Mega Man ZX

Guys both these games are on sale right now....which do you think is better if I like challenging games....

I’ve been working my way through the mainline games. I finished MM, MMX, MMZ and MMZX. Almost all of them a great games. But the one that surprised me the most is Advent. I couldn’t put it down. It was such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. I do wish they would lean more heavily into the metroidvania aspect. Some of the abilities were basically unnecessary to the progression of the game. Other than that, this game was a delight to play. Too bad it’s another abandoned MM series. Now it on to Legends!

Hello there!

Today we start our look at the Mega Man ZX series. After being surprised by the Zero series, I was really looking forward to these games. Unfortunately (so far) I don't really know that they live up... but hey, Advent is still on the horizon. We'll see!

Thanks for reading as always.

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Mega Man ZX

Mega Man ZX is a bit of a polished mess.

Like always, this is a new series set an indiscriminate amount of time in the future. And like always, a new series means an opportunity to switch things up a bit. With Mega Man ZX, the idea became to lean hard into the Zero series’ more open aspects. Here we have a fully explorable open world with missions to tackle in various areas. It’s Metroidvania by way of Mega Man.

The problem is that they don’t really commit to this idea.

You have some of the Metroidvania staples: a world you can (mostly) freely explore, with nooks and crannies and gates that you unlock through various abilities or keys. They combine this with Mega Man in a really fun way: the bosses you fight do not drop weapons, but rather the ability to copy their forms. You’ll fight a Harpuia Cosplayer, and then become a Harpuia Cosplayer yourself, unlocking the ability to air dash or fire lightning attacks.

That said, though, this game is largely just normal Mega Man with extra steps.

The same basic design applies: find 8 master robots, destroy them, get a new power, bing-bada-boom. But now, rather than just selecting a boss on a screen, you need to physically travel to their levels. You’ll also need to make sure the mission for that level is active—and you can only have one mission active at a time. Select the wrong mission? Or stumble into the area for a different mission than the one you’re currently on? Then you’ll need to backtrack to one of the staggeringly few transporter stations and abort the mission. Doing this resets all progress, ALL of it, to before you selected that mission. The map (more on that atrocity in a moment) you explored? Any powerups collected? Gone. This also applies to sidequests—if you want to do a sidequest, then that sidequest is your only focus while doing it.

Then there’s the map—and even calling it a “map” feels generous. The game labels areas by letter and then sub areas by number (A-1, A-2, A-3, so on until you hit B-1, etc.). You can get a vague sense for where these areas connect, but the map looks like someone tripped and dropped the letters on it. What connects to Area J? It’s not Area I, or anything else that would make sense. The mission you’re on needs you to go there, though, so good luck! I’m sure you’ll find it eventually. This is a "Metroidvania-lite" game where getting lost is frustrating when it should be the most exciting aspect of it, but there's no reward for wandering off the beaten path or trying to find another way through the world.

I like to think I’m pretty fair when it comes to talking about games. I try to think about the developer intent—why certain choices were made over others, that kind of thing. I cannot, for the life of me, figure this game out. Are you making a Metroidvania or not? It’s like they wanted to test the waters and see how fans reacted, but the lack of commitment just holds this game back. Either make a full-on open exploration game or make some good ol' linear Mega Man. You can't really do both.

All of that is a shame because everything else about this game is great. The gameplay is smooth and the bosses are fantastic to fight. There are some minor additional flaws (mobility being limited to individual Models you need to spend time swapping to sucks, I miss being able to just double jump at will) but the ideas are really cool here, and the story has some fun twists and turns that I enjoyed, although it’s not quite on Zero’s level. I like that I can finally be a girl in Mega Man. I like that we get to see the fruits of Ciel’s life’s work in visualizing a world where Reploids and Humans can live in harmony, albeit not without some anxiety (the humans in the main city are scared of you if you’re in Reploid form). I love the optional fights you do if you connect the game to Zero 3 or 4 (especially THAT one. You know the one).

Overall, I’d call this game a missed opportunity. Hopefully ZX Advent, in one way or another, can choose a path for this series and run with it.

7/10

Quick Edit: Just realized I forgot to talk about the boss weakness system. Not a fan personally! I like the idea of using a boss's weakness being detrimental in some way at the cost of making the boss easier, but arbitrary "weak spots" that are hard to aim around while shooting at the boss ain't it. Making you pay to increase weapon energy for any specific model form as punishment for this is meh. Again, like the idea, but could be executed better IMO.

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