N-Philes

Mega Man ZX

Posted January 4th 2007 by Jordan Mammo.

I've been putting off the purchase of a new Mega Man game for years. The series in its entirety had become like that movie that, whenever brought up, you think "Yeah, I still need to see that," but never really have any intention of actually going out and renting it. Then you think you probably wouldn't care much if you never watch it, even though by your own estimation it looks pretty good. You know, that movie. Everyone's got one, perhaps more! Soon enough, the film itself just fades from your memory until something happens that reminds you of its existence, and again you think "Yeah, I still need to see that..."

It's weird, though. At the same time that I don't care about passing on this series I've still been looking for a reason to get back in, and that's who Mega Man ZX feels like it's been made for: people still looking for a reason to care. Certainly, Mega Man ZX is worthy of notice. The big question is whether or not it's worthy of anything else.

Over the years, I've heard several reasons, some dumber than others, as to why the maverick has fallen out of favor (and for fans, reasons to justify their... fandom):

1. It's hard (grow a pair, girly man).

2. It's old-school (enjoy these kind of games while you can!)

3. It doesn't change (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

4. It's for the fans (go away, we don't like you).

Of these, it's the last two that are the biggest issues. Yeah, it's got the same mentality as its 8-bit predecessors. And, yes, it's hard. This isn't a bad thing in my book, especially since Mega Man ZX is neither unfair nor infuriating. You get the impression from people that these games are damn-near impossible, but this installment, at least, never demands perfection from the player. The best thing these kind of titles can do is not induce anger when they kick your butt, and since the controls are tight and the deaths never feel cheap, when you fall there's not a feeling so much of frustration more than the realization of what you did wrong. So, you go back and do it. More often than not you‘ll turn out victorious in just a couple of tries.

Anyway, the biggest and most important change is the Metroid-inspired interconnected world, since the rest is pretty much what you'd expect. Mega Man blasted onto the scene in the late eighties: running, jumping, and shooting his way through increasingly intense and hostile levels. Twenty years later, Mega Man himself has fallen by the wayside, but players are still doing the same thing in his stead. For the first time in the series' history, however, ZX sports a male and female protagonist, though there is virtually nothing to differentiate one from the other, and though I thought nothing of it until halfway through typing this very sentence, even here you can start to see where the game plans on taking you. Both characters look the same (which is actually kind of freaky). Both characters play the same. The big news is simply that there are two of them. ZX has ideas; it just never does anything with them.

Take the Metroid-style overworld, for example. This was the main reason a lot of people were actually interested in an upcoming Mega Man title again. Consider the set-up: classic Mega Man action, new suits with different abilities, a world that's actually set up like one instead of just being a series of levels, and with the acquisition of new suits comes the ability to gain access to new areas.

This sounds awesome. It's sort of true. It's also very under-developed.

The problem is that the new world design seems to have been implemented without much thought towards how Mega Man's own gameplay fits into it, or the other way around, and it never feels like it gels well enough. Yes, it's true that once you get a new suit you can find and enter new areas that were previously unreachable, but it's not because of the new suit you just found. Instead of employing their abilities to reach new areas you use key cards that have been dropped to open different colored doors. There are all these suits and each one has special abilities or characteristics that would seem like great fits for this big, continuous world that's been created, but there's no use for anything.

"But, Mega Man's about old-school action," you say, "not exploring!" Which is true, and that's certainly how Capcom looks to have approached it. Even if we just get a world that connects to the various points of interest it'd be pretty cool, and that's more or less what we did get, except sometimes you don't even know where your points of interest are because the map system blows. It's not so bad at first, but when you do get stuck it can get very frustrating. When you accept a mission, you're told to make your way towards, say, sector G. Okay, but where is sector G? Your map won't tell you exactly unless you've already set foot in the area, but since a lot of times these areas are hidden behind color-coded doors, chances are you haven't been able to get in just yet. Why not look for some kind of logic in the room set-up, then? Good luck with that, since sector G may just as well be connected to sector J or L, but definitely not to sector F or H.

In sum, it's mediocre at best. It's not uncommon to find yourself just running around hoping to stumble onto the right door, and since Mega Man's not about exploration, there's nothing of interest in any of the areas you're running through. So while it may have been fun traversing these levels and fighting the enemies at first, it soon becomes boring, often frustrating, when you run back and forth through them aimlessly and enemies are re-spawning when you step a mere few feet away. Heck, even Metroid Prime, with its big emphasis on exploration, told you where to go; it just didn't say how to get there. Mega Man ZX, if it's going to keep its mainly action-oriented and mission-based focus, would do well to implement such an idea. ZX has features and potential up the whazoo and it just sits on them, almost as if it's happy that it has any ideas in the first place.

Even the core gameplay, though rock solid as it's ever been, seems to be just content with what it is. The first portion gives the game a very nice opening, and as you play early on and earn the power to glide through the air you feel this could shape up to be pretty good. This whole gliding thing is even a little exhilarating! Then, the action goes nowhere. There's no build-up or momentum to ZX, and any sort of pacing that‘s intended is offset by the awful map system. Missions blend in together and the rest just stays the same. I didn't even realize I hit the final level until I ran into videogaming's infamous "rehash every boss in the game one after the other" segment and thought, "Oh, wow, this game is almost over?!"

Yes, it's almost over. I guess big-time fans are saying this is, like, the best Mega Man game in a long time. I don't know. I assume the people who still keep track of this year-in and year-out can appreciate what's been refined here if this is indeed what Mega Man Zero has been building towards in its Game Boy Advance installments. If that's the case, though, there's still work to be done. It goes without saying that there are a ton of sequels in this franchise, and with ZX it wouldn't be so bad if Capcom actually nailed the new things they added to the title. Instead it feels like even they are thinking they can just "get it right the next time." Why not spend some time now and get it right and then rehash that every year? It works for a bunch of other franchises. This doesn't need to be Metroid; it just needs its creators to think a little more.

Slight Pulse - Doesn't add much to the series, and what it

does add doesn't realize its potential.

On the surface, Mega Man ZX looks like a great update for the franchise, but unfortunately it never fully follows through on its potential. It still offers solid gameplay, even if it never feels particularly inspired, but since it doesn't really build on anything it‘ll come across more like a jumbled experiment for those expecting something more fine-tuned. Hopefully the inevitable next installment will be more fully realized.

Posted in: Reviews

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