This game ended up being a huge disappointment to me. You can tell they lost steam with this one, whereas every previous title improved on the last, this one feels like a step back in every single regard. The story starts with an interesting concept, finally bringing humans into the plot, however their implementation as well as the new villain all feel very poorly written and not included in a meaningful way. The plot is a lot less personal than the last game, and I can't help but feel like the plot of Zero 3 would have been a better note to end on for the plot as a whole and the character of Zero. I can tell they wanted to try something new but I don't think it worked, though I do think the game had a satisfying conclusion for Zero as a character. The stage design feels very... unsatisfying. I wouldn't call it frustrating in the same way Zero 1 was, it just doesn't feel as natural to go through, almost too simple. The gameplay has also been downgraded, the new weapon they introduced feels extremely gimmicky and clunky, and almost none of the enemy skills you can get with it feel fun. Not only that but the already mediocre level design features several moments where you have to use the weapon to traverse and its very awkward. They have once again overhauled the chip system, making it noticeably worse. Elemental chips are now tied to weapon abilities which feels very counterintuitive as you can't use your favorite weapons and combos without tying them to an element, and many are mutually exclusive. The game also introduces a new crafting system which is just completely unnecessary and makes you grind, probably to extend the game time as this game is also much shorter than any of the previous ones. The cyber elf system has ONCE AGAIN been redone, and it's not bad... per-se... but its just annoying as I feel they finally had it going alright in the last game and now they felt the need to change it again? The bosses are also less well designed than any of the previous games, both mechanically and visually. The aesthetic of this game feels a lot less cohesive than its predecessors, though the art itself is still top notch. This game just seems to have a huge problem with trying to shake things up and do everything "new", the problem is that all of the changes are just flat out worse than anything they've changed before. I'm sure this game isn't as bad as I'm feeling it is right now, but coming right off the tail of Zero 3 it felt super disappointing. Seeing as this is the final Zero game though, I think all four games do come together nicely when you play them one after another as one big story.

the levels were certainly there
the bosses were certainly there bar the final boss
the elf system is uh.... okay... i guess..?
the biggest downgrade is whatever the fuck they were smoking with the item recipes it is so grindy and so obtuse how the fuck would anyone figure out how to get the parts and even then there are only like 3 good parts
but holy shit the ending and the final boss hit so hard that it feels like its from a different game god

A jogabilidade continua a mesma, ou seja, muito satisfatória; a pixel-art continua belíssima, e a trilha sonora deste jogo é a minha favorita da saga Zero. A Recoil Rod de Zero 3 foi substituída pela Zero Knuckle, uma luva que pode roubar armas de inimigos e lançá-las contra outro inimigo, e eu achei a arma menos interessante da série. As Ex-Skills agora não precisam mais de Rank A ou S nas fases. O jogo introduz um sistema de clima, onde dependendo do clima da fase, o Boss fica favorecido ou desfavorecido. Ao derrotar o boss no clima que o favorece, você consegue a Ex-Skill dele. O sistema de Cyber-Elfs foi novamente alterado, e agora você tem apenas 1 cyber-elf que possui os 3 tipos de Cyber-Elf, e você pode fazer upgrade nele para ganhar novos efeitos. A maneira como este jogo fecha o arco de todos os personagens foi muito satisfatória para mim, e o final dele é muito emocionante, principalmente para quem jogou os 3 jogos anteriores e viu a evolução do Zero ao longo da saga. Para mim, foi um ótimo desfecho da saga.