Mega Man Zx Review
Well, this certainly wasn’t the 10/10 I was hoping for after Mega Man x6 destroyed whatever faith I had in the x series.
As many already know, Mega Man Zx is different from the Mega Man Zero games in terms of map structure. Rather than selecting missions from a menu at your base, you area instead tasked to explore this giant, metroidvania-like map. However, this game is far from being an actual Metroidvania. It’s hard to accurately define what a Metroidvania is as definitions vary from person to person, but at a most basic level, Metroidvania is defined by ability gating. While Zx has some ability gating, it’s almost always for one very niche situation and that’s it. Your biometals that you obtain throughout the game do not affect the world on an extremely large scale. You probably need a biometal or its ability for a couple life ups or sub tanks and maybe to gain access to one area, but besides that, as long as you have the key card, almost every area in this game can be accessed with your starting gear. Moreover, your abilities should just help you out in general progression. That’s something that always happens in games like Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow or Super Metroid. The double jump in AOS helps the player get across tricky obstacles and also gives the player more mobility. The speed booster in Super Metroid allows the player to do many sequence breaks or acts as a solution to the many puzzles in the game. These are just two abilities out of the many in both games that do this. What’s there in Zx that does this? Nothing really. I guess Model Hx acts as a replacement for any other model since it can hover and air dash, but besides that, you’re not really using Hx for anything else, and you’re especially not using the other biometals for mobility. Now this isn’t to say they aren’t fun to use, but I’ll get into that later.
Something else that Metroidvanias have that Zx lacks is proper Metroidvania level design. You will back track in this game; it is guaranteed that you will, but unlike actual Metroidvanias, backtracking in this game will rarely ever cause you to access something you couldn’t before because you didn’t have the proper upgrade. I honestly can’t even remember a time when that even happened. There was never a notable moment in this game where I felt I was missing a crucial upgrade to get to a certain item or access a certain area. However in games like Super Metroid, this will happen all the time on first play through. It happens as soon as you start the game. Upon arriving on Zebes and going left, you enter your first room where there’s a morph ball tunnel below you that you can’t access. You may try to figure out how to get there, but you’ll eventually move on and keep that location in mind. Once you actually get the morph ball, you may now realize that you are now able to access that tunnel, so you go back there and sure enough, you can. This never happens in Zx, and it is why I refuse to call this game a Metroidvania. It can maybe be considered a “metroidvania-lite” or something, but the definition of that is even more obscure.
Though I guess I should get to my actual experience. Every time I stopped playing, I used a notepad file to record my thoughts on each of my sessions except for the last two since I had a general of idea of what I had to say about those. So, I shall start from the beginning.
Intro:
So upon starting the game, I am met with a difficulty select option, which allows me to pick between “Easy” and “Normal” mode. Now I wouldn’t exactly consider Mega Man Zx to be a difficult game; in fact, I find it easier than all the Mega Man Zero games. This makes Zx extremely accessible to newcomers, and it’s now made even more accessible with there being an “Easy” mode, which is something I appreciate. I often find myself reluctant to introduce my friends to Mega Man, especially the Mega Man Zero games because of how punishing they can be, and I’m glad to see that Zx prevents that from happening. However, that’s probably the only thing that makes this accessible, but I’ll get to that later. I create my file, and I am now told to choose between two different characters. In Zx you can choose to play as either Vent or Aile, and besides gender, they play exactly the same and go through the same story with slight alterations so just choose whoever you find most appealing. I went with Aile for my play through.
A cut scene starts playing, and we are met with the character we chose and this dude in a pink outfit. They are apparently delivering a package to some place. We are told that the name of this pink man is Giro, and we are also told that our protagonist lost their mother in an event called the “Maverick Raids”. Not long after, we are met with two armed robots, who shoot our characters’ bikes and cause an explosion, which causes Aile to get blown off of the high cliff we were previously on. She safely lands on the ground below, and we meet a group of people who are being attacked by a large robotic snake. Suddenly, something appears out of the package, and it latches itself onto Aile, transforming us into “Model X”. The snake runs off, and we chase after, officially starting the game. From this point on, I’m not going to talk about the story as I don’t have many thoughts on it, and I don’t want to spoil much in this review. Everyone will go through the intro, and I needed to set up the acquisition of Model X in some way.
Speaking of which, Model X is part of the new mechanic that Zx introduces called the “biometals”. Basically, throughout the game you get many biometals, each with their different abilities, and they allow you to transform into the four guardians seen throughout the Mega Man Zero games. However, this model lets us transform into Mega Man X not one of the guardians, and we will be getting one later that also doesn’t turn us into a guardian. Anyway, Model X plays pretty similar to X from Mega Man X. He can charge shot, dash, wall jump, and he even has a special fully powered charge shot similar to the one found in Mega Man X. He’s extremely fun to play as since the charge shot is pretty strong, and it can destroy enemies rather quickly. But to get to the actual level, we are currently in Area A according to the map. This game is divided into several areas, each labeled by a letter, and a few areas act as a sort of hub area that leads to the areas where you’ll be doing all of your missions. Area A is a forest area filled with lush, green plant life everywhere. It looks really nice, but I will say that the level design here is kind of flat. There are only a few jumps you have to make to get to a higher platforms, and there are no bottomless pits. However, the fun combat prevented me from getting bored.
I continue along, and I encounter the snake enemy I saw earlier. It’s boss time. This snake reminds me of a boss from Mega Man Zero 2, Hyleg Ourobockle, and I’m sure that was intentional. Either way, his pattern wasn’t difficult. He either shoots some energy at you, or he lunges at you both of which are easy to dodge. I charge shot him several times, and he goes down, and we continue along after a few cut scenes. We make it to a transerver, which is basically your save rooms and warp rooms from the Castlevania games all packed into a single room. It’s here where you can also access your mission list, and I just received a new mission. We are to Locate Giro, and not realizing that I have to go through the door to the right, I go left and spend 20 in game minutes lost. After a while, I stopped playing because I couldn’t figure out where to go, and I was getting bored of just wandering. The map wasn’t helping either. When I come back, I realize that I must now go right, and travel up to Area B, where I can now find Giro.
Locate Giro:
Area B has a bright, daytime setting, and it’s also rather flat. I kind of just dashed through the various enemies, and made it to the end. There were some rooms I could go into, but overall, it wasn’t interesting. We get to the boss, and it’s a giant plane that reminded me of Harpuia’s special form from Mega Man Zero 2. This boss was cool. It shoots down these pillars, and there’s one pillar that’s red that you have to shoot. Once you shoot it, it explodes, and the pillars get launched into the plane, damaging it. Do this four times, and you’re done. We then meet Giro, who uses his model z, which is similar to Zero, to finish off the plane. He then tells us that to get to Guardian HQ, which is basically your resistance base from the Zero games, we must first pass the test, and this begins our next mission.
Pass the test:
It was at this point in my Zx run where I started getting incredibly lost. I did not know where to go as the mission details told me barely anything regarding what I was supposed to do. They told me that I had to go to Area C, but it took me forever to find Area C, and it took me even longer to figure out what to do there. The map wasn’t helping at all because it just showed me which areas I’ve already been to rather than where each area would take me. So after mindlessly exploring a bunch, I realized that I had to talk to this one specific guy in Area C to start the mission, and this mission consisted of me going around Area C and talking to even more people. This was so dull, and I almost stopped playing again because I couldn’t find the remaining people that I needed to talk to. This highlights my biggest issue with Mega Man Zx, and it’s what I meant when I said that the difficulty was the only thing that made this game accessible.
Without a guide, a first timer WILL get lost unless they have a guide. This game throws you into this large area with an awful map, tells you that you need to go to a certain area without marking where that area is, and expects the player to find it on their own. Unless you explore for hours, which is what I tried doing as I don’t like using a guide, you will never find a lot of these areas. It’s even worse later when you’re told to go and do one of your main missions. It’ll say go find Area E, and common sense would make one think that Area E is accessed through Area D, which is accessed through Area C, but that’s not how this works. Area E is connected directly to Area C, and D leads to G. This game has such a huge lack of conveyance with its areas that anyone trying to get into this game will be instantly put off. This game barely tells you anything, and that’s such a huge flaw. There was no reason to not make this game similar to the Zero games where you can just select from a list of missions since like I said, there’s almost nothing interesting to be found exploring this world. It’s another reason as to why I got so bored. Area C is just a straight line with enemies or people occasionally popping up. Area A is so small, and each room looks so similar to each other. Wandering around aimlessly in this game just isn’t fun, and expecting the player to do that is just going to make the experience so much worse.
After talking to many people, I finish the mission, and I am told to use the transerver next to the guy who gave me the mission to report it. After I do that, I’m told to use the server to teleport to the HQ. However, this game has two different types of transervers: red and yellow. Red ones aren’t teleporters, but yellow ones are, so I had to back track all the way to the yellow one at the start of Area C, which was super annoying. I don’t understand why red servers are even a thing, it just artificially lengthens the game, and it contributes to how boring exploring the game can be. Either way, I get to the HQ, a cut scene plays, and I now have another intro mission I must do.
Guardian Hq:
Mavericks are attacking Area D, the highway, and we need to go stop them. Area D is connected to Area B, and it’s a highway similar to the one in Mega Man X, which is cool. The flying hornet robots are back as a reference, and they even die in the same way. It’s fun, but it gets repetitive eventually. I make it to the end where I encounter Giro, who is on the ground, and three new people. They were attacking the highway, and they’re our main villains for this game. They do something to Giro that makes him evil, and he starts attacking us. We are now fighting Giro, who similar to Zero from the Mega Man X and the Mega Man Zero games. It’s a cool fight since there’s a lot of patterns to learn, and I died once. After retrying, I beat him. Giro dies, which I don’t care about since we only knew him for like two minutes, and we get Model Z. Z combines with X to make Model Zx, which is pretty much just Zero with X’s buster. He’s fun, and the rolling slash is cool.
I got back to HQ, and I can finally start the main missions of this game.
