PLAYED VIA ZERO/ZX COLLECTION ON NINTENDO SWITCH
Mega Man ZX is a game that takes place 100 years after the events of the Mega Man Zero series, which is a little weird because Zero and the Four Guardians get referred to as "ancient heroes" when 100 years isn't that long ago but then again people in the Star Wars universe just forgot Jedi existed after a mere 20 years so i guess it's not that unbelievable. Anyways, the moment to moment gameplay of Mega Man ZX is very fun, which is to be expected. Nice fluid controls make moving around and shooting things feel very nice and it somehow feels even more refined than Zero 4 in that aspect. New to this series is the ability to change forms because this game is just Mega Man power-rangers. You get to pick between a male and female protagonists (for the record, i went with Alie because i'm pretty sure this is one of two times where the franchise called Mega Man has a female protagonist) and over the course of the game, you get to merge with Zero, X and the Four Guardians in fun power ranger forms......except for the part where honestly, most of the froms that weren't ZX form just weren't that fun. HX form is neat because you get double jumps and air dashes and LX form is hilarious to obliterate one specific boss but other than that, there's no real reason to use the other forms. Yes you could use them to exploit boss weakness but charge shot from ZX was just the better solution. Compared to Zero 4's EX Weapons, this is definitely a step in the lower direction. At least the bosses themselves were still pretty fun to fight and combined with the decent level design, it made for a pretty good time.
....so why am i giving the game a 6/10? Because one element legitimately hinders this game to warrant it: the Metroidvania design. Metroidvanias are fun but an important aspect of them is a good map screen. This is subjective but while some people love getting lost in Metroidvanias, i don't. Exploring is good but if it feels like i'm just running in circles, that's not a good thing. Which is the problem with this game. Do me a favor and look up the Mega Man ZX map and you will see how it is the worst thing. The worst part about said map is that the position of the areas don't even line up with where they actually are so it's all misleading. And then we need to talk about how despite being structured like a Metroidvania, the progression isn't. The progression is still the standard Mega Man deal except this time you have to physically make your way to where the levels actually are. You're not exploring in this Mega Man Metroidvania, you are simply taking the long way around and it does not help that you are not at all told where the areas you need to go to actually are. I had to use a guide to figure out where everything was located and to be honest, you probably will too after taking one look at that atrocious map screen.
Mega Man ZX is alright. It honestly fails at being a Metroidvania but at least the moment to moment gameplay is good enough to make up for it and this is the one and only time you'll ever see me use the "good x but bad y" way of describing somethingmaybe i should just deduct another point and call the game bad.
Mega Man ZX is a game that takes place 100 years after the events of the Mega Man Zero series, which is a little weird because Zero and the Four Guardians get referred to as "ancient heroes" when 100 years isn't that long ago but then again people in the Star Wars universe just forgot Jedi existed after a mere 20 years so i guess it's not that unbelievable. Anyways, the moment to moment gameplay of Mega Man ZX is very fun, which is to be expected. Nice fluid controls make moving around and shooting things feel very nice and it somehow feels even more refined than Zero 4 in that aspect. New to this series is the ability to change forms because this game is just Mega Man power-rangers. You get to pick between a male and female protagonists (for the record, i went with Alie because i'm pretty sure this is one of two times where the franchise called Mega Man has a female protagonist) and over the course of the game, you get to merge with Zero, X and the Four Guardians in fun power ranger forms......except for the part where honestly, most of the froms that weren't ZX form just weren't that fun. HX form is neat because you get double jumps and air dashes and LX form is hilarious to obliterate one specific boss but other than that, there's no real reason to use the other forms. Yes you could use them to exploit boss weakness but charge shot from ZX was just the better solution. Compared to Zero 4's EX Weapons, this is definitely a step in the lower direction. At least the bosses themselves were still pretty fun to fight and combined with the decent level design, it made for a pretty good time.
....so why am i giving the game a 6/10? Because one element legitimately hinders this game to warrant it: the Metroidvania design. Metroidvanias are fun but an important aspect of them is a good map screen. This is subjective but while some people love getting lost in Metroidvanias, i don't. Exploring is good but if it feels like i'm just running in circles, that's not a good thing. Which is the problem with this game. Do me a favor and look up the Mega Man ZX map and you will see how it is the worst thing. The worst part about said map is that the position of the areas don't even line up with where they actually are so it's all misleading. And then we need to talk about how despite being structured like a Metroidvania, the progression isn't. The progression is still the standard Mega Man deal except this time you have to physically make your way to where the levels actually are. You're not exploring in this Mega Man Metroidvania, you are simply taking the long way around and it does not help that you are not at all told where the areas you need to go to actually are. I had to use a guide to figure out where everything was located and to be honest, you probably will too after taking one look at that atrocious map screen.
Mega Man ZX is alright. It honestly fails at being a Metroidvania but at least the moment to moment gameplay is good enough to make up for it and this is the one and only time you'll ever see me use the "good x but bad y" way of describing something