There comes a time and place when playing a series that you begin to get fatigued at. This game completely fails at doing what it's predecessors did, and in the end it turns into just kind of a frustrating mess. Now, after reading @zeusdeegoose's review, I couldn't agree more. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Let's start off with mechanics. Zero 2 had probably my favorite mechanics with how much fun Chain Rod was, Zero 3's Recoil Rod wasn't as good and felt more like a chore but there were some elements in some levels I at least thought were neat... What does Zero 4 have? Well, it removes the classic Shield Boomerang and Rod weapon, replacing those with... the Zero Knuckle? Well, on paper, I like the idea. I've always been a fan of experimenting with new enemy weapons and seeing what they can do, kind of like how Kirby encourages the player to try enemy abilities when possible. However, the Zero Knuckle just kind of sucks to use in general. Most of the abilities you steal tend to just be inferior versions of the Buster, and those that aren't tend to have some kind of drawback. The splitting missile, for example, has a horrendous amount of downtime that prevents you from using your other weapons, and it also runs out of ammo after just 4 shots. Oh, and also, you HAVE to open up the menu, confirm that you're dumping a weapon with ZERO AMMO LEFT, and then you can play the game again. Seriously, how on earth are the NES games better than a GBA game on that front? This sounds minor, but when you're doing this multiple times over the course of a level, it gets grating. We lost the Rod and Shield Boomerang for this? I made fun of Shield Boomerang for being borderline useless, but after the massive glow-up it got in Zero 3, losing it just feels like a loss on all fronts when all we get in return is a bad weapon system that you're literally better off not using.
Level Design feels more gimmicky than ever, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, some gimmicks aren't very fun at all, and I will get to a particular one later that made me drop the game. Not only are a majority of the levels gimmicky, but they also change with... the WEATHER? Who the hell asked for a weather mechanic in this game? That's like adding a mid-air dash to a Yakuza game, it's just not a game that needs it nor does it really fit the game. In fact, I think it DETRACTS from the game, as levels that are snowy make them even less memorable. The weather mechanic just feels like a needless addition to a game that didn't need it. Would be nice if that was the end of it, no? Just being a needless and dumb addition? Well buckle your damn seatbelt, because guess what I learned from zeusdeegoose's review? THE EX SKILLS ARE TIED TO THE DAMN WEATHER. I'm dead fucking serious. The game NEVER explains this to you and I thought it was ranking-based again, so you have to play the stages on conditions that make it more of a slog in order to get the EX Skill, and as it turns out, these EX Skills are the ONLY WAY TO DO ELEMENTAL DAMAGE???? WHEN ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO LAST TIME WAS JUST CHARGE YOUR Z-SABER OR BUSTER WITH THE RIGHT BODY CHIP???? These changes are just BAFFLING, but I'm not done yet.
This game also introduces CRAFTING. Craft what? Well the game never really tells you, but it's how you unlock THE DAMN BODY PARTS. Who in the hell asked for this? It wouldn't be so bad if it AT LEAST told you "hey you need these pieces to craft this", but you're left with NOTHING. I tried crafting once, got junk out of it, and figured it was only maybe for collectibles because I didn't expect this series to make such an unnecessary drastic change from what people LIKED ABOUT THE PREVIOUS GAMES. It's like the people who worked on this game didn't know anything about the previous ones, and I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be the case!
Most of my complaints about Zero 3 persist in this game, perhaps to an even greater extent. The bosses continue to not SHUT UP ever, and their patterns are even more asinine to try and learn because of how tight or unpredictable they are. I kind of just stopped having fun playing this game because Mega Man as a SERIES is known for having memorable boss fights, and this is absolutely NOT it.
So, let's move past all that and move on to story, at least the little that I experienced.
Minor spoilers ahead, you've been warned.
So this game puts more emphasis on the humans, an aspect of the story that has sort of been underrepresented in the series. I think the portrayal of the humans was fine enough; they were frustrating to deal with, but you kind of get it. It's been war after war that they've been caught in the middle of, and they want none of it. Still, they are unable to do much by themselves and require your help after you persuade them, which was neat, I guess.
There's also the Craft and Neige thing, which is mostly about "dying for what you believe in than live kneeling", a sentiment that I am pretty familiar with since it was popularized by one of my very own countrymen: Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. In essence, they're both in love with each other, but are at odds due to their personal beliefs. Craft wants Neige to live kneeling, while Neige would rather die for her beliefs. It's an interesting dynamic, and that's probably one of this game's only strong points.
And now for the reason I dropped this game.
Colorblindness Rating: D-
Zero 3 had it bad with the holographic doors, but at the very LEAST those were optional. In Mino Magnus' stage, there is a certain gimmick with two different polarities... represented with blue and purple, picking two shades that are impossible for me to discern. Oh, but you need to know which is which because otherwise you don't know what color bomb is going to come at you and which one isn't so I had to load savestate after savestate; there comes a point where I just get fucking fed up and stop caring, damageboosting through the entire stage because I couldn't be assed to try and play a stage that doesn't give a damn about me.
Oh, and guess what? Mino Magnus brings back the color mechanic during his boss fight; and at that point, I decided "fuck it". This game does not respect my time and I shouldn't respect it either, which is why I'm dropping it.
I won't get to see how it ends, but I don't particularly care to anyway. Zero 3 ended pretty conclusively, and all I need to do is headcanon that Zero stopped Weil at the same time as Omega and nothing changes in my head.