From now on, I’ll be covering each mission separately, and they’ll be separated into their own paragraphs. They’ll be relatively short since, there’s not much to say about a lot of them
Explore The Factory:
Alright, it’s time for the first main mission in this game. Just like the zero games, x games, and classic games, there are 8 mission you must do in order to unlock the final one. However, each mission has two parts. The first part of each mission gives you the biometal, and the second part gives you an upgrade to said biometal. I choose the “Explore The Factory” mission as my first one, which is located in area E. Where is Area E? Idfk. Is it connected to Area D? Well, we may as well check since I don’t want to use a guide. I go to the end of Area D past the stupid Mega Man X highway giant bee bots again, and I make it to Area G. Great, I wasted time, but maybe Area G leads to D? I go to the end, die a couple times, say “fuck this” and look up a guide. Ugh what a pain. Like I said previously, Area E is in fact, connected to area C. Because that makes sense? I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but I just want to drive home the frustration the lack of conveyance this causes. This is flat out bad game design, and there’s no way around it which angers me a lot. What could have been a simple, select the mission and we’ll teleport you there, process, is now a convoluted series of steps for literally no reason.
Sigh
Anyway after looking at the guide, I arrive at Area E. It is indeed a factory just like the mission title said, and it looks pretty cool. It’s sunny, and there are fences that tower over you with robotic spiders that leap from behind. It’s pretty unique if I do say so myself. The first room isn’t too dangerous though. A few guards and spiders, but overall, nothing I can’t handle. We go inside, and the gimmick of this level is shown to us: Electricity. There are traps everywhere, which do a lot of damage, and they are all reliant on the factory’s generator, which will be important info for later. I continue along, and I’m so far liking the level design. It’s pretty complex; it’s not flat like the hub areas. Enemies can corner you, you have to be careful around traps; it’s pretty tense honestly. I keep going and notice a peculiar mark on the wall. It’s an arrow that’s seemingly pointing me toward the wall. I kill the enemy in front of the marking, and there’s a secret path. I keep going, and we arrive at a room filled with conveyor belts. I go across each one, and I arrive at the end of the room which holds a generator, which I destroy and all the traps are disabled. I was very pleased by these events, since my curiosity rewarded me with an easier time in the mission.
I continue along the main path, find a sub tank hidden in the same way the hidden path was, and I find the mini-boss. A tractor/crusher robot with a large spikey arm extended off of the front of it. It tries ramming into me to crush me with its arm, but it’s rather slow, so everything is pretty easy to avoid. It has a giant laser, and you just jump on the wall to avoid it. Not a bad boss at all, but I do think it has a bit too much health. I continue along through some more traps, and I make it to one of the coolest rooms in the game: a room with a large machine pulsating in the background, making the noise of beating heart and magnetic platforms, which normally would hurt me, but since I disabled the power, they do not. The atmosphere here is super well done. It’s ominous, creepy, and because of this, it kind of scared me not gonna lie. Either way I get past that room, and we make it to the boss of the area
Hivolt. He has a cool intro, where his silhouette is shown with the bright sun in the background. Truly feels like a climactic battle. He drops down, and after some dialogue the fight starts. He’s kind of tricky honestly. He has this attack where he turns into a wheel, and shoots two lasers at you which you have to carefully jump and slide around. After that he charges at you, and you can either jump over it or stand in a safe spot that you have to figure out. He also sometimes just glides down and dashes at you, which can catch you off guard, and he can leave these turrets in the corner of the screen which will shoot more lasers at you. His ultimate attack has him going to the center of the screen and firing longer lasers at you in a set pattern. I got a game over to this guy, and I had to redo the mission, which wouldn’t be much of an issue if I wasn’t sent all the way back to HQ. Now I have to go all the way back through Area C to get to E, and it just breaks the flow. Why are there hub areas in this game? Why?!
In any case, I beat Hivolt, and the game says I got a level 3 victory? What is this? I look it up, and apparently it’s like your rank and it determines how much energy the biometal you receive will have, and I’ll touch on that after I say a couple more things. Upon the death of Hivolt, we receive model Hx, based off of Harpuia from Mega Man Zero 1-3, and it’s awesome. You can airdash, hover, and dash upwards. He’s so fun to use, and his blades have amazing range, but to go back to the levels for a second, basically each model except for Zx has a weapon energy bar. The higher your level, the higher your bar, but you can also use e-crystals to make out the bar if you did poorly. To get a level 4 victory, max level, you have to not hit the weak point of the Pseudoroid(this games Mavericks, robot masters, what Hivolt is) at all. How do you know where the weak point is? Model Hx tells you on the bottom DS screen, so a first timer probably won’t know about this until they get Hx, which is fine except for the fact that the game never tells you anything about level 4 victories ever. There is no way a new comer would know that to increase their weapon energy, they have to get max level on a boss. They’ll probably look at the bottom screen for Hx and be confused as to what the red point on the boss is, at least I was. I only knew about this since I watched ClementJ64’s playthrough(awesome dude btw though his older videos have some iffy language). Another case of the game’s lack of conveyance ruining the experience. Either way, as a whole, that mission was great. Great level design, bosses, and secrets. Next mission.
Find the Survivors:
Alright at this point I say “fuck it”, and I use the official Mega Man Zx map that Capcom themselves posted on their Twitter. I guess they too thought the game was confusing as fuck, so they decided to put that out there. I guess if the devs are giving out a guide, it’s fine to use.
I am tasked go to Area F to locate the source of a strange signal. Area F is connected to Area B, and it’s a snow/water area, so I assumed I would be obtaining the biometal of Leviathan. I enter, and I love the aesthetic here. I love snowy areas so much, and the music is so relaxing. The water is a nice dark blue, and the falling snow makes the part extremely chill. I enter, and sure enough, we are underwater. I go through the first floor, and there isn’t much to say; it’s pretty standard. A large open room with some spikes and a bottomless pit. Fun but nothing substantial. In the next room, the signal is stronger, and I make my way up a long vertical room, which is kind of annoying. I used Hx to dash up, which was great but one fuck up and you’re sent all the way down. I make it the mini-boss, and it’s the same one from Hivolt except I’m on a conveyor belt that drags me towards it, but the boss itself doesn’t charge at me, so it’s just as easy. I destroy it and move on. Kind of a lame boss honestly. I enter the, and I find the source of the signal. Some exposition later, and a door below me opens up. I go through another room similar to the first one, and make it to the boss.
The boss is named Lurerre the Abysroid, and she’s a giant robotic angler fish. Hx tells me that her weak point is her tiny head, and I need to hit the tip of her antenna (or whatever the thing coming off of the head of an angler fish is called) to damage her. Her attacks aren’t too bad. She shoots some ice arrows at me, charges at me, shoots an ice wall, but it’s nothing I couldn’t handle after one death. I surprisingly never hit her weak spot with my buster shots as Zx. It seems impossible to accidentally hit her weak point honestly. She goes down, and I easily get a level 4, which felt good. I now get Model Lx, who is based off of Leviathan and also has a full energy bar. Lx can swim underwater, and she gets a spear/trident weapon that is pretty cool. You can spin it around, which gives you massive coverage. Her charge attack spawns these ice platforms, which seem a bit useless. Oh I forgot to mention that mode Hx gets an electric ball that homes on to enemies. Pretty cool. Either way, good mission. A bit more laid back, which is fine. I had fun, and that’s important. Next mission.
Fight the Mavericks:
Oh god fuck this mission.
Alright so remember Area G? The area I accidentally went to while looking for Area E and died? I now have to go back there, but that's not much of an issue. Just make it past the repetitive highway, and we get there. There’s a save point right before it too, so if I die I can reload there. Area G is a burning city, filled with fire that fucking hurts. Actually everything fucking hurts. I picked up a life up when I first got to Area B, but that does little to help with the damage output here. I used Hx as his mobility helped in going over pillar enemies, but there are these tiny little bee enemies that are fast and do a good amount of damage as well. I struggle to make it through, but I eventually get to the top. I notice a disc on a certain platform, so I use Hx to get it, and while I’m landing, an enemy pops out and almost kills me. I could not see that coming at all since it was off camera, and I was falling directly on to it. Stupid enemy placement, but I grab the disc regardless, which is this games collectible. They basically share info on enemies, people etc, and trust me, it is not worth getting all of these. Some of these are in such stupid spots filled with spikes or bottomless pits, and it’s just a pain. I didn’t bother getting all of them; no one should.
I find a guardian member who tells me that I must use a portable transever to teleport the people trapped in the burning building back home. I enter the building, and here’s where this mission starts to plummet into high levels of boredom. You go from the bottom of this building to the top of this building, through the same set of rooms that have enemies and fire that can kill you in like 5 hits, and talk to the same people over and over again. It’s so god damn repetitive, and if you die, you have to do it all over again. I didn’t mind it the first time since I ended up getting to the boss, only dying once, and it was fine but I wanted the level 4 on the boss.
Fistleo is the name of this boss, and oh my god, fuck this boss. His weakness is his head, which is in the way of almost his entire body except for his feet. So you have to go behind him or hit him while he jumps, which both only give you a couple seconds of time to do so, and it’s so easy to fuck up. If you hit him once, you’re done with the level 4, and you have to reset. Holy shit, the amount of times I had to reset against this fucker destroyed any semblance of fun I had left. Those last two great missions were immediately forgotten about because I was getting mad. Constantly doing that repetitive middle part over and over again, constantly dying to fire, constantly fucking up the level 4. I eventually just gave up, and I got the level 2 victory. I was upset, but I didn’t want to deal with that anymore. I’m not the only one who thinks this either. Minoru Leonardo complained about this boss in the description of his Mega Man Zx Hard/No Damage Part 6 video, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3rSsO1YOfM&list=PLS7CYzATG6xDPm2D3NYifiU8JoCPbUOJ0
This is easily the worst mission out of the entire Zero franchise. Yes, even worse than that shitty Protect the Factory mission from Zero 1.
Anyway, it’s done so next mission, and we get Fefnir. Fx shoots fire bullets, and you can alter the path of the bullets on the bottom screen of the DS, so it’s cool.
Secure the Biometal:
I need to get to Area H, which is connected to Area A. I head there and it’s a Metuo(or hard hat) themed theme park. The first room is big and kind of dull. Nothing is really going on here. It’s flat, and I can just dash through occasionally hitting enemies in my way. Barely any cool secrets too. At least the theme is cool, right?
The next room has a giant Met mini-boss, similar to the one in Mega Man 4. It’s easy. It shoots a few bubbles at you, spawns a couple enemies, and tries to dash into you/jump into you. Nothing difficult, and I beat it with ease.
I go through another large, boring room, but there’s a Ferris wheel here at least. The next room has some crane game grabbers that try to throw you into a bottomless pit, but it’s nothing hard (unless you’re on hard mode since shit does a lot of damage). I get to a cool platforming section with wind trying to blow me off of these blimp shaped platforms with ladders. Pretty cool, the most memorable part of this mission
I get to the boss, and think “That’s it? That was short.”
