Mega Man ZX (DS)
While the Mega Man series has flirted with Metroidvania elements throughout its history, Mega Man ZX represented an effort to take the usual side-scrolling run and gun action and truly place it in an exploration-focused platformer. Figuring out which parts to keep of the old format and how to embrace the new genre’s staple features seems to have been a bit of a rough process though. Some new ideas weren’t done the best, but at the same time the appeal of the series’s more typical action design can still thrive despite that, the question being how well does this new subbranch of the massive Capcom series balance out in the end.
Mega Man ZX begins with the player choosing to play as either Vent or Aile, the two functionally identical for the most part but there are a few side quests and small interactions altered by whether you’re playing as the boy or the girl. The side quests in this game are rather unsatisfying busywork most of the time though so you’re not missing much depending on your pick at the beginning of the game. Whether it’s Vent or Aile going on the adventure, things start with them working as couriers delivering a mysterious but important package. When things go awry, the package is revealed to be something called Biometal, the memory of an ancient robotic hero able to graft itself over a person to grant them the same powers that robot once used. While the world of Mega Man ZX was peaceful for many years thanks to a truce hundreds of years ago between humans and robots, a group of Maverick machines have begun attacking settlements, the source of this strange turn being the head of the company that many people rely on for safety in this future: Slither Inc.. It’s leader, Serpent, is seeking out the Biometals himself and using Mavericks to do so, and after learning the truth behind this supposed protector, Vent or Aile accept the Biometal’s power and begin using its power to fight back against Serpent’s efforts.
They aren’t alone in trying to keep this future peaceful though, that package of Biometal actually originally meant for a girl named Prairie and the group she leads: The Guardians. The Guardians assist the player’s efforts to stop Serpent and give the game a bit more substance when it comes to the story, Prairie and your choice of protagonist both having some deeper connections to the Maverick danger that allow for a few more personal moments along the journey. Gameplay still dominates most of the experience, but these check-ins with the supporting cast or opportunities to see some elements of this world like how the citizens are now suspicious of mechanical beings thanks to the Maverick threat helps Mega Man ZX feel more like a world that exists beyond its platform game purpose, just not to the point it will feel immersive or emotionally move you.
Vent or Aile’s first Biometal is actually a fairly simple one that is quickly replaced with the more present and appropriately named ZX form. While there are moments where you do need to be a human still, mostly for interacting with townspeople or crawling through tight spaces in a rather basic interaction that doesn’t really test or endanger the play in any way, most of your time will be spent as a “Mega Man”, this world’s term for someone enhanced by the Biometal. In ZX form you will be able to fire blasts from an arm cannon, charge up shots for more power, or utilize a laser sword to slash nearby foes. As the game goes on you’ll get more Biometals with their own unique abilities, but the ZX form is a versatile default form fit for handling most enemy types and dealing good damage to most bosses as well. It has no extreme abilities, but the option to swap between heavy close range damage with the blade or firing from afar can be useful against the different enemy types you encounter.
A lot of the regular foes in Mega Man ZX can be thought of as roadbumps as you press forward towards an important goal. Robots of a wide range of types will be positioned in your path in a way that often requires a brief stop to deal with them so they don’t hurt you. Some can be more disruptive than others like the flamethrower bearing machines that pop out of the background and will fry you if you don’t wait for them to waste their fuel, but others like the little hardhat wearing robots at the amusement park will split into tiny machines when killed so trying to just carve your way through that seemingly weak foe will surround you with much harder to hit foes. Enemies like these are often best blasted with your arm cannon, but some speedier foes like rolling wheels can be killed with one quick slash while your arm cannon needs a full charge to blast them away. Advancing forward ends up with an interesting rhythm of being on edge enough that the moment a robot shows up on screen you can respond correctly to avoid damage, many foes fought on their own or with little back up since they can adequately provide a brief action challenge. While you are always advancing with a little caution, there is a good flow to progress as you push forward, deal with whatever enemy type appears, and then move ahead a little more to tackle the next tiny challenge.
