Mega Man ZX annoys me. I desperately wanted to like this game more than I ended up liking it. But I find its map implementation to be one of the worst I've ever seen in a metroidvania. In fact, it's not even a proper metroidvania; its map handles things in a very strange way. And the backtracking is unbearable, the areas have an extremely confusing layout and some of the worst padding I've ever seen in a game.

Something that should last two, maybe three hours, ends up lasting seven because the game developers either hate the players or disregard their free time.

Even the dialogue and the distance you have to travel for mundane things within the ship are a huge time sink. The sub tank in the fire stage is one of the biggest absurdities I've seen in a game of this style. I literally gave up trying to get the last sub tank after that one because it is a even bigger waste of your time.

The game having three different items to collect also makes the rare HP healing items too scarce. The implementation of currency in this game is simply bizarre and very unnecessary. With the amount of useless space this game has, it would have been easier to include armor upgrades there instead of the bizarre system of final strike on bosses.

And I say all this sadly, because I really wanted to like this game. It has a wonderful visual style (better than whatever the fuck they were trying on Megaman Zero), the armors themselves have great designs (although I'm annoyed they baited and switched with X's armor), and the gameplay itself is the enjoyable Megaman X gameplay as always. I honestly hope they've fixed at least some of this in ZX.

Furthermore, if you're going to make a horrendous map like this, it's better to do it like in the classic series and X. You select a stage and that's it. Better than a half-assed attempt of a Metroidvania. Furthermore, this lives system, reminiscent of the old Mega Man system, doesn't even make sense in a game trying to be a faux-metroidvania

Anyway, the formula of selecting a stage and it being just the right size has been repeated for over 20 games for a very simple reason: IT JUST WORKS, DAMMIT!

I really liked playing through the Mega Man Zero Collection on DS a few years back, so I picked up Mega Man ZX and its sequel. Now I FINALLY picked up the first one, because I was still in a very action game-y mood, and I needed a shorter game to play while I waited for Breath of the Wild to arrive in the mail. I played through on Normal mode and it took me just about 11 hours.

This game's level design hearkens back more to Mega Man Zero 1, where the entire map is basically a kind of open-world, almost Metroidvania design to it. It was bad then, and it's bad now, and it really does not do the game any favors other than making it confusing and annoying to get around anywhere to the actual missions :P . The mission designs themselves are fine. It's just actually finding them that's a big pain in the ass :P .

When you beat bosses, instead of getting just one new weapon, you get a new armor set. Each one allows you to do things like break blocks, boost in the air/glide, swim, and hang from the ceiling (and they all look like bosses from the Zero games :D ). Their charged weapons require energy, like in a normal Mega Man game, but those aforementioned movement abilities can be done infinitely. Each one even has a special secondary function on the bottom screen of the DS, like analyzing an enemy health bar/weak point, or showing you a map of your immediate surroundings. While the design of the game's Metroidvania world isn't that great, the armors you get to navigate it in are very fun to use :D .

The bosses you fight to get them are all the normal good designs. The game certainly isn't as hard as any of the Mega Man Zero games, as far as difficulty goes, but it's hardly easy. Bosses now all have a certain point on their body you can strike for a critical hit (like a front-plate or an armor bit) in addition to their elemental weaknesses that can be exploited through your armors' elemental attacks. It's not the hardest game in the X-line or its spin-offs, but it's hardly easy, and the bosses and levels provide a fun challenge ^w^

Verdict: Recommended. The overworld map design can really make navigating it infuriating at times, but it's still a fine Mega Man Zero game at its heart. As long as you don't mind just remembering where to go or using a map online, you'll have a lot of fun with this if you're a Mega Man fan :D

At first I thought I was going to love this game. Right from the start there were so many ways to go. It was crazy. I never expected that from a Mega Man game. And it had a great soundtrack to boot.
But that initial amazement quickly faded and turned into frustration. The idea of an interconnected world is cool but I don’t think it adds anything really. Just frustration on how to get to places. And Jesus Christ, that mini-map is so fucking bad. It’s not rare that when you want to go to an area that’s to the left on your minimap that you have to walk to the right to get there and vice versa. It’s super confusing and it baffles me that the devs thought this was a good idea.

Then you have the mission system. Only being able to take on one mission was annoying since it’s impossible to tell where you have to go to do this mission if you haven’t visited the area before. So it could be either in the top-left, top-right, bottom-left or bottom-right of the world map. Good luck figuring out where you have to go. The two pieces of biometal were usually close together on the world map though but still it was a huge pain in the ass to take on a mission and then go to the wrong section of the world map. Especially when you decide to go deep in the wrong section and then find out there’s nothing there at the end just because you didn’t start the proper mission.

As for the models, I thought they were pretty cool at first but I started to sour on them as time went on. The first model I got was the HX one which I thought was a great addition to my kit and I expected the other models to be of similar usefulness. However, the other models paled in comparison to the HX model and I ended up just using the HX model for the most part. ZX is fine with both a short-range and long-range attack and FX is useful for when you want extreme long-range. LX and PX are just ass. It’s just that HX has such great mobility and has a very strong boss killer attack too.

Then there’s the bosses. They weren’t that great. I especially remember hating the monkey boss. That Anglerfish boss was a cool idea though.

The same goes for the stages. Some were alright, others I hated. Fuck that Lava stage.

It such a shame that I had a very good first impression with this game but it just didn’t hold up. To be fair, the game isn’t terrible but I sure was glad to be done with it by the time I beat the final boss.

Como maluco que gosta de desafios, eu acho esse jogo muito casual.

Não sei se foi de propósito, ou o modelo ZX é quebrado, porque ele mata qualquer chefe em menos de 10 segundos. Nenhum chefe me proporcionou um real desafio, todos eu pulava e batia com a espada giratória. Parece até que estou fazendo speedrun, mas não, isso acontece com qualquer coisa desse jogo, ninguém tanka esse ataque, não sinto interesse nenhum em usar os outros modelos, porque o ZX já proporciona tudo que eu preciso.

A coisa que eu mais gosto aqui, é a OST, que faz sua obrigação como um megaman, e se você também gosta dela, recomendo procurar pelo "ZX Tunes" que deixa até as mais fracas, em um banger. O que adoro também são os gráficos, tudo nesse jogo é bonitinho, des de inimigos ao cenário, a pixel art do ds nunca foi tão linda quanto aqui.

A maior controversa desse jogo é o mapa, mas é só olhar para o menu do jogo que ele indica todos os caminhos para acessar tal área, então preste atenção no jogo da próxima vez.