The boss is named Purpill the Mandroid, a monkey like robot. He throws some bombs, turns into a disc and flies around, and climbs on the ceiling. He’s honestly pretty easy on normal, and I almost got the level 4, but I accidentally hit him once, and since I didn’t want to redo the mission, I just went with it. I got biometal Px, which is based off of Phantom, and it’s pretty sick. You can throw an infinite amount of kunais and shurikens, and you can hang on ceilings. I love it, you even get a map that tells you the basic layout of your current room and warns you of enemies nearby. I save at the red server, and I’m told to teleport back to HQ for the mid stage. I am forced to back track to the nearest yellow server because red servers exist for some reason. So annoying.
Mid Stage:
The base is being attacked by Serpent, and I must stop it. I save at the HQ server, and I start. I must go to the deck, which is on the highest floor and defend HQ. Pods are launched at the HQ ship, and enemies pop out. I mindlessly destroy them, and a cut scene plays that shows two familiar figures entering the HQ. They head towards the generator, and I follow. Some dialogue plays out, and I am now fighting Prometheus.
He’s rather challenging. He shoots four fireballs that go to the corner of each screen and target you with smaller fireballs. He also does a dash/uppercut attack, but it’s easy to dodge. I die to the former attack, which causes me to redo the entire mission. I refight him, win, and end the mission.
Holy fuck were these last three missions boring and frustrating. There was nothing significant about any of these last few areas. They were either big and flat, short and repetitive, or long, repetitive, and annoying. I did not enjoy this session at all. This combined with the slow and painful start of this game extremely lowered my opinion of it. I stop playing since I was burnt the hell out, but come back the next day.
Save the People:
After a nice shower and taking a day-long break, I come back for some more Mega Man Zx fun. My next mission wants me to go to Area I, which I remember is located in the room where I fought Hivolt. I teleport there and enter Area I. Holy fuck this mission is amazing. Let’s start with the aesthetic. Rain clouds cover the sky, as lightning strikes periodically accompanied by the soothing sound of the rain. It’s so relaxing, it’s so chill, and the music is amazing.
Mega Man Zx has an amazing ost. I’m listening to it as I write this review, and my favorite track is the one that plays in Area I. It’s called Misty Rain, and it’s so relaxing. It’s perfect for when you’re working on something and just need something to make your work load less stressful, and I love that about Zx’s ost. The tracks that play in the Leviathan missions are the same way, and there are some other tracks that are similar as well. 10/10 ost; the best of the Zero franchise by far.
The area is way more open than most of the past few missions, but the level design and exploration is complex and fun. There are many secrets and hidden goodies here, and there are even a few branching paths. I progress through and go through a door which leads two a room that has two separate exits. One exit is blocked off by a section filled with spikes that kind of reminds me of the Spike Breaker room from Symphony of the Night. The other door is just a standard door, so I take the dangerous path as that will probably reward me better. I use Hx to fly through, and I love this. I love the idea that you can use your biometals to access different pathways, and I wish the entire game was structured similarly. It rewards creative thinking, as small as it may be, and it encourages exploration.
I encounter a mini-boss similar to the elemental dragons from Mega Man Zero 4, and it’s actually pretty challenging. I almost die, but after a few rolling slashes, I take it down. The next room is another open room with two-layered platforms that have been seemingly hit by something constantly, causing them to take on a more bent appearance. I notice a life up that I can’t get so I ignore and come back later. These next rooms are great. I enter a dark room, and I recall that Phantom can light up dark areas. I equip him, and holy shit this is so fun. Dashing through a dark room with Phantom while spam his shurikens all while this great music plays in the background. The most fun I’ve had so far, and it’s only because this mission is requiring use of a lot of my abilities. It hits that Metroidvania type of design that I’m looking for in a game like this, and it’s such a shame that the entire game isn’t like this. I go through another dark room, and I get to the boss.
Hurricaune, an ant eater robot I think?
She’s wind based and has a lot of attacks similar to Harpuia’s from Zero 1 and 2. She shoots a pink blade at you that follows along the ground then splits into two smaller ones that trail up and down the wall. She fires two tornados at you that home in on you, so you have to bait them to successfully dodge them. Her ultimate attack has a tornado that drags you in all while more blade beams try to damage you. However, I did not find her that difficult, and I got the level 4 easily as well since my charge shots never hit her neck.
I beat her, and I get an upgraded model Hx, and I rescue the people who were about to be turned into cyber-elves. I go back to that life up to see if I can get it after I give the mission report, and I still don’t know how to get it. I’m certain that I need to use Hx, so I look it up, and apparently, killing Hurricaune allows you to summon Tornados. How do you do this? You hold up and charge your weapon and then release. The game never tells you about this, like with everything. Oh well, I’ve ranted about that enough. I get the life up, and I head to the next mission. Save the People is great.
Recover the Disk:
A disk containing crucial info is hidden deep within Area J, which can be accessed through Area A, and the first screen in the game leads to this area. I found this when I was lost near the start of the game; it’s accessed through some hole in the wall. Once I reach Area J, I’m met with an underground area with a bunch of water everywhere. It looks nice, and the music is again really good here. The track that plays here is one of my favorites in the game. Anyway we dive down with Levi, and there’s a bunch of spikes around so it’s impossible to do this without Levi, which is good. The abilities you receive should be how you progress, but even then, it’s only natural that they require use of Levi since this is her second mission. I continue along and there’s a giant room filled with water, and it’s so beautiful. Swimming around with Levi is so fun to do, and the obstacles built around Model Lx’s movement are very intelligently designed. They require careful and precise movements underwater, and the enemies are all made to be comfortable to kill with Mode Lx’s/Levi’s weapon.
I get to the mini-boss, which is rather strange looking. It’s a giant skull that shoots fish out of the 4 holes on the sides of its head. Occasionally, it’ll shoot out these worm-like creatures that dash at you, and those worms are the boss’ weak point. After just standing in one spot and mashing the attack button since it causes Lx to do this spinning spear attack, I beat the mini-boss. It was a pretty lame fight, but whatever, I continue on. After another nice and fun room that requires more swimming, we get to the boss, Leganchor.
Leganchor is a giant robot, whose animal inspiration is currently escaping me. Hx tells me that the large turbines on the top of his body is his weakness, and luckily enough, they’re completely out of the way. I remember that Fx can curve his bullets upwards, so I stand on the left side of the Arena and just spam away with Fx. This surprisingly works since none of the attacks he has done so far have been a threat to me as I haven’t gotten hit by anything. He eventually shoots out these ice dragons, similar to the ones Leviathan used in Mega Man Zero 2, but I continue to spam with Fx, and while they did hit me once, they went away rather quickly. After a long and boring fight, I finish him off, and we retrieve the disk we were looking for; however, this mission isn’t over yet as there is still more to this area.
As I progressed through this area before fighting the boss, I noticed that there was this inner area that I couldn’t access no matter what I did, so I ignored it and moved on but now that I have beaten the boss, I can access those areas. They’re basically these underground, glass tunnels that look so nice. The water moves in the background as you dash through the inner workings of this facility. It’s so calming and relaxing; I love this scenery so much. I make it out of the area, save, and I get off since it’s rather late. Overall, this was an amazing session. Hurricaune and Leganchor both had amazing areas that are easily my favorite missions in this game so far, along with the first two wind and water areas. After getting off, I am told that I missed a life up in Area J, so I quickly go back into the game to obtain it before getting off again. I don’t know how I missed such an obvious life up, but for those reading this, at the start of Area J, there is a door that is at the very bottom of the room. Go in there, swim past some spikes, and you’ll find the life up.
Attack the Excavators:
Well, I guess this game knows I was having so much fun because that amazing session I just had is immediately followed up with another garbage one. Oh my god, fuck this mission, seriously. So basically, I need to head to Area K, which is connected to Area C, and I need to do something with excavators or something idfk. I stopped paying attention to the mission objectives a while ago. So I head these, and this area is a volcano-like area with a bunch of ash and lava everywhere. There are also these boiling-hot water geysers that lift these spikey platforms up, and if you’re under them when they’re on the way down, you die, so don’t do that. The first room was nothing special. In terms of structure, it was kind of similar to Area F, but the next room is where hell begins. Some sand/boiling water I think lowers into a large hole, allowing me to fall in. I go in, and I fight a mini boss, who is a joke with Harpuia’s new tornado ability. After that, fall down again, and I meet a guardian member, who tells me that there is hot lava here that will chase me and kill me if I don’t get away fast enough. I continue along, and I take an upward path that leads to a rising lava chase sequence.
Holy shit, fuck this part. The lava moves so damn fast, and if you get hit once by the several enemies spammed throughout this upward shaft, you fall into the lava, and you’re fucked. There were these stupid harpoon like enemies that prevented me from wall jumping up since there harpoons kept on hitting me, and I kept on dying. These enemies caused me to game over so many times because they kept on making me fall into the lava. I was getting so mad, so I looked up how to do it, and apparently you can jump through the chains. Great. I go back, jump through the chains, and I still die a couple times, but I eventually make it. I continue along, and I get to the top of the mission where there’s a mechanism that slows the lava flow. Awesome, this should make things much easier, right? Wrong! No it did not because when I get back to the room that led to the upward path, I start to take the path to the right, and this leads to another lava chase section. In this section, there are blocks that Fefnir can break with his fists. To break blocks, you have to slightly charge your weapon, but if you charge it too much, you don’t do his punch which doesn’t break the block. Even worse, the first set of blocks makes you do this awkward as hell wall jump punch that I almost always fucked up whenever I tried doing this. You have to punch several sets of blocks all while the lava is chasing you, and it’s so fucking fast, even on the slower speed. The amount of times I died here trying to get to this fucking secret is insane. I got so tired of doing the mission over and over, fighting the same mini-boss over and over, and slowing the lava flow over and over that I used a save state. Something I never do, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was so frustrating, and I was getting so tired of it.
I eventually make it through the blocks, which allows me to access a secret door that leads to a switch. This switch activates a red door near the mechanism that slows the lava flow that leads to a sub tank. Yes, all of this frustration just for one sub tank. Was it worth it? No, it really wasn’t, but I wanted all of them. This sub tank is easily the hardest sub tank in the entire Mega Man franchise. I’m serious it’s that fucking hard. What’s even worse is that after you press that switch, you have to fight the boss, so if you die the fucking boss, you have to do everything all over again. I am so glad I save stated because I would have lost my god damn sanity because of this mission. I look up how to get the level 4 on this mole boss, who is named Flammole, and after a couple deaths and save state reloading, I get the level 4. I felt guilty and bad for using a save state, but whatever, I’ll do this legit some other time. After that, I complete the mission, SAVE, and I get the sub tank. Trust me, do not bother this with this fucking tank.
