There’s been a lot of stuff about comics recently, but don’t worry! I’ve been playing games too. Specifically Paper Mario Sticker Star, a Christmas present, and I also picked Metroid Prime 2 back up after a long break. Almost finished both of those now, but first I have to talk about some games I got through earlier.

I played the Zero series games in a weird order. I think my first was Zero 2, then Zero 1. Those were in Japanese, then I got Zero 4 in English. When shopping for DS games I chose ZX Advent (the sequel) over ZX because of the purported improvements, especially to the map system and voice acting. Then I eventually got a copy of ZX, along with Zero Collection, and had my first play of Zero 3. And now finally I’ve got around to playing ZX.

Overall, before I go any further, my impression of this game is better than its sequel, Advent (ZXA). There are a number of reasons for this. Its characters were more memorable, playing as Model ZX (who plays just like the Zero I’m used to) from the third mission instead of the third last was great, and it had a more manageable number of transformations. On the other hand, the mission handling was clumsier here, they improved the rewards and economy in the sequel, and the Model transformations seemed better utilised there. But enough comparisons.

The ZX series seems a bit maligned, at least from traditional Megaman fans. I don’t see any good reason for this, as it retains the smooth but challenging gameplay of Zero, and seems a natural extension of it as well (although the new characters I see may put some people off, with many of them being whiny kids). There’s also tons of fanservice if you’re looking. Plus I think it maintains a high standard of quality, unlike certain installments of the Classic and X series. I guess if you didn’t like Zero as much, ZX and ZXA are even more out there. But me, I love Zero.

So it’s only natural that I loved this game, too. I played through it twice in a row, and I wouldn’t normally do that. You choose between playing Vent and Aile, so I did both. There are very few differences between them: minor story points and dialogue changes, and slightly different attributes, but so slight hardly anyone even notices. They even have the same backstory and relationship to the major NPC, Giro. One might think they are interchangeable. The animated trailer however shows both of them double Megamerging and using ZX’s powers, so it’s possible that alternate playthroughs are in a way half the story, with the “true” events involving both, which is hard to portray in a game with a single player I guess. (The dual protagonists is something the sequel executed much better, also).

So I can’t really escape comparisons, I don’t think I have a way of judging this game outside my frame of reference. I also think it’s worth judging games compared to similar ones, after all I didn’t play it in a vacuum. Ah, this is getting too meta.

I think I’m a bit out of practice with these reviews. Ok, well, the storytelling is fine, but the animated cutscenes are a little jarring with their heavy compression artifacts and Japanese-only audio. That’s not too much of an issue, as the whole Zero series had Japanese boss barks, but keep in mind I played ZXA first which had a whole English speech track over most cutscenes, animated and otherwise. The characters in the game were quite memorable, most of the major ones had ties to the Zero series, which I appreciated, and the NPCs all had unique appearances and personalities (a problem with ZXA was too generic appearances in NPCs).

The levels were well designed, I think- I’m not an expert on that kind of thing. Enemies often required a bit of strategy to beat, although some parts were just annoying, like the radars that reversed the controls. A commonly cited criticism of this game is that once you get Model H, there’s little reason to use any other form. True to an extent, although I like Model ZX enough to switch between the two often. Model OX (Omega Zero) was awesome too, but you only get it after you beat the game unfortunately.

There were lots of collectibles and so on, but there wasn’t much to spend the E-Crystal currency on. I liked how all the areas were connected, it felt like a cohesive whole (although the environments were quite different, it was just nice to be able to move through it all smoothly). The map is quite useless, though. I had a walkthrough’s map open on my iPhone the whole time I was playing.

The plot is interestingly linked to the Zero series, and now I see where all the plot threads of ZXA came from too, so it ties together well to the other games in the “greater Zero series”, which includes ZX and ZXA. (They’re totally the same. Art style, gameplay, developer, pickups, font, everything).

The bosses were all interesting and different. They unlock extra attacks for the forms, but I didn’t use the special abilities of any Model form hardly at all. I only used them to get around levels, and faced bosses almost exclusively as ZX. This may be due to my own familiarity with the strictly Zero fighting style.

I mentioned the world map, but it would have been a lot easier to get around if there were more tranceivers. Anyone who’s played the game will know what I mean, but I guess it makes you more familiar with the layouts and all. The tranceivers also dispensed missions, which brings up that you can only bloody do one at a time! This means that cutting grass or stopping a rogue robot from killing civilians have the same priority, and if you go somewhere to do something but forget to activate the mission, you’ve wasted the trip there and the return. And you can’t do multiple things on one trip out, plus if you are asked for something, the request is in the tranceiver, but it can only hold two optional requests at a time as well! The whole mission thing is a mess and they thankfully fixed it up in the sequel.

I think I’m running out of things though, so in all I had lots of fun here. That old feeling of hining your skills against specific bosses by replaying them a few times, and doing two runs in a row- it was good. I should say that the Zero and ZX games are quite hard, they’re not for everybody. But when you’re a gamer like me, you relish the feeling of mastering this art. I don’t feel that way about a lot of genres but 2D platformers and jumpy shooties have enough precision, as long as the game is well constructed and quick.

So this game is absolutely essential- for me, who loved the Zero games. You might like it too, who knows. I don’t really know which to recommend more, this or its sequel, though. But I’m glad I was able to play them both, with their strengths and weaknesses and their linked plots. It’s sad to see this series fall out of favour recently as Capcom is bringing Megaman back to basics or whatever it is they’re planning, I’d love another installment. It’s just, so nostalgic for me but also new, with fresh twists. And it advances the overall robot continuity so far, but the roots are still there. Ah. Good stuff. So I guess for me this game is signifcant as it fits into the greater whole of the Zero/ZX series, but it probably stands just fine on its own. (I wouldn’t know, like I said, I’m so ingrained in my little world :p). Anyway that’ll do. Tata for now.