Let's start off with mechanics. Zero 2 had probably my favorite mechanics with how much fun Chain Rod was, Zero 3's Recoil Rod wasn't as good and felt more like a chore but there were some elements in some levels I at least thought were neat... What does Zero 4 have? Well, it removes the classic Shield Boomerang and Rod weapon, replacing those with... the Zero Knuckle? Well, on paper, I like the idea. I've always been a fan of experimenting with new enemy weapons and seeing what they can do, kind of like how Kirby encourages the player to try enemy abilities when possible. However, the Zero Knuckle just kind of sucks to use in general. Most of the abilities you steal tend to just be inferior versions of the Buster, and those that aren't tend to have some kind of drawback. The splitting missile, for example, has a horrendous amount of downtime that prevents you from using your other weapons, and it also runs out of ammo after just 4 shots. Oh, and also, you HAVE to open up the menu, confirm that you're dumping a weapon with ZERO AMMO LEFT, and then you can play the game again. Seriously, how on earth are the NES games better than a GBA game on that front? This sounds minor, but when you're doing this multiple times over the course of a level, it gets grating. We lost the Rod and Shield Boomerang for this? I made fun of Shield Boomerang for being borderline useless, but after the massive glow-up it got in Zero 3, losing it just feels like a loss on all fronts when all we get in return is a bad weapon system that you're literally better off not using.
Level Design feels more gimmicky than ever, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, some gimmicks aren't very fun at all, and I will get to a particular one later that made me drop the game. Not only are a majority of the levels gimmicky, but they also change with... the WEATHER? Who the hell asked for a weather mechanic in this game? That's like adding a mid-air dash to a Yakuza game, it's just not a game that needs it nor does it really fit the game. In fact, I think it DETRACTS from the game, as levels that are snowy make them even less memorable. The weather mechanic just feels like a needless addition to a game that didn't need it. Would be nice if that was the end of it, no? Just being a needless and dumb addition? Well buckle your damn seatbelt, because guess what I learned from zeusdeegoose's review? THE EX SKILLS ARE TIED TO THE DAMN WEATHER. I'm dead fucking serious. The game NEVER explains this to you and I thought it was ranking-based again, so you have to play the stages on conditions that make it more of a slog in order to get the EX Skill, and as it turns out, these EX Skills are the ONLY WAY TO DO ELEMENTAL DAMAGE???? WHEN ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO LAST TIME WAS JUST CHARGE YOUR Z-SABER OR BUSTER WITH THE RIGHT BODY CHIP???? These changes are just BAFFLING, but I'm not done yet.
This game also introduces CRAFTING. Craft what? Well the game never really tells you, but it's how you unlock THE DAMN BODY PARTS. Who in the hell asked for this? It wouldn't be so bad if it AT LEAST told you "hey you need these pieces to craft this", but you're left with NOTHING. I tried crafting once, got junk out of it, and figured it was only maybe for collectibles because I didn't expect this series to make such an unnecessary drastic change from what people LIKED ABOUT THE PREVIOUS GAMES. It's like the people who worked on this game didn't know anything about the previous ones, and I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be the case!
Most of my complaints about Zero 3 persist in this game, perhaps to an even greater extent. The bosses continue to not SHUT UP ever, and their patterns are even more asinine to try and learn because of how tight or unpredictable they are. I kind of just stopped having fun playing this game because Mega Man as a SERIES is known for having memorable boss fights, and this is absolutely NOT it.
So, let's move past all that and move on to story, at least the little that I experienced.
Minor spoilers ahead, you've been warned.
So this game puts more emphasis on the humans, an aspect of the story that has sort of been underrepresented in the series. I think the portrayal of the humans was fine enough; they were frustrating to deal with, but you kind of get it. It's been war after war that they've been caught in the middle of, and they want none of it. Still, they are unable to do much by themselves and require your help after you persuade them, which was neat, I guess.
There's also the Craft and Neige thing, which is mostly about "dying for what you believe in than live kneeling", a sentiment that I am pretty familiar with since it was popularized by one of my very own countrymen: Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. In essence, they're both in love with each other, but are at odds due to their personal beliefs. Craft wants Neige to live kneeling, while Neige would rather die for her beliefs. It's an interesting dynamic, and that's probably one of this game's only strong points.
And now for the reason I dropped this game.
Colorblindness Rating: D-
Zero 3 had it bad with the holographic doors, but at the very LEAST those were optional. In Mino Magnus' stage, there is a certain gimmick with two different polarities... represented with blue and purple, picking two shades that are impossible for me to discern. Oh, but you need to know which is which because otherwise you don't know what color bomb is going to come at you and which one isn't so I had to load savestate after savestate; there comes a point where I just get fucking fed up and stop caring, damageboosting through the entire stage because I couldn't be assed to try and play a stage that doesn't give a damn about me.
Oh, and guess what? Mino Magnus brings back the color mechanic during his boss fight; and at that point, I decided "fuck it". This game does not respect my time and I shouldn't respect it either, which is why I'm dropping it.
I won't get to see how it ends, but I don't particularly care to anyway. Zero 3 ended pretty conclusively, and all I need to do is headcanon that Zero stopped Weil at the same time as Omega and nothing changes in my head.
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 addition of weather essentially as a difficulty is actually really cool, but when the level design is already pretty bad there's not much it can do to salvage it. Along with tying the EX Skills to the weather, I really felt demotivated to try and get high ranks which I did for the previous two games. 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. One of the saddest aspects of this game is the music, the past two games had some of the best soundtracks in a game and this one is sadly not up to par minus a few tracks. 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.
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.
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
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
This review contains spoilers
This is like the sixth time he's died and it still got me. I think Ciel needs a vacation and a hug