Pseudoroids Return:
I should have mentioned this after I beat Hurricaune, but after you get your first biometal upgrade, previous bosses can be refought at the location you initially fought them at. This way, you can practice your level 4 victories, which is great design. Giving the player an easy way to practice a difficult mechanic in a game is something that is rarely done in so many games, so I’m glad Zx allowed this. If you get a level 4 on a refight, your biometal gets fully repaired as well, which is so nice. I go to each fight, and I get level 4’s on everything. By doing that, a special room in HQ now has all these cute pseudoroid plush toys that hang from the ceiling. It’s a nice little extra reward.
Anyway, time for the last mission.

Protect the Lab:
Zx has this weird trend with its missions: every fire mission fucking sucks and every phantom mission is so fucking boring. I don’t have much to say here. This area is dull as fuck. It’s also really fucking short, which is nice for a side quest later, but for an actual mission, it makes it so forgettable. This area is filled with missiles that falls from the sky and attack you along with these satellites that fuck over your controls or mess up your movement. It’s nothing unique or interesting, and before I know it, I’m at the boss.
The boss is named Protectos, and he’s a giant...Rhino? I think? He shoots some missiles, some colored projectiles, some lasers, and he has this one attack where he shoots this large missile that creates a large explosion that forces me to hide behind him to avoid. It’s not that hard, and his weakness is his large chest, so aim for his head. After a couple charge shots, he goes down, and I have completed all the main missions of the game. Not much left after this.
Side quests:
Fuck the side quest in this game holy shit. I am never doing this again when I replay this game. This was easily the worst part about this game along with the fire missions. There is so much back tracking. You have to back track to the city or HQ to first get the mission, then you have to go the whatever area the mission wants you to go to, and then you have to go back to the person to complete the mission. And some missions have multiple parts, so you have to keep going back and forth and back and forth, and oh my fucking god I want to stop playing. This could have been so much better if we could teleport to HQ with some sort of item that we can buy from like the magical tickets in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin or Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Seriously, I don’t understand why they didn’t include something like this, and it only adds to the shitty map design.
There’s one side quest that gives you a sub tank, and it has you go through Area L, the Protect the Lab Mission, 12 FUCKING TIMES! It took me 35 MINUTES to do this entire mission, and it was so repetitive and boring. Basically you talk to a nurse at HQ who tells you to get some medicine from a crate in Area L, so you go to Area L which is so annoying because of the missiles and satellites I mentioned earlier. You eventually get your item, then you go back to HQ talk to the nurse complete the mission, but you’re not done. Now you have to talk to the nurse outside of the room the first nurse is in, who tells you to do the exact same fucking thing, and this continues for 2 more sets of missions. All you’re doing is going to Area L, breaking a crate, and coming back, and it’s fucking awful. If you want a better explanation as to how awful it is, watch this video by ClementJ64: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_jAeJms_3k&list=PL45FXiU5g2Q83KJnuFy9xGcbcL0IY38RO&index=15. He shows the entire mission, and he cuts out all the back tracking.
Honestly, just don’t do it. Forget about the side quests, as all the rewards are fucking useless. They’re some shitty chips that barely help, and the best chip in this game can be obtained by just talking to someone at HQ. This chip is auto charge and you get it from the guy that repairs your biometal. Don’t do the side quests unless you really want to.
Stop the Dig:
There’s some uninteresting dialogue here and there, and I am now tasked to travel to Area M to stop Serpent from reviving Model W. Area M is only accessible when you have all your biometals and their passwords, so you can’t get here before you do all the missions. You can get to the entrance, but that’s it. Anyway I enter, encounter another dragon similar to the ones in Area I, and I get to the internal parts of Area M. It looks amazing. It’s an orange area with bright red spots lighting up each wall. It’s so ominous, foreboding, and intimidating. I love it, it truly feels like a climactic area. I head down a ladder, and I have to go through another area with model Lx where I swim and dodge spikes. Luckily, there’s a respawning extra life here so death is meaningless. After a few deaths, I get through, and it’s time for the boss.
Pandora is kind of difficult honestly, but by now, I have several sub tanks (probably way too many. Did I really need that one from the side quest? Seriously fuck that quest.), so I take her down relatively easily. The next room is a yellow server, and it leads to Area N, which is the home of this game’s super boss, Omega, from Mega Man Zero 3.
To access Omega, I had to go across some Yoku blocks that killed me several times because the pattern was tricky, and they were above a pit of spikes. I get to Omega, he says the same stuff he said in Zero 3, and the fight start. Holy shit, this is hard. VERY HARD. He never stops attacking. He has so many god damn attacks, and he fucking heals. I knew from some people before that the best way to beat this guy is to use charge shots and constantly run away. But man, Omega can kill you fast. If he gets you into his triple slash combo, you will instantly lose half your health, and if you’re on hard mode, this kills you instantly. He can also charge his buster that shoots three extremely quick shots that also do a lot of damage. His rolling slash shoots a bunch of ice shots at you that can be tricky to avoid, and he has this rising slash that prevents you from jumping over him. So yeah, good luck. I certainly died several times, but if you have one sub tank and understand his pattern a bit, you’ll be fine.
The hardest part of this fight is getting back to the fucking save point. Holy shit, I died so many times on the way back because I kept on failing the Yoku Block section. I got a game over to the fucking spikes, and I had to fight Omega again. I didn’t mind it too much, but idk why they didn’t just put a server in a room after Omega. Upon going back to Area N, I head down to a weird room, and I get a special rock. Okay so I don’t like this item. This item gives you a special biometal that allows you to play as Omega. He’s basically an over powered Zero from the Mega Man Zero games, but that doesn’t matter. You can only use him AFTER you beat the game, and there’s no new game plus or anything, so there’s basically nothing to use him for. He’s just there. I guess you can just run around the world with him, but who would want to do that? I know he’s overpowered, but being overpowered is such a great reward for beating a special boss like Omega. This could have been done so much better.
Only two missions left
Repel the Army:
Mavericks are attacking the highway…again, so I head back, and a ladder has been lowered down, giving me access to Area O. Area O is another ruined city area with fire raining across the foreground. It looks really nice, but the mission itself is rather meh. It’s pretty flat, and not much is really going on. After a couple minutes, I get to the boss, and I am now fighting Prometheus and Pandora at the same time, which means nothing since they only attack me one at a time and share a health bar. They go down, and it’s time for the last mission.
Destroy Model W:
The large door in the middle of Area D opens up, and I can now access the Serpent tower. The music here is amazing. A nice techno track that really gives me this climactic showdown type of feeling. The area looks nice as well. It’s very relaxing, lounge-like area with purple walls decorating the rooms. The second room is a giant elevator with some enemies that I have to carefully dodge, which was fun, but all this leads to the boss rush. The boss rush is pretty standard, so I won’t spend much time on it, but just know that you don’t get health after each boss, so be careful. Though to be honest, you don’t need it as these bosses are a joke when not going for the level 4 victory. You can hit their weak point with their weakness, and that shaves off their health so quick. It’s insane how fast some of these bosses go down, so make sure you take advantage of that. After some more elevators, I make it to the boss, Serpent and Model W.
Serpent’s first phase has him doing some Street Fighter moves and shooting energy balls at you. It’s honestly not that hard, just use your charge shot and stay away from him. After that, he combined with model W, and this phase is pretty hard. He shoots fire from the sky, which leaves fire spots on the ground that you cannot stand on so watch out. He also shoots some flames at you that can easily be dealt with by using a rolling slash. He also has this crystal attack where he smashes a crystal and the shards can hurt you, and he has this purple projectile that shortens your jump, making it hard to dodge. Every time you deplete one of his three health bars, the next phase again, making this final boss a 3 phase fight, 4 if you count the fight against Serpent alone.
His next phase is relatively the same except he now crushes the crystal in the center, and when he moves his hands, they can hit you on the way so watch out. His fire attack is the same along with his purple projectiles. Really all that’s changed is his weak point, which is now on his shoulders. The next phase is his hardest phase. He moves his hands to the sides where he then starts to shoot projectiles at you. He has more purple projectiles, and if you get hit by them, you’re fucked, so try to avoid them. His weak point is the green crystal in his center, which I did not know, so I died several times trying to figure out where I need to hit him, causing me to get a game over. I had to do the entire boss rush over again which wasn’t fun but whatever.
I pick up an E-tank before I try the final mission again, which you can buy from this girl in the room past the generator where you fight Prometheus for the first time. I get back to the boss, and I only have to use my newly bought e-tank to beat him, no sub tanks. He really isn’t that hard now that I think about it.
Ending
But after that, the fight ends, some cut scenes play, there’s some cliché dialogue, and the game ends with a horrible ending song which is a complete contrast to the great OST but whatever.
So yeah that was certainly an experience.
Mega Man Zx is not a bad game, and I’m currently replaying it on hard mode, so that shows that I did enjoy my time here, but man, this game has way too many problems. This game did not need to be a Metroidvania(or a fake Metroidvania) it really didn’t. It just makes the game so much more confusing for no reason, and when you’re lost, it’s not fun because the world isn’t interesting. The only good missions are the Model Hx and Model Lx missions. Fx and Px both have 4 lame missions tied to them, and it just makes the game worse. I probably like this more than Mega Man Zero 4, but the other Zero games? No way. Not with the stupid decisions made here. I would love to see a game like this to be done again, maybe a Zx 3? I know Zx Advent fixes a couple problems in Zx, but I heard that Advent isn’t liked by many so I’m not really looking forward to it. I’ll get to it after hardmode though.
Inti-creates really needs to analyze the Metroid and Castlevania games to see what really makes them work so well. If you can get the level design of Aria of Sorrow and Super Metroid and apply to a Zx setting, you could easily make one of the best Metroidvanias ever made. Mega Man is such a good franchise to turn into a Metroidvania because of the sheer amount of abilities you can get, but that probably won’t happen for a long time. And I know it’s not easy. Making a Metroidvania is hard, but I know it can be done, it just needs more work.
I give Mega Man Zx a 3/5. An awful Metroidvania and a decent Mega Man Zero game.

Wow 10,000 words and 27 pages of me just talking about Zx. If there are grammatical errors idgaf. I am not proof reading all of this lol.







