What Are You Doing to a Series? Mega Man ZX

By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman

I’m a huge fan of the Mega Man series. With over 120 main titles and spin-offs, Capcom must being doing something right with the Blue Bomber. However, there’s one sub-series of the Mega Man franchise that stands as a ridiculous piece of classic gaming bastardization, the Mega Man ZX series. While it isn’t a bad run and gun game, it is an awful Mega Man game.

"You know you're running out of good ideas when you mix 2 popular characters together in an effort to make one ridiculously popular character (I'm looking at you, Gogeta)."

As the name implies Mega Man ZX is a continuation of the Z and X series’ story arc. Instead of using the normal titular characters (X and Zero), Capcom decided to make the hero a weak adolescent that is chosen to be Mega Man by the “ghost” of X. While, this has become a huge trend in the handheld Mega Man stories (such as Battle Network and Starforce), it could have been done without in this one. In fact, I would have preferred if they just used the same plot device as in Mega Man X and Zero, where an ancient Mega Man is found generations later by a people who are in desperate need of a hero. However, I can see the marketing that Capcom was trying to use, as this game really does cater to the lonely/emo boy generation.

In addition to being a game that caters to little boys with no friends, the game also attempts to reach out to girls. Shortly after starting a new game you’re given the option to play as a boy or a girl. While I normally welcome this choice and will secretly create a girl save file to play through, I found the girl character too much of an ingénue to be “Megawoman X” (plus her “kiais/hyahs” were too annoying and got to me after about a hour or so of play).

A huge gripe with this game is in the gameplay itself. Mega Man Zx is a very arbitrary Mega Man game. To the point where it isn’t even a Mega Man game in my eyes. While I can live with the forced and clunky action RPG engine of the Battle Networks and Starforces, I just can’t get over Mega Man ZX’s style of gameplay.

ZX takes a cue from the first Mega Man Z game and eliminates the separate level format. Instead of choosing a master bot and fighting through a themed stage, you’re now forced to run around in an all encompassing world map with various locales. Though this wasn’t so bad in Mega Man Zero, due to the smaller world map and concise zones; the world of Mega Man ZX is big and confusing. There were numerous times where I’d be running in the opposite direction of my objective and would thus have to reset my game, rather than waste my time backtracking. The developers should have fully utilized both screens on the DS and placed a map on the bottom screen as opposed to that stupid integrated circuit pattern & the M.E.G.A. logo. I know they do provide a map in the menu; however, it’s a joke and doesn’t do you a damn bit of good when you’re traveling through an area for the first time or trying to find a new area for a mission.

"Though it's not very classic Mega Man in its setup, it still has that Mega Man challenge. Even this intro boss was hard."

Missions?! You read that right; you’re given missions with ambiguous descriptions, rather than clear objectives. This is one of the biggest problems with this game. You’re forced to almost guess as to which master bot will be waiting for you at the end of each mission. And if you don’t have to right weapon to exploit the maverick’s weakness, have fun running around and fruitlessly having an arm cannon duel like some chump. These bosses are hard and you’re going to need every weapon advantage you can get. The mission system works great in games like GTA, Bully and every other sandbox game. But in a game like Mega Man where it’s all about preparing for your next fight, the mission system just doesn’t work.

"Even though this is from ZX Advent (the sequel), it's pretty much the same game."

One thing I can applaud in this game is the cut scenes. They’re like watching an anime. If Capcom ever produces an anime of this quality based on any Megman (even 8), I’d snatch it up the second it released. The cinematography is superb. Every time I see that clip of X blasting the snake maverick I get a little choked up inside.

As I said before this would have been a pretty good game had it not had the Mega Man name on it. It’s a decent run and gun and with a pretty firm difficulty level, too bad it makes the Blue Bomber look wimpier than the emo kid who’s meant to be him.

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