Don’t know if I’m quite as taken with this as the fanbase at large is, but it’s easy to see why it’s such a favorite; for all the fine-tuning around the progression system and the changes to the weapon lineup, it’s the big narrative moments that make this such a strong experience. With some hindsight, a real strength of the Zero sub-series is that they flow pretty naturally together when played back-to-back, meaning that all the unresolved tension of 1 and 2 are given a game’s worth of space to play out here. It can be hard to think of a portable game as ever really being “AAA,” but Inti Creates plays out these moments with such conviction that the betrayals and revelations about the characters land with some real weight, despite the tinny bombast that it’s been presented with.
Nowhere near good enough to comment on some of its deeper changes, (like, I assume the recoil rod is something you can get a huge amount of value out of if you’re a fiend- I am not that person) but structurally, it’s a massive improvement over the other titles, mainly for the fact that it bolsters the midgame by having you rematch against three bosses from the prior games, and cuts down the finale to two levels, giving the action some real momentum at a time when things would normally start to drag down into their most familiar. Combined with the strong narrative elements, and it's the entry that's the most exciting to just casually play through- compelling even as your letter grade starts to nosedive.
Despite the months-long break between playing the first two games and now this, there’s still a bit of series fatigue that’s no doubt cooled my impressions on this, but it’s undeniably satisfying seeing an entry smartly build on and improve its predecessor's foundations.
Nowhere near good enough to comment on some of its deeper changes, (like, I assume the recoil rod is something you can get a huge amount of value out of if you’re a fiend- I am not that person) but structurally, it’s a massive improvement over the other titles, mainly for the fact that it bolsters the midgame by having you rematch against three bosses from the prior games, and cuts down the finale to two levels, giving the action some real momentum at a time when things would normally start to drag down into their most familiar. Combined with the strong narrative elements, and it's the entry that's the most exciting to just casually play through- compelling even as your letter grade starts to nosedive.
Despite the months-long break between playing the first two games and now this, there’s still a bit of series fatigue that’s no doubt cooled my impressions on this, but it’s undeniably satisfying seeing an entry smartly build on and improve its predecessor's foundations.
3 Comments
Oh, here's another thing:
you should really be playing these games with a "GBA color correction" option on an emulator. It's in the Core options on RetroArch. This really goes for all GBA games but these games especially look hideous without it in my opinion. Everything is washed out and gross and the screen looks like it's constantly being blown out by really ugly strong colors, like an Amiga game or something. The atmosphere is significantly different (and much worse than) playing it with the colors like not fucked up. Honestly I'm kind of insulted that GBA games are STILL rereleased without proper color correction options. Some rereleases, such as the Wii U Virtual Console, just darken the image to try to account for it but that really doesn't help much. It's bad. For everyone reading this, go into your emulator and turn this on GBA games often look terrible without it.
you should really be playing these games with a "GBA color correction" option on an emulator. It's in the Core options on RetroArch. This really goes for all GBA games but these games especially look hideous without it in my opinion. Everything is washed out and gross and the screen looks like it's constantly being blown out by really ugly strong colors, like an Amiga game or something. The atmosphere is significantly different (and much worse than) playing it with the colors like not fucked up. Honestly I'm kind of insulted that GBA games are STILL rereleased without proper color correction options. Some rereleases, such as the Wii U Virtual Console, just darken the image to try to account for it but that really doesn't help much. It's bad. For everyone reading this, go into your emulator and turn this on GBA games often look terrible without it.
@HylianBran thanks for this! been playing around with a few crt shaders, but I hadn't heard of the gba color correction.
HylianBran
19 days ago