Mega Man Zx Review
Well, this certainly wasn’t the 10/10 I was hoping for after Mega Man x6 destroyed whatever faith I had in the x series.
As many already know, Mega Man Zx is different from the Mega Man Zero games in terms of map structure. Rather than selecting missions from a menu at your base, you area instead tasked to explore this giant, metroidvania-like map. However, this game is far from being an actual Metroidvania. It’s hard to accurately define what a Metroidvania is as definitions vary from person to person, but at a most basic level, Metroidvania is defined by ability gating. While Zx has some ability gating, it’s almost always for one very niche situation and that’s it. Your biometals that you obtain throughout the game do not affect the world on an extremely large scale. You probably need a biometal or its ability for a couple life ups or subtanks and maybe to gain access to one area, but besides that, as long as you have the key card, almost every area in this game can be accessed with your starting gear. Moreover, your abilities should just help you out in general progression. That’s something that always happens in games like Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow or Super Metroid. The double jump in AOS helps the player get across tricky obstacles and also gives the player more mobility. The speed booster in Super Metroid allows the player to do many sequence breaks or acts as a solution to the many puzzles in the game. These are just two abilities out of the many in both games that do this. What’s there in Zx that does this? Nothing really. I guess Model Hx acts as a replacement for any other model since it can hover and air dash, but besides that, you’re not really using Hx for anything else, and you’re especially not using the other biometals for mobility. Now this isn’t to say they aren’t fun to use, but I’ll get into that later.
Something else that Metroidvanias have that Zx lacks is proper Metroidvania level design. You will back track in this game; it is guaranteed that you will, but unlike actual Metroidvanias, backtracking in this game will rarely ever cause you to access something you couldn’t before because you didn’t have the proper upgrade. I honestly can’t even remember a time when that even happened. There was never a notable moment in this game where I felt I was missing a crucial upgrade to get to a certain item or access a certain area. However in games like Super Metroid, this will happen all the time on first play through. It happens as soon as you start the game. Upon arriving on Zebes and going left, you enter your first room where there’s a morph ball tunnel below you that you can’t access. You may try to figure out how to get there, but you’ll eventually move on and keep that location in mind. Once you actually get the morph ball, you may now realize that you are now able to access that tunnel, so you go back there and sure enough, you can. This never happens in Zx, and it is why I refuse to call this game a Metroidvania. It can maybe be considered a “metroidvania-lite” or something, but the definition of that is even more obscure.
Though I guess I should get to my actual experience. Every time I stopped playing, I used a notepad file to record my thoughts on each of my sessions except for the last two since I had a general of idea of what I had to say about those. So, I shall start from the beginning.
Intro:
So upon starting the game, I am met with a difficulty select option, which allows me to pick between “Easy” and “Normal” mode. Now I wouldn’t exactly consider Mega Man Zx to be a difficult game; in fact, I find it easier than all the Mega Man Zero games. This makes Zx extremely accessible to newcomers, and it’s now made even more accessible with there being an “Easy” mode, which is something I appreciate. I often find myself reluctant to introduce my friends to Mega Man, especially the Mega Man Zero games because of how punishing they can be, and I’m glad to see that Zx prevents that from happening. However, that’s probably the only thing that makes this accessible, but I’ll get to that later. I create my file, and I am now told to choose between two different characters. In Zx you can choose to play as either Vent or Aile, and besides gender, they play exactly the same and go through the same story with slight alterations so just choose whoever you find most appealing. I went with Aile for my play through.
A cut scene starts playing, and we are met with the character we chose and this dude in a pink outfit. They are apparently delivering a package to some place. We are told that the name of this pink man is Giro, and we are also told that our protagonist lost their mother in an event called the “Maverick Raids”. Not long after, we are met with two armed robots, who shoot our characters’ bikes and cause an explosion, which causes Aile to get blown off of the high cliff we were previously on. She safely lands on the ground below, and we meet a group of people who are being attacked by a large robotic snake. Suddenly, something appears out of the package, and it latches itself onto Aile, transforming us into “Model X”. The snake runs off, and we chase after, officially starting the game. From this point on, I’m not going to talk about the story as I don’t have many thoughts on it, and I don’t want to spoil much in this review. Everyone will go through the intro, and I needed to set up the acquisition of Model X in some way.
Speaking of which, Model X is part of the new mechanic that Zx introduces called the “biometals”. Basically, throughout the game you get many biometals, each with their different abilities, and they allow you to transform into the four guardians seen throughout the Mega Man Zero games. However, this model lets us transform into Mega Man X not one of the guardians, and we will be getting one later that also doesn’t turn us into a guardian. Anyway, Model X plays pretty similar to X from Mega Man X. He can charge shot, dash, wall jump, and he even has a special fully powered charge shot similar to the one found in Mega Man X. He’s extremely fun to play as since the charge shot is pretty strong, and it can destroy enemies rather quickly. But to get to the actual level, we are currently in Area A according to the map. This game is divided into several areas, each labeled by a letter, and a few areas act as a sort of hub area that leads to the areas where you’ll be doing all of your missions. Area A is a forest area filled with lush, green plant life everywhere. It looks really nice, but I will say that the level design here is kind of flat. There are only a few jumps you have to make to get to a higher platforms, and there are no bottomless pits. However, the fun combat prevented me from getting bored.
I continue along, and I encounter the snake enemy I saw earlier. It’s boss time. This snake reminds me of a boss from Mega Man Zero 2, Hyleg Ourobockle, and I’m sure that was intentional. Either way, his pattern wasn’t difficult. He either shoots some energy at you, or he lunges at you both of which are easy to dodge. I charge shot him several times, and he goes down, and we continue along after a few cut scenes. We make it to a transerver, which is basically your save rooms and warp rooms from the Castlevania games all packed into a single room. It’s here where you can also access your mission list, and I just received a new mission. We are to Locate Giro, and not realizing that I have to go through the door to the right, I go left and spend 20 in game minutes lost. After a while, I stopped playing because I couldn’t figure out where to go, and I was getting bored of just wandering. The map wasn’t helping either. When I come back, I realize that I must now go right, and travel up to Area B, where I can now find Giro.
Locate Giro:
Area B has a bright, daytime setting, and it’s also rather flat. I kind of just dashed through the various enemies, and made it to the end. There were some rooms I could go into, but overall, it wasn’t interesting. We get to the boss, and it’s a giant plane that reminded me of Harpuia’s special form from Mega Man Zero 2. This boss was cool. It shoots down these pillars, and there’s one pillar that’s red that you have to shoot. Once you shoot it, it explodes, and the pillars get launched into the plane, damaging it. Do this four times, and you’re done. We then meet Giro, who uses his model z, which is similar to Zero, to finish off the plane. He then tells us that to get to Guardian HQ, which is basically your resistance base from the Zero games, we must first pass the test, and this begins our next mission.
Pass the test:
It was at this point in my Zx run where I started getting incredibly lost. I did not know where to go as the mission details told me barely anything regarding what I was supposed to do. They told me that I had to go to Area C, but it took me forever to find Area C, and it took me even longer to figure out what to do there. The map wasn’t helping at all because it just showed me which areas I’ve already been to rather than where each area would take me. So after mindlessly exploring a bunch, I realized that I had to talk to this one specific guy in Area C to start the mission, and this mission consisted of me going around Area C and talking to even more people. This was so dull, and I almost stopped playing again because I couldn’t find the remaining people that I needed to talk to. This highlights my biggest issue with Mega Man Zx, and it’s what I meant when I said that the difficulty was the only thing that made this game accessible.
Without a guide, a first timer WILL get lost unless they have a guide. This game throws you into this large area with an awful map, tells you that you need to go to a certain area without marking where that area is, and expects the player to find it on their own. Unless you explore for hours, which is what I tried doing as I don’t like using a guide, you will never find a lot of these areas. It’s even worse later when you’re told to go and do one of your main missions. It’ll say go find Area E, and common sense would make one think that Area E is accessed through Area D, which is accessed through Area C, but that’s not how this works. Area E is connected directly to Area C, and D leads to G. This game has such a huge lack of conveyance with its areas that anyone trying to get into this game will be instantly put off. This game barely tells you anything, and that’s such a huge flaw. There was no reason to not make this game similar to the Zero games where you can just select from a list of missions since like I said, there’s almost nothing interesting to be found exploring this world. It’s another reason as to why I got so bored. Area C is just a straight line with enemies or people occasionally popping up. Area A is so small, and each room looks so similar to each other. Wandering around aimlessly in this game just isn’t fun, and expecting the player to do that is just going to make the experience so much worse.
After talking to many people, I finish the mission, and I am told to use the transerver next to the guy who gave me the mission to report it. After I do that, I’m told to use the server to teleport to the HQ. However, this game has two different types of transervers: red and yellow. Red ones aren’t teleporters, but yellow ones are, so I had to back track all the way to the yellow one at the start of Area C, which was super annoying. I don’t understand why red servers are even a thing, it just artificially lengthens the game, and it contributes to how boring exploring the game can be. Either way, I get to the HQ, a cut scene plays, and I now have another intro mission I must do.
Guardian Hq:
Mavericks are attacking Area D, the highway, and we need to go stop them. Area D is connected to Area B, and it’s a highway similar to the one in Mega Man X, which is cool. The flying hornet robots are back as a reference, and they even die in the same way. It’s fun, but it gets repetitive eventually. I make it to the end where I encounter Giro, who is on the ground, and three new people. They were attacking the highway, and they’re our main villains for this game. They do something to Giro that makes him evil, and he starts attacking us. We are now fighting Giro, who similar to Zero from the Mega Man X and the Mega Man Zero games. It’s a cool fight since there’s a lot of patterns to learn, and I died once. After retrying, I beat him. Giro dies, which I don’t care about since we only knew him for like two minutes, and we get Model Z. Z combines with X to make Model Zx, which is pretty much just Zero with X’s buster. He’s fun, and the rolling slash is cool.
I got back to HQ, and I can finally start the main missions of this game.
