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Reviews » Mega Man ZX [DS]

Every 5-10 years, Capcom’s Mega Man dev team(s) decide it’s time for a series refresh. And when I say Mega Man Series, I mean real Mega Man games, the side-scrolling shooters, not the Legends games or the Battle Network series, real normal side-scrolling shooters. Typically, a refresh advances the Mega Man timeline a couple hundred years, tosses out nearly all characters, and restarts the plot to a relatively neutral point to allow more people to get into the series. Despite all these changes, the basic game stays the same, you run around in a side-scrolling 2D world full of robots, fight 8 bosses, collect upgrades, steal their powers and win the game. Mega Man ZX for the DS is the First game of the latest refresh, and it does not disappoint in the least.

ZX follows several hundred years after the end of the wonderful Zero series for the GBA. Throughout the previous X and Zero series, there was what seemed like never-ending unrest and bloody combat taking place between Human and Reploid forces, and between factions within both sides. At the end of Mega Man Zero 4, the Cyber Elf wars ended with the destruction of a giant orbital space station, and led to a period of relative peace. In the time that followed, the line between Human and Reploid blurred, to the point of irrelevancy.

The Cyber Elf wars left the world in a post-apocalyptic state of destruction, and over time nations were rebuilt, cities reformed, but the threat of Maverick Reploids still remained. Luckily, Slither, Inc. ventured into the Maverick-overrun wastes and recovered lost technologies that helped them protect the central cities from attack and maintain peace. This is where Mega Man ZX begins.

In ZX you’re given the choice of two new human characters to play as: Vent and Aile. The game is just about the same for both characters, only a few different side quests and very minor handling changes. Vent is a transporter, a courier in the world of ZX. His mission at the start of the game is to transport some “Bio-Metal” relics for a paramilitary organization known as the Guardians. The two get ambushed along the way, but it works out because Bio-Metals conveniently let a chosen user transform into so-called “Mega” “Men”. Vent ends up transforming with “Model X”, resulting in all the powers of Classic Mega Man X, while Giro takes “Model Z”, thus giving him all the powers of Classic Zero. With these new powers, Vent and Giro join forces with the Guardians to fight a new escalated threat from Maverick “Pseudoroids” who have been bolstered by the power of Bio-Metal.

The primary change from the MMZ series is that now instead of having one base armor that gets different weapons and elemental attacks, you get whole separate armors that you can transform between with the X button. Each armor beyond the Zx armor has an elemental attack, charge attack, control changes and touchscreen capabilities. The Hx armor for instance is lightning-elemental, has a ball-lightning charge attack, has aerial dash abilities and has an analysis of enemy HP and weak points on the touchscreen. Others have abilities like improved underwater handling, an editable buster, a power-up detector, and a whole host of other things.In addition to the armors which you collect and power up as you defeat the eight different Pseudoroid bosses, you also have the ability to switch back to your human form, which is often necessary to complete puzzles that involve crawling – something you can only do as a defenseless human – or if you need to talk to civilians who would otherwise be scared off by talking to a heavily armored death robot.

Unlike most games in the X or Zero series, ZX has a world-map of sorts to explore. The world is divided into 10 letter-assigned “areas”, which have numbered rooms. Areas loosely correspond to what a “level” would be in previous Mega Man games, but rather than being dumped back to a lifeless hub – or even a big complex hub like the later Zero games – you can travel around however you want in the world. Furthermore, you’re not limited to doing the missions for the Guardians. You can head to the central Town Area and talk to the random townspeople and take missions from them. These missions might involve finding an item in a certain area, or doing some manner of fetch quest, and it might score you anything from a couple hundred EC (the game’s currency, Energy Crystals) to an upgrade chip or energy tank.

The actual mechanics of the game are very similar to those found in the Mega Man Zero series. Scattered throughout the world are Transservers, rooms where you can save, warp to other Transservers, or request a mission to go on. Missions lead you to bosses, bosses get you new armors, new armors help you fight more bosses. Luckily, two of the largest annoyances from the Zero series have been removed from this process: Grades and Rewards based on speed / how much you ignore power-ups, and a massive collection portion of the game where you get to spend untold hours collecting crap just so you can get certain upgrades. All of this stuff was ripped out. You can play the game however you want, and you won’t get penalized. Nothing will get held back from you if you take your time.

There is, however, a new feature that gets you a “score”. All of the Pseudoroid bosses have a weak point where their Bio-Metal resides. If you hit that point it will (obviously) do more damage than normal. However, when you do this you do damage to the Bio-Metal itself, which you will be acquiring after you win. The more damage the Bio-Metal takes during the boss fight, the less energy it will have when you go to use it. However, this is fixable. You can either pay large quantities of EC to repair your damaged Bio-Metal, or you can re-fight the boss and attempt to get a higher-level victory.

Compared to other recent Mega Man games, ZX feels huge and open. The new map system, though it can seem confusing at first to get around, makes the game feel like an actual world to explore rather than just another Mega Man game with a bunch of simple linear levels. It also makes the back-tracking that’s almost always going to happen in a Mega Man game feel more fluid and natural. The addition of things I consider to be “valid” game extenders like optional side quests also contribute significantly to the length in a good way. It’s not like the later Zero games where you get to spend the last third of the game hunting down and farming certain enemies if you want all the game’s equipment available to you

Unfortunately, these side quests and the general open-ness of the game oppose the plot to some extent, and suck all sense of urgency out of the game. Gee, should I hurry up and go save the world from a bunch of evil robots, or should I sit here in town and help hunt down someone’s lost flower? Should I go talk to the super paramilitary organization, or sit around in an arcade and play breakout-style mini-games? Sure it’s kinda nit-picky, but I sorta like Mega Man games to have a solid sense of urgency.

Capcom has successfully pulled off another refresh of a nearly 20 year old series. The formula for the game hasn’t changed drastically over those 20 years, but it has been tweaked enough over time to both stay interesting for those of us who have been fans from the start and still be sufficiently accessible to new players. This really has to be stressed: even if you haven’t played a Mega Man game since Mega Man X, or even way back around Mega Man 3 or so, this should be something you can jump into without needing 10-15 years of backstory. You might miss some of the strong references to the Mega Man Zero story line, but the game can still be very enjoyable without them.

Now, lets just hope Capcom keeps it up, and churns out a new ZX game every year or so.

Mega Man ZX - DS

Presentation

It’s wonderful to see that Capcom hasn’t axed their sprite artists. Both the art and the music for the game were outstanding, and everything that should be expected from a Mega Man game, possibly more.

Gameplay

Mega Man Zero-style fast-paced 2D combat. Just hard enough to be challenging but still do-able.

Replayability

The game’s two protagonists play more or less exactly the same. However, playing through the game twice (once on normal, once on hard) can give you a chance to see the nuances between the two characters. Hard mode is really hard though, so even though the second playthrough is available you might not make it far.

Value

ZX was just released, but it should be available for about $5 less than most other DS games. If you aren’t presently infatuated with another DS game at the moment, it could be a pretty good deal.

Overall

ZX is one of my favorite Mega Man games in years, probably since the first game of the Zero series, or Mega Man X4. It’s decently long [10-15hrs], has a rather sane plot, great gameplay and wonderful presentation. If you’re a fan, or even if you aren’t, this is a great game that’s seriously worth looking into.