Fixes the most obvious and problematic flaw of the previous game: the horrendous navigation. Just for that, it's immediately better than ZX, but honestly, not by much. Clearly, it's a huge mistake to make the protagonist transform into the bosses.
Their uses are very limited, and most of them are simply poorly controlled or sometimes even impossible, which for a Mega Man game is a crime. One of the main things about these games is how good it feels to control the character. Furthermore, it reuses a lot from the previous game like the armors and level design, although it doesn't have the atrocious backtracking of the previous game, it's also not the most inspired. Because of this, power-ups and abilities have never been as situational as in this game. Some things still don't make sense, like the life system in a game with this structure, and of course, the plethora of one-way teleports that the game doesn't save if you get a game over.
The game's boss collection is also quite hit or miss, with some taken from the previous game and the new ones being inconsistent in quality.
Having played practically all of the Inti Creates Mega Man games, I can safely say that they never quite understood what made the old games so fun and special to replay. I find myself replaying very few of their games (maybe Zero 2, Zero 3, and MM10) while I could replay several classic Mega Man games from 1-8 and MMX from 1 to 6.
Some of the things that stand out to me most clearly to say they don't quite get it is putting a metroidvania map in a franchise that never needed it to have great and enjoyable level design. Furthermore, the map itself is bad and easily ranks among the worst among several metroidvanias I've played. Additionally, the power-ups you gain after each boss in the Inti Creates MM games, especially the Zero/ZX series, range from mediocre to useless. In X4, for example, you can use Zero, and I found the balance there much better.
Moreover, this format of mundane and repetitive side quests, something that tries to function for hours like an RPG, and grinding in general for E-Crystals don't fit the style of game that Mega Man aims to be. At least in this regard, ZXA is more tolerable compared to its predecessor. (I wasn't required to complete a gigantic and unbearable quest chain to obtain the last sub-tank).
Even in the games I consider very good (Zero 2 and Zero 3), I still don't think they perfectly realize what was good about the other games.
For me, Mega Man 11 is much better than any game from this team, and I prefer that Capcom continue with an in-house solution if they want to make other games in the series in the future.
Their uses are very limited, and most of them are simply poorly controlled or sometimes even impossible, which for a Mega Man game is a crime. One of the main things about these games is how good it feels to control the character. Furthermore, it reuses a lot from the previous game like the armors and level design, although it doesn't have the atrocious backtracking of the previous game, it's also not the most inspired. Because of this, power-ups and abilities have never been as situational as in this game. Some things still don't make sense, like the life system in a game with this structure, and of course, the plethora of one-way teleports that the game doesn't save if you get a game over.
The game's boss collection is also quite hit or miss, with some taken from the previous game and the new ones being inconsistent in quality.
Having played practically all of the Inti Creates Mega Man games, I can safely say that they never quite understood what made the old games so fun and special to replay. I find myself replaying very few of their games (maybe Zero 2, Zero 3, and MM10) while I could replay several classic Mega Man games from 1-8 and MMX from 1 to 6.
Some of the things that stand out to me most clearly to say they don't quite get it is putting a metroidvania map in a franchise that never needed it to have great and enjoyable level design. Furthermore, the map itself is bad and easily ranks among the worst among several metroidvanias I've played. Additionally, the power-ups you gain after each boss in the Inti Creates MM games, especially the Zero/ZX series, range from mediocre to useless. In X4, for example, you can use Zero, and I found the balance there much better.
Moreover, this format of mundane and repetitive side quests, something that tries to function for hours like an RPG, and grinding in general for E-Crystals don't fit the style of game that Mega Man aims to be. At least in this regard, ZXA is more tolerable compared to its predecessor. (I wasn't required to complete a gigantic and unbearable quest chain to obtain the last sub-tank).
Even in the games I consider very good (Zero 2 and Zero 3), I still don't think they perfectly realize what was good about the other games.
For me, Mega Man 11 is much better than any game from this team, and I prefer that Capcom continue with an in-house solution if they want to make other games in the series in the future.