From now on, I’ll be covering each mission separately, and they’ll be separated into their own paragraphs. They’ll be relatively short since, there’s not much to say about a lot of them
Explore The Factory:
Alright, it’s time for the first main mission in this game. Just like the zero games, x games, and classic games, there are 8 mission you must do in order to unlock the final one. However, each mission has two parts. The first part of each mission gives you the biometal, and the second part gives you an upgrade to said biometal. I choose the “Explore The Factory” mission as my first one, which is located in area E. Where is Area E? Idfk. Is it connected to Area D? Well, we may as well check since I don’t want to use a guide. I go to the end of Area D past the stupid Mega Man X highway giant bee bots again, and I make it to Area G. Great, I wasted time, but maybe Area G leads to D? I go to the end, die a couple times, say “fuck this” and look up a guide. Ugh what a pain. Like I said previously, Area E is in fact, connected to area C. Because that makes sense? I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but I just want to drive home the frustration the lack of conveyance this causes. This is flat out bad game design, and there’s no way around it which angers me a lot. What could have been a simple, select the mission and we’ll teleport you there, process, is now a convoluted series of steps for literally no reason.
Sigh
Anyway after looking at the guide, I arrive at Area E. It is indeed a factory just like the mission title said, and it looks pretty cool. It’s sunny, and there are fences that tower over you with robotic spiders that leap from behind. It’s pretty unique if I do say so myself. The first room isn’t too dangerous though. A few guards and spiders, but overall, nothing I can’t handle. We go inside, and the gimmick of this level is shown to us: Electricity. There are traps everywhere, which do a lot of damage, and they are all reliant on the factory’s generator, which will be important info for later. I continue along, and I’m so far liking the level design. It’s pretty complex; it’s not flat like the hub areas. Enemies can corner you, you have to be careful around traps; it’s pretty tense honestly. I keep going and notice a peculiar mark on the wall. It’s an arrow that’s seemingly pointing me toward the wall. I kill the enemy in front of the marking, and there’s a secret path. I keep going, and we arrive at a room filled with conveyor belts. I go across each one, and I arrive at the end of the room which holds a generator, which I destroy and all the traps are disabled. I was very pleased by these events, since my curiosity rewarded me with an easier time in the mission.
I continue along the main path, find a sub tank hidden in the same way the hidden path was, and I find the mini-boss. A tractor/crusher robot with a large spikey arm extended off of the front of it. It tries ramming into me to crush me with its arm, but it’s rather slow, so everything is pretty easy to avoid. It has a giant laser, and you just jump on the wall to avoid it. Not a bad boss at all, but I do think it has a bit too much health. I continue along through some more traps, and I make it to one of the coolest rooms in the game: a room with a large machine pulsating in the background, making the noise of beating heart and magnetic platforms, which normally would hurt me, but since I disabled the power, they do not. The atmosphere here is super well done. It’s ominous, creepy, and because of this, it kind of scared me not gonna lie. Either way I get past that room, and we make it to the boss of the area
Hivolt. He has a cool intro, where his silhouette is shown with the bright sun in the background. Truly feels like a climactic battle. He drops down, and after some dialogue the fight starts. He’s kind of tricky honestly. He has this attack where he turns into a wheel, and shoots two lasers at you which you have to carefully jump and slide around. After that he charges at you, and you can either jump over it or stand in a safe spot that you have to figure out. He also sometimes just glides down and dashes at you, which can catch you off guard, and he can leave these turrets in the corner of the screen which will shoot more lasers at you. His ultimate attack has him going to the center of the screen and firing longer lasers at you in a set pattern. I got a game over to this guy, and I had to redo the mission, which wouldn’t be much of an issue if I wasn’t sent all the way back to HQ. Now I have to go all the way back through Area C to get to E, and it just breaks the flow. Why are there hub areas in this game? Why?!
In any case, I beat Hivolt, and the game says I got a level 3 victory? What is this? I look it up, and apparently it’s like your rank and it determines how much energy the biometal you receive will have, and I’ll touch on that after I say a couple more things. Upon the death of Hivolt, we receive model Hx, based off of Harpuia from Mega Man Zero 1-3, and it’s awesome. You can airdash, hover, and dash upwards. He’s so fun to use, and his blades have amazing range, but to go back to the levels for a second, basically each model except for Zx has a weapon energy bar. The higher your level, the higher your bar, but you can also use e-crystals to make out the bar if you did poorly. To get a level 4 victory, max level, you have to not hit the weak point of the Pseudoroid(this games Mavericks, robot masters, what Hivolt is) at all. How do you know where the weak point is? Model Hx tells you on the bottom DS screen, so a first timer probably won’t know about this until they get Hx, which is fine except for the fact that the game never tells you anything about level 4 victories ever. There is no way a new comer would know that to increase their weapon energy, they have to get max level on a boss. They’ll probably look at the bottom screen for Hx and be confused as to what the red point on the boss is, at least I was. I only knew about this since I watched ClementJ64’s playthrough(awesome dude btw though his older videos have some iffy language). Another case of the game’s lack of conveyance ruining the experience. Either way, as a whole, that mission was great. Great level design, bosses, and secrets. Next mission.
Find the Survivors:
Alright at this point I say “fuck it”, and I use the official Mega Man Zx map that Capcom themselves posted on their Twitter. I guess they too thought the game was confusing as fuck, so they decided to put that out there. I guess if the devs are giving out a guide, it’s fine to use.
I am tasked go to Area F to locate the source of a strange signal. Area F is connected to Area B, and it’s a snow/water area, so I assumed I would be obtaining the biometal of Leviathan. I enter, and I love the aesthetic here. I love snowy areas so much, and the music is so relaxing. The water is a nice dark blue, and the falling snow makes the part extremely chill. I enter, and sure enough, we are underwater. I go through the first floor, and there isn’t much to say; it’s pretty standard. A large open room with some spikes and a bottomless pit. Fun but nothing substantial. In the next room, the signal is stronger, and I make my way up a long vertical room, which is kind of annoying. I used Hx to dash up, which was great but one fuck up and you’re sent all the way down. I make it the mini-boss, and it’s the same one from Hivolt except I’m on a conveyor belt that drags me towards it, but the boss itself doesn’t charge at me, so it’s just as easy. I destroy it and move on. Kind of a lame boss honestly. I enter the, and I find the source of the signal. Some exposition later, and a door below me opens up. I go through another room similar to the first one, and make it to the boss.
The boss is named Lurerre the Abysroid, and she’s a giant robotic angler fish. Hx tells me that her weak point is her tiny head, and I need to hit the tip of her antenna (or whatever the thing coming off of the head of an angler fish is called) to damage her. Her attacks aren’t too bad. She shoots some ice arrows at me, charges at me, shoots an ice wall, but it’s nothing I couldn’t handle after one death. I surprisingly never hit her weak spot with my buster shots as Zx. It seems impossible to accidentally hit her weak point honestly. She goes down, and I easily get a level 4, which felt good. I now get Model Lx, who is based off of Leviathan and also has a full energy bar. Lx can swim underwater, and she gets a spear/trident weapon that is pretty cool. You can spin it around, which gives you massive coverage. Her charge attack spawns these ice platforms, which seem a bit useless. Oh I forgot to mention that mode Hx gets an electric ball that homes on to enemies. Pretty cool. Either way, good mission. A bit more laid back, which is fine. I had fun, and that’s important. Next mission.
Fight the Mavericks:
Oh god fuck this mission.
Alright so remember Area G? The area I accidentally went to while looking for Area E and died? I now have to go back there, but that's not much of an issue. Just make it past the repetitive highway, and we get there. There’s a save point right before it too, so if I die I can reload there. Area G is a burning city, filled with fire that fucking hurts. Actually everything fucking hurts. I picked up a life up when I first got to Area B, but that does little to help with the damage output here. I used Hx as his mobility helped in going over pillar enemies, but there are these tiny little bee enemies that are fast and do a good amount of damage as well. I struggle to make it through, but I eventually get to the top. I notice a disc on a certain platform, so I use Hx to get it, and while I’m landing, an enemy pops out and almost kills me. I could not see that coming at all since it was off camera, and I was falling directly on to it. Stupid enemy placement, but I grab the disc regardless, which is this games collectible. They basically share info on enemies, people etc, and trust me, it is not worth getting all of these. Some of these are in such stupid spots filled with spikes or bottomless pits, and it’s just a pain. I didn’t bother getting all of them; no one should.
I find a guardian member who tells me that I must use a portable transever to teleport the people trapped in the burning building back home. I enter the building, and here’s where this mission starts to plummet into high levels of boredom. You go from the bottom of this building to the top of this building, through the same set of rooms that have enemies and fire that can kill you in like 5 hits, and talk to the same people over and over again. It’s so god damn repetitive, and if you die, you have to do it all over again. I didn’t mind it the first time since I ended up getting to the boss, only dying once, and it was fine but I wanted the level 4 on the boss.
Fistleo is the name of this boss, and oh my god, fuck this boss. His weakness is his head, which is in the way of almost his entire body except for his feet. So you have to go behind him or hit him while he jumps, which both only give you a couple seconds of time to do so, and it’s so easy to fuck up. If you hit him once, you’re done with the level 4, and you have to reset. Holy shit, the amount of times I had to reset against this fucker destroyed any semblance of fun I had left. Those last two great missions were immediately forgotten about because I was getting mad. Constantly doing that repetitive middle part over and over again, constantly dying to fire, constantly fucking up the level 4. I eventually just gave up, and I got the level 2 victory. I was upset, but I didn’t want to deal with that anymore. I’m not the only one who thinks this either. Minoru Leonardo complained about this boss in the description of his Mega Man Zx Hard/No Damage Part 6 video, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3rSsO1YOfM&list=PLS7CYzATG6xDPm2D3NYifiU8JoCPbUOJ0
This is easily the worst mission out of the entire Zero franchise. Yes, even worse than that shitty Protect the Factory mission from Zero 1.
Anyway, it’s done so next mission, and we get Fefnir. Fx shoots fire bullets, and you can alter the path of the bullets on the bottom screen of the DS, so it’s cool.
Secure the Biometal:
I need to get to Area H, which is connected to Area A. I head there and it’s a Metuo(or hard hat) themed theme park. The first room is big and kind of dull. Nothing is really going on here. It’s flat, and I can just dash through occasionally hitting enemies in my way. Barely any cool secrets too. At least the theme is cool, right?
The next room has a giant Met mini-boss, similar to the one in Mega Man 4. It’s easy. It shoots a few bubbles at you, spawns a couple enemies, and tries to dash into you/jump into you. Nothing difficult, and I beat it with ease.
I go through another large, boring room, but there’s a Ferris wheel here at least. The next room has some crane game grabbers that try to throw you into a bottomless pit, but it’s nothing hard (unless you’re on hard mode since shit does a lot of damage). I get to a cool platforming section with wind trying to blow me off of these blimp shaped platforms with ladders. Pretty cool, the most memorable part of this mission
I get to the boss, and think “That’s it? That was short.”
