Wild ride man.

I was all over the place thinking about this game, thinking like an 8, 9, or 10. As you can see from my rating, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite all the flaws.

Admittedly, stages and bosses varied in terms of how much I enjoyed them. It was only once I got into the crafting system and how they reworked Cyber Elves that I really started getting into the flow of this one. An odd choice though was changing the requirements for EX skills from getting an A/S rank to what weather you play the stage in.

There are so many odd mechanics that make it into this one, as well as some questionable design choices, but for the most part, they absolutely stuck the landing for me. Incredible game and just overall an incredible series of games.

When I picked up the X games and saw Zero, I thought "man, he's cool af". Then, I picked up the Zero games and thought "yep, he is still cool af". But it is when I played this game that I truly realized: he's simply Him bros.

It was one thing for the story and stages to be the best these games had to offer so far, but it even went the extra step of basically making the combat 2D Devil May Cry. It is entirely possible to play this game however you want, either casually or testing your skills with all the crazy stuff you can do with the combo system.

I guess some of the bosses weren't that interesting to tackle, but otherwise, this is a truly phenomenal game.