.

Playibility

For beginers the game is alot more welcoming than the intimidating MMZ2. Unlike the last installment the difficulty actually climbs through the game instead of starting out insanely hard right off the bat. Now, to fans this may be a little off puting but after breaking my wrist from the frusrtation that was MMZ2 (I'm not kidding) this half way nice little walk in the park seemed nice. It's still fun either way, and if you blew through it so quickly hard mode will supply the beat down you seek.

Megaman zero 3 provides that old feeling with a twist of something new, just like the X series always did (... Well, it did 1-4 after that X went down hill.... But that's a different story. ) and is a little more forgiving this time around, so if your need a good action game for your GBA that keep your hand and wrist intact give this a shot.

Over all score: 8.5

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/05