The boss is named Purpill the Mandroid, a monkey like robot. He throws some bombs, turns into a disc and flies around, and climbs on the ceiling. He’s honestly pretty easy on normal, and I almost got the level 4, but I accidentally hit him once, and since I didn’t want to redo the mission, I just went with it. I got biometal Px, which is based off of Phantom, and it’s pretty sick. You can throw an infinite amount of kunais and shurikens, and you can hang on ceilings. I love it, you even get a map that tells you the basic layout of your current room and warns you of enemies nearby. I save at the red server, and I’m told to teleport back to HQ for the mid stage. I am forced to back track to the nearest yellow server because red servers exist for some reason. So annoying.
Mid Stage:
The base is being attacked by Serpent, and I must stop it. I save at the HQ server, and I start. I must go to the deck, which is on the highest floor and defend HQ. Pods are launched at the HQ ship, and enemies pop out. I mindlessly destroy them, and a cut scene plays that shows two familiar figures entering the HQ. They head towards the generator, and I follow. Some dialogue plays out, and I am now fighting Prometheus.
He’s rather challenging. He shoots four fireballs that go to the corner of each screen and target you with smaller fireballs. He also does a dash/uppercut attack, but it’s easy to dodge. I die to the former attack, which causes me to redo the entire mission. I refight him, win, and end the mission.
Holy fuck were these last three missions boring and frustrating. There was nothing significant about any of these last few areas. They were either big and flat, short and repetitive, or long, repetitive, and annoying. I did not enjoy this session at all. This combined with the slow and painful start of this game extremely lowered my opinion of it. I stop playing since I was burnt the hell out, but come back the next day.
Save the People:
After a nice shower and taking a day-long break, I come back for some more Mega Man Zx fun. My next mission wants me to go to Area I, which I remember is located in the room where I fought Hivolt. I teleport there and enter Area I. Holy fuck this mission is amazing. Let’s start with the aesthetic. Rain clouds cover the sky, as lightning strikes periodically accompanied by the soothing sound of the rain. It’s so relaxing, it’s so chill, and the music is amazing.
Mega Man Zx has an amazing ost. I’m listening to it as I write this review, and my favorite track is the one that plays in Area I. It’s called Misty Rain, and it’s so relaxing. It’s perfect for when you’re working on something and just need something to make your work load less stressful, and I love that about Zx’s ost. The tracks that play in the Leviathan missions are the same way, and there are some other tracks that are similar as well. 10/10 ost; the best of the Zero franchise by far.
The area is way more open than most of the past few missions, but the level design and exploration is complex and fun. There are many secrets and hidden goodies here, and there are even a few branching paths. I progress through and go through a door which leads two a room that has two separate exits. One exit is blocked off by a section filled with spikes that kind of reminds me of the Spike Breaker room from Symphony of the Night. The other door is just a standard door, so I take the dangerous path as that will probably reward me better. I use Hx to fly through, and I love this. I love the idea that you can use your biometals to access different pathways, and I wish the entire game was structured similarly. It rewards creative thinking, as small as it may be, and it encourages exploration.
I encounter a mini-boss similar to the elemental dragons from Mega Man Zero 4, and it’s actually pretty challenging. I almost die, but after a few rolling slashes, I take it down. The next room is another open room with two-layered platforms that have been seemingly hit by something constantly, causing them to take on a more bent appearance. I notice a life up that I can’t get so I ignore and come back later. These next rooms are great. I enter a dark room, and I recall that Phantom can light up dark areas. I equip him, and holy shit this is so fun. Dashing through a dark room with Phantom while spam his shurikens all while this great music plays in the background. The most fun I’ve had so far, and it’s only because this mission is requiring use of a lot of my abilities. It hits that Metroidvania type of design that I’m looking for in a game like this, and it’s such a shame that the entire game isn’t like this. I go through another dark room, and I get to the boss.
Hurricaune, an ant eater robot I think?
She’s wind based and has a lot of attacks similar to Harpuia’s from Zero 1 and 2. She shoots a pink blade at you that follows along the ground then splits into two smaller ones that trail up and down the wall. She fires two tornados at you that home in on you, so you have to bait them to successfully dodge them. Her ultimate attack has a tornado that drags you in all while more blade beams try to damage you. However, I did not find her that difficult, and I got the level 4 easily as well since my charge shots never hit her neck.
I beat her, and I get an upgraded model Hx, and I rescue the people who were about to be turned into cyber-elves. I go back to that life up to see if I can get it after I give the mission report, and I still don’t know how to get it. I’m certain that I need to use Hx, so I look it up, and apparently, killing Hurricaune allows you to summon Tornados. How do you do this? You hold up and charge your weapon and then release. The game never tells you about this, like with everything. Oh well, I’ve ranted about that enough. I get the life up, and I head to the next mission. Save the People is great.
Recover the Disk:
A disk containing crucial info is hidden deep within Area J, which can be accessed through Area A, and the first screen in the game leads to this area. I found this when I was lost near the start of the game; it’s accessed through some hole in the wall. Once I reach Area J, I’m met with an underground area with a bunch of water everywhere. It looks nice, and the music is again really good here. The track that plays here is one of my favorites in the game. Anyway we dive down with Levi, and there’s a bunch of spikes around so it’s impossible to do this without Levi, which is good. The abilities you receive should be how you progress, but even then, it’s only natural that they require use of Levi since this is her second mission. I continue along and there’s a giant room filled with water, and it’s so beautiful. Swimming around with Levi is so fun to do, and the obstacles built around Model Lx’s movement are very intelligently designed. They require careful and precise movements underwater, and the enemies are all made to be comfortable to kill with Mode Lx’s/Levi’s weapon.
I get to the mini-boss, which is rather strange looking. It’s a giant skull that shoots fish out of the 4 holes on the sides of its head. Occasionally, it’ll shoot out these worm-like creatures that dash at you, and those worms are the boss’ weak point. After just standing in one spot and mashing the attack button since it causes Lx to do this spinning spear attack, I beat the mini-boss. It was a pretty lame fight, but whatever, I continue on. After another nice and fun room that requires more swimming, we get to the boss, Leganchor.
Leganchor is a giant robot, whose animal inspiration is currently escaping me. Hx tells me that the large turbines on the top of his body is his weakness, and luckily enough, they’re completely out of the way. I remember that Fx can curve his bullets upwards, so I stand on the left side of the Arena and just spam away with Fx. This surprisingly works since none of the attacks he has done so far have been a threat to me as I haven’t gotten hit by anything. He eventually shoots out these ice dragons, similar to the ones Leviathan used in Mega Man Zero 2, but I continue to spam with Fx, and while they did hit me once, they went away rather quickly. After a long and boring fight, I finish him off, and we retrieve the disk we were looking for; however, this mission isn’t over yet as there is still more to this area.
As I progressed through this area before fighting the boss, I noticed that there was this inner area that I couldn’t access no matter what I did, so I ignored it and moved on but now that I have beaten the boss, I can access those areas. They’re basically these underground, glass tunnels that look so nice. The water moves in the background as you dash through the inner workings of this facility. It’s so calming and relaxing; I love this scenery so much. I make it out of the area, save, and I get off since it’s rather late. Overall, this was an amazing session. Hurricaune and Leganchor both had amazing areas that are easily my favorite missions in this game so far, along with the first two wind and water areas. After getting off, I am told that I missed a life up in Area J, so I quickly go back into the game to obtain it before getting off again. I don’t know how I missed such an obvious life up, but for those reading this, at the start of Area J, there is a door that is at the very bottom of the room. Go in there, swim past some spikes, and you’ll find the life up.
Attack the Excavators:
Well, I guess this game knows I was having so much fun because that amazing session I just had is immediately followed up with another garbage one. Oh my god, fuck this mission, seriously. So basically, I need to head to Area K, which is connected to Area C, and I need to do something with excavators or something idfk. I stopped paying attention to the mission objectives a while ago. So I head these, and this area is a volcano-like area with a bunch of ash and lava everywhere. There are also these boiling-hot water geysers that lift these spikey platforms up, and if you’re under them when they’re on the way down, you die, so don’t do that. The first room was nothing special. In terms of structure, it was kind of similar to Area F, but the next room is where hell begins. Some sand/boiling water I think lowers into a large hole, allowing me to fall in. I go in, and I fight a mini boss, who is a joke with Harpuia’s new tornado ability. After that, fall down again, and I meet a guardian member, who tells me that there is hot lava here that will chase me and kill me if I don’t get away fast enough. I continue along, and I take an upward path that leads to a rising lava chase sequence.
Holy shit, fuck this part. The lava moves so damn fast, and if you get hit once by the several enemies spammed throughout this upward shaft, you fall into the lava, and you’re fucked. There were these stupid harpoon like enemies that prevented me from wall jumping up since there harpoons kept on hitting me, and I kept on dying. These enemies caused me to game over so many times because they kept on making me fall into the lava. I was getting so mad, so I looked up how to do it, and apparently you can jump through the chains. Great. I go back, jump through the chains, and I still die a couple times, but I eventually make it. I continue along, and I get to the top of the mission where there’s a mechanism that slows the lava flow. Awesome, this should make things much easier, right? Wrong! No it did not because when I get back to the room that led to the upward path, I start to take the path to the right, and this leads to another lava chase section. In this section, there are blocks that Fefnir can break with his fists. To break blocks, you have to slightly charge your weapon, but if you charge it too much, you don’t do his punch which doesn’t break the block. Even worse, the first set of blocks makes you do this awkward as hell wall jump punch that I almost always fucked up whenever I tried doing this. You have to punch several sets of blocks all while the lava is chasing you, and it’s so fucking fast, even on the slower speed. The amount of times I died here trying to get to this fucking secret is insane. I got so tired of doing the mission over and over, fighting the same mini-boss over and over, and slowing the lava flow over and over that I used a save state. Something I never do, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was so frustrating, and I was getting so tired of it.
I eventually make it through the blocks, which allows me to access a secret door that leads to a switch. This switch activates a red door near the mechanism that slows the lava flow that leads to a sub tank. Yes, all of this frustration just for one sub tank. Was it worth it? No, it really wasn’t, but I wanted all of them. This sub tank is easily the hardest sub tank in the entire Mega Man franchise. I’m serious it’s that fucking hard. What’s even worse is that after you press that switch, you have to fight the boss, so if you die the fucking boss, you have to do everything all over again. I am so glad I save stated because I would have lost my god damn sanity because of this mission. I look up how to get the level 4 on this mole boss, who is named Flammole, and after a couple deaths and save state reloading, I get the level 4. I felt guilty and bad for using a save state, but whatever, I’ll do this legit some other time. After that, I complete the mission, SAVE, and I get the sub tank. Trust me, do not bother this with this fucking tank.
