That one Mega Man game that was a metroidvania (Mega Man ZX)

I'm doing something different this week!

Instead of talking about my addiction to small virtual robots and/or about capturing wild Pokemon and forcing them to fight for my amusement I'm going to talk about Mega Man! ~~Again!~~

Several days ago, when Hive Gaming started it's "Best Memories" contest I was in the middle of memory lane, as in, I was saying stuff like "Oh hey, look at all this old stuff I used to play with!"

What I wrote in my entry for that contest leads up to this, kinda. The game I talked about there gave me the cravings and I had no other choice but to play this one as well...

Today we're talking about Mega Man ZX! The Mega Man series' metroidvania child!

Yes, they made a Mega Man game with a Metroidvania style (though I believe Legends was the first proper Mega Man in that style), in the sense that you go around getting "Power Ups" and then you use them "Power Ups" to break walls and get cool items that can be used to break more walls.

ZX is the direct sequel to the Mega Man Zero series ~~and it shows~~, it's set up 200 hundred years after the fiasco that happened in the last Zero game and it's about people transforming into super humans through the use of talking rocks.

...Yeah, that's pretty much the whole plot right there.

_{The power of technology lets me transform into the Fruit Bat Ninja Mega Man!}

It's like the Power Ranger series' but without the constant posing, or the explosions, oh and the things they use to transform can talk and were made with the parts of dead robots!

In regular Mega Man fashion, you obtain powers every time you defeat one of the bosses. ZX does it somewhat differently and instead gives you a different "Biometal" (read: talking rock) every time you defeat a boss (with some exceptions) and each Biometal gives you a different Model (read: transformation), with each of them having several unique abilities.

All of these forms, with the exception of Model X and Z~~ero~~, are based around characters that appeared in the Zero series. If you pick any of the first three Zero games you'll realize who is based on who.

_{I wonder who this blonde man with a sword is based on...}

...Which is why some people call the game "Mega Man Zero 5", because not only does it have forms that are extremely similar to some characters in said series, it also has a story that's deeply related to it.

Not to mention, ZX comes with some extra features (extra bosses) that are only made available if you insert a GameBoy cartridge of Megaman Zero 3 or 4. The final boss of Zero 3 can also be fought in a specific area of the game, but this one doesn't need you to have any cartridges.

That's just a small criticism that people have but even though ZX is technically reusing characters it still manages to feel somewhat different and that's because of said characters.

See, if the whole game was just about Model Zx (which has the powers of Zero) then it would technically be a Zero 5, but the gameplay changes thanks to the existence of the other 4 Models, all of them having their own unique gimmick and different weapons. You're basically playing as 5 different people now.

Every Model has several things that Zx doesn't, here's some examples:

Hx lets the player perform air dashes and descend slower in the air, it also lets them see the health of all enemies they hit (essentially letting you see the HP of mini-bosses, which never have health bars of their own).

_{Look at me mom! I'm flyyying!}

_{I want to know who designs these areas. Why do you place spikes everywhere? How do you get anywhere?}

Fx has ~~THICC CANNONS~~ two huge busters that deal more damage, they're mapped to each weapon button so firing them and alternating between (firing your main weapon and then your second) lets you turn into a living machine gun. The bullets themselves can be modified in the pause menu to let you aim in a specific direction and, if you charge your attacks, you can break certain walls.

_{With this guy you can become a machine gun that spits fire!}

_{You can also fire upwards. In a Mega Man game. Revolutionary.}
Then there's Lx which can swim, and shoot dragons made of ice! This one has a "sonar" of sorts which detects any items in the area. It's a little more difficult to use than the first two, since it only has one big attack.

_{Please no more spikes...}

...You get the idea.

Aside from a small amount of people saying this is another Zero game, the biggest issue that everyone has with the game (even I have this problem) is that the map, and the directions to get to every place are... confusing.

I dare you to play this thing without any previous knowledge of where every place is. This game does things differently from every other Mega Man and doesn't teleport you straight into the action, you have to walk all the way to your mission area, like most games in the Metroidvania style do.

When I was playing this as a young boy I spent a while looking for every mission's location, I even went to the wrong places more than once.

Another thing that adds to the issues with directions is the map itself, don't think the menu's map will help you, that thing is an enigma. This is where the bigger part of the criticism comes from, because no one understands how the map works.

_{This is a map from an endgame save where I visited almost every place. I still don't get how the map works.}

This map issue was resolved somewhat in ZX's sequel, ZX Advent. I'm going to show you the map just so that you can see the difference yourself...

_{This one is more linear than the other.}

In Advent's case the map and the areas are more linear, but it's still a metroidvania, it rewards exploration. The map itself will tell you where to go every time you have a mission and which areas connect to it.

In the case that no area connects to another -which happens later on- the game simply lets you teleport to it.

Speaking of Advent... the sequel does the same thing that the original started: defeat bosses to get a new form with powers, but it changes the formula a little by letting you copy the form of the bosses themselves.

_{I... don't understand what I am looking at here but its powers are cool.}

The fact that you can copy almost every single boss you defeat makes the game even more interesting than its predecessor, instead of 6(?) different forms you now have a dozen or so.

Because you're copying bosses with different body types than yours some things will be different this time.

For example, there's one form that's completely useless in land, one form that is extremely effective while hanging from vines/poles but finds itself struggling to move or attack in the ground, and you can also transform into a giant that stomps on everything... if you can manage to move faster than the little things in front of you and not get hit by them.

_{Here's a big snake from Advent. It looks big.}

Both games continue the story of the Zero series but with some differences here and there, ZX makes a reason for there to be conflict (so that the series can keep going) and Advent continues where ZX left off but focusing less on the past (of the Zero series) and more on the setting of ZX itself, explaining the why and how of the conflict.

Each game also lets you pick from two different playable characters! ~~They're exactly the same~~ There's some small differences here and there but you won't really notice them because you'll probably spend all of your time playing as one of the super cool forms you have instead of playing as the puny humans.

_{Here's the puny human form in ZX, being puny.}

The differences are more noticeable in Advent, because some forms have their special attacks changed depending on which character you choose to play as. Certain cutscenes change depending on your character as well.

I'm pretty sure that by this point I've said all that I wanted to about this game, but I can't help but feel that I missed something...

Meh, it's probably nothing important.

_{You didn't talk about Model P. YOU DIDN'T TALK ABOUT MODEL P!}

Even with their negative points both games are pretty good. I would probably recommend this to my friends even with the age it has.

I think it's a little difficult to pick the original games right now, with them being so old, but there is a Legacy Collection on Steam and I've heard pretty good things about it... I would get it myself but I don't have the money for it!

Anyway, I've already taken enough of your time already.

Thanks for reading all these ramblings of mine! Remember to stay safe people!

All of these "screenshots" were taken by me, Guubadoop.