Pseudoroids Return:
I should have mentioned this after I beat Hurricaune, but after you get your first biometal upgrade, previous bosses can be refought at the location you initially fought them at. This way, you can practice your level 4 victories, which is great design. Giving the player an easy way to practice a difficult mechanic in a game is something that is rarely done in so many games, so I’m glad Zx allowed this. If you get a level 4 on a refight, your biometal gets fully repaired as well, which is so nice. I go to each fight, and I get level 4’s on everything. By doing that, a special room in HQ now has all these cute pseudoroid plush toys that hang from the ceiling. It’s a nice little extra reward.
Anyway, time for the last mission.

Protect the Lab:
Zx has this weird trend with its missions: every fire mission fucking sucks and every phantom mission is so fucking boring. I don’t have much to say here. This area is dull as fuck. It’s also really fucking short, which is nice for a side quest later, but for an actual mission, it makes it so forgettable. This area is filled with missiles that falls from the sky and attack you along with these satellites that fuck over your controls or mess up your movement. It’s nothing unique or interesting, and before I know it, I’m at the boss.
The boss is named Protectos, and he’s a giant...Rhino? I think? He shoots some missiles, some colored projectiles, some lasers, and he has this one attack where he shoots this large missile that creates a large explosion that forces me to hide behind him to avoid. It’s not that hard, and his weakness is his large chest, so aim for his head. After a couple charge shots, he goes down, and I have completed all the main missions of the game. Not much left after this.
Side quests:
Fuck the side quest in this game holy shit. I am never doing this again when I replay this game. This was easily the worst part about this game along with the fire missions. There is so much back tracking. You have to back track to the city or HQ to first get the mission, then you have to go the whatever area the mission wants you to go to, and then you have to go back to the person to complete the mission. And some missions have multiple parts, so you have to keep going back and forth and back and forth, and oh my fucking god I want to stop playing. This could have been so much better if we could teleport to HQ with some sort of item that we can buy from like the magical tickets in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin or Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Seriously, I don’t understand why they didn’t include something like this, and it only adds to the shitty map design.
There’s one side quest that gives you a sub tank, and it has you go through Area L, the Protect the Lab Mission, 12 FUCKING TIMES! It took me 35 MINUTES to do this entire mission, and it was so repetitive and boring. Basically you talk to a nurse at HQ who tells you to get some medicine from a crate in Area L, so you go to Area L which is so annoying because of the missiles and satellites I mentioned earlier. You eventually get your item, then you go back to HQ talk to the nurse complete the mission, but you’re not done. Now you have to talk to the nurse outside of the room the first nurse is in, who tells you to do the exact same fucking thing, and this continues for 2 more sets of missions. All you’re doing is going to Area L, breaking a crate, and coming back, and it’s fucking awful. If you want a better explanation as to how awful it is, watch this video by ClementJ64: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_jAeJms_3k&list=PL45FXiU5g2Q83KJnuFy9xGcbcL0IY38RO&index=15. He shows the entire mission, and he cuts out all the back tracking.
Honestly, just don’t do it. Forget about the side quests, as all the rewards are fucking useless. They’re some shitty chips that barely help, and the best chip in this game can be obtained by just talking to someone at HQ. This chip is auto charge and you get it from the guy that repairs your biometal. Don’t do the side quests unless you really want to.
Stop the Dig:
There’s some uninteresting dialogue here and there, and I am now tasked to travel to Area M to stop Serpent from reviving Model W. Area M is only accessible when you have all your biometals and their passwords, so you can’t get here before you do all the missions. You can get to the entrance, but that’s it. Anyway I enter, encounter another dragon similar to the ones in Area I, and I get to the internal parts of Area M. It looks amazing. It’s an orange area with bright red spots lighting up each wall. It’s so ominous, foreboding, and intimidating. I love it, it truly feels like a climactic area. I head down a ladder, and I have to go through another area with model Lx where I swim and dodge spikes. Luckily, there’s a respawning extra life here so death is meaningless. After a few deaths, I get through, and it’s time for the boss.
Pandora is kind of difficult honestly, but by now, I have several sub tanks (probably way too many. Did I really need that one from the side quest? Seriously fuck that quest.), so I take her down relatively easily. The next room is a yellow server, and it leads to Area N, which is the home of this game’s super boss, Omega, from Mega Man Zero 3.
To access Omega, I had to go across some Yoku blocks that killed me several times because the pattern was tricky, and they were above a pit of spikes. I get to Omega, he says the same stuff he said in Zero 3, and the fight start. Holy shit, this is hard. VERY HARD. He never stops attacking. He has so many god damn attacks, and he fucking heals. I knew from some people before that the best way to beat this guy is to use charge shots and constantly run away. But man, Omega can kill you fast. If he gets you into his triple slash combo, you will instantly lose half your health, and if you’re on hard mode, this kills you instantly. He can also charge his buster that shoots three extremely quick shots that also do a lot of damage. His rolling slash shoots a bunch of ice shots at you that can be tricky to avoid, and he has this rising slash that prevents you from jumping over him. So yeah, good luck. I certainly died several times, but if you have one sub tank and understand his pattern a bit, you’ll be fine.
The hardest part of this fight is getting back to the fucking save point. Holy shit, I died so many times on the way back because I kept on failing the Yoku Block section. I got a game over to the fucking spikes, and I had to fight Omega again. I didn’t mind it too much, but idk why they didn’t just put a server in a room after Omega. Upon going back to Area N, I head down to a weird room, and I get a special rock. Okay so I don’t like this item. This item gives you a special biometal that allows you to play as Omega. He’s basically an over powered Zero from the Mega Man Zero games, but that doesn’t matter. You can only use him AFTER you beat the game, and there’s no new game plus or anything, so there’s basically nothing to use him for. He’s just there. I guess you can just run around the world with him, but who would want to do that? I know he’s overpowered, but being overpowered is such a great reward for beating a special boss like Omega. This could have been done so much better.
Only two missions left
Repel the Army:
Mavericks are attacking the highway…again, so I head back, and a ladder has been lowered down, giving me access to Area O. Area O is another ruined city area with fire raining across the foreground. It looks really nice, but the mission itself is rather meh. It’s pretty flat, and not much is really going on. After a couple minutes, I get to the boss, and I am now fighting Prometheus and Pandora at the same time, which means nothing since they only attack me one at a time and share a health bar. They go down, and it’s time for the last mission.
Destroy Model W:
The large door in the middle of Area D opens up, and I can now access the Serpent tower. The music here is amazing. A nice techno track that really gives me this climactic showdown type of feeling. The area looks nice as well. It’s very relaxing, lounge-like area with purple walls decorating the rooms. The second room is a giant elevator with some enemies that I have to carefully dodge, which was fun, but all this leads to the boss rush. The boss rush is pretty standard, so I won’t spend much time on it, but just know that you don’t get health after each boss, so be careful. Though to be honest, you don’t need it as these bosses are a joke when not going for the level 4 victory. You can hit their weak point with their weakness, and that shaves off their health so quick. It’s insane how fast some of these bosses go down, so make sure you take advantage of that. After some more elevators, I make it to the boss, Serpent and Model W.
Serpent’s first phase has him doing some Street Fighter moves and shooting energy balls at you. It’s honestly not that hard, just use your charge shot and stay away from him. After that, he combined with model W, and this phase is pretty hard. He shoots fire from the sky, which leaves fire spots on the ground that you cannot stand on so watch out. He also shoots some flames at you that can easily be dealt with by using a rolling slash. He also has this crystal attack where he smashes a crystal and the shards can hurt you, and he has this purple projectile that shortens your jump, making it hard to dodge. Every time you deplete one of his three health bars, the next phase again, making this final boss a 3 phase fight, 4 if you count the fight against Serpent alone.
His next phase is relatively the same except he now crushes the crystal in the center, and when he moves his hands, they can hit you on the way so watch out. His fire attack is the same along with his purple projectiles. Really all that’s changed is his weak point, which is now on his shoulders. The next phase is his hardest phase. He moves his hands to the sides where he then starts to shoot projectiles at you. He has more purple projectiles, and if you get hit by them, you’re fucked, so try to avoid them. His weak point is the green crystal in his center, which I did not know, so I died several times trying to figure out where I need to hit him, causing me to get a game over. I had to do the entire boss rush over again which wasn’t fun but whatever.
I pick up an E-tank before I try the final mission again, which you can buy from this girl in the room past the generator where you fight Prometheus for the first time. I get back to the boss, and I only have to use my newly bought e-tank to beat him, no sub tanks. He really isn’t that hard now that I think about it.
Ending
But after that, the fight ends, some cut scenes play, there’s some cliché dialogue, and the game ends with a horrible ending song which is a complete contrast to the great OST but whatever.
So yeah that was certainly an experience.
Mega Man Zx is not a bad game, and I’m currently replaying it on hard mode, so that shows that I did enjoy my time here, but man, this game has way too many problems. This game did not need to be a Metroidvania(or a fake Metroidvania) it really didn’t. It just makes the game so much more confusing for no reason, and when you’re lost, it’s not fun because the world isn’t interesting. The only good missions are the Model Hx and Model Lx missions. Fx and Px both have 4 lame missions tied to them, and it just makes the game worse. I probably like this more than Mega Man Zero 4, but the other Zero games? No way. Not with the stupid decisions made here. I would love to see a game like this to be done again, maybe a Zx 3? I know Zx Advent fixes a couple problems in Zx, but I heard that Advent isn’t liked by many so I’m not really looking forward to it. I’ll get to it after hardmode though.
Inti-creates really needs to analyze the Metroid and Castlevania games to see what really makes them work so well. If you can get the level design of Aria of Sorrow and Super Metroid and apply to a Zx setting, you could easily make one of the best Metroidvanias ever made. Mega Man is such a good franchise to turn into a Metroidvania because of the sheer amount of abilities you can get, but that probably won’t happen for a long time. And I know it’s not easy. Making a Metroidvania is hard, but I know it can be done, it just needs more work.
I give Mega Man Zx a 3/5. An awful Metroidvania and a decent Mega Man Zero game.

Wow 10,000 words and 27 pages of me just talking about Zx. If there are grammatical errors idgaf. I am not proof reading all of this lol.