Bosses definitely provide the more exciting and meatier challenges in Mega Man ZX though, these robots moving beyond the simple one attack approach of the usual Mavericks as you need to identify their attack patterns and find your moments to strike while balancing the moments you move around an often limited boss arena to avoid damage. ZX form has a wall jump that will let you get over certain attacks, but the often claustrophobic arenas keep you pretty close to these powerful foes who can move around pretty quickly or unleash attacks that leave few safe areas to stand. The large baboon-inspired Purprill moves around his battle arena quickly and tosses bouncing bombs around to make it harder to react to his movements in time, but a boss like Lurerre might seem like a simple floating foe until she reveals she’s actually the lure on a massive anglerfish mech that can fill nearly the whole screen. The bosses do have tells to learn and even though some foes like the towering rhino robot Protectos have an instant kill attack, the game does communicate well that it’s about to happen and should be feared so even when you first see it you’ll probably have a good idea of how to avoid it. The range of boss fights is well done even if the end of game boss rush full of rematches with most of them is still a bit much. If you are struggling with some of the quicker or harder to predict foes, there are some advantages you can bring to the battle. Subtanks can be found hidden in the world that can be filled up with life energy for refills any time you might need them and while rare, extra lives are occasionally dropped by regular foes in the same way the game’s currency or typical health refills are. However, the other Biometals are definitely going to be your best bet for gaining an edge not only against certain bosses, but against some of the area designs as well.
As you fight through Serpent’s forces, you’ll eventually earn additional Biometals you can swap between easily with a small menu accessed by a button press. Time freezes as you make your selection as well, meaning you can quickly pick one to see if it might have an edge in the situation and swap off if you think another form has the advantage instead. There are four main Biometal forms besides ZX, with two of them standing out amongst the others. Model HX gives you a suit that can navigate through the air much better, a midair dash and the ability to hover important for reaching new areas or hovering over spike-covered areas and large gaps the other suits couldn’t handle. LX on the other hand gives you freedom of movement underwater, the other suits slow moving and having large jumps but LX can move in any direction with ease once its ability is enabled. FX’s rock punching is a little underwhelming by comparison and PX latching onto surfaces doesn’t really improve your maneuverability, but they can earn their use in other areas like FX having the only gun weapon that can aim upwards and PX’s thrown kunai spread especially good at covering foes from different angles. These four extra forms also get special features on the bottom screen like PX helping you see hidden passages and HX letting you see the health bars of non-boss enemies. Unlike ZX they are all a bit locked into one attack type, HX and LX swinging weapons and FX and PX have long range as their focus, but by activating a special mode or utilizing charge attacks once unlocked you can do things like paralyze enemies weak to electricity with HX’s swings or create an attacking ice dragon with LX. Bosses do have weaknesses to exploit both in these powers and where on their body you attack them, making them a rather layered experience even though you can just defeat them with persistence and the ZX form if you can’t figure any tricks out.
However, I did allude to the game’s uneasy handling of its Metroidvania elements at the start, and a lot of promising action design is shackled to an unusual way of exploring the world. Mega Man ZX’s world is interconnected meaning unless there’s a hazard you can’t cross or a door you don’t have the right key for yet, you are free to wander off and explore it. However, the game does a rather poor job of linking together spaces. Areas are often divided up from each other by doorways either on the edges of a space or doors in the background you enter, the way things connect not always making the most sense if thought of as a real space. You do have a map on your pause screen to consult, but it probably makes things more confusing unfortunately. You won’t actually see what is contained in an area and instead just see a basic letter-and-number label over the broader space you’re in, the player needing to remember things like the F area is the water-focused one or G is the burning city. The map compartmentalizes different sections of these into things like A-1 and A-2 to at least give you an idea of how deep you’re getting into a place, but the way one area connects to another isn’t always easy to predict. Area C is the only way to reach the E area, and E is the only connection into I. The lettering is more about when in the story you’re meant to reach them, but it can make finding the next place you need to be pointlessly complicated. The save stations at least have teleportation options to lessen some of the wandering around, but the connections between areas often feel arbitrary rather than attempting to establish one connected setting.
To complicate this a bit more, you don’t just head to an available area and face whatever dangers reside there in your search for Biometals. You need to first accept the appropriate mission from The Guardians for the eligible story progression and boss battles to happen in that space. What’s more, if you lose all your lives while exploring it, you’ll be booted back to either your last save station or when you accepted the mission, which are often accepted at save stations. The placement of save stations often has them close to the start of a mission relevant area and then right after the boss fight, so save for any looking around for where the next area is, the option to start from mission’s beginning or a save point isn’t too meaningful. Luckily restarting the mission allows you to keep any collectibles found along the way, be they something for color like the enemy profiles or more meaningful finds like health expansions. The mission structure doesn’t really add much but it does sort of reveal that the team making the game was more comfortable making traditional linear video game levels like you’d see in something like Mega Man X. You can return to earlier areas later and use some new abilities to grab extra goodies, but for the most part this is a forward progressing adventure where you can tackle some missions in a different order but are mostly just heading to a space that functions like a regular video game level, the player mostly progressing from left to right until they find the boss to beat.
In essence the interconnected world and mission system are mildly complicating what could have worked fine as a game with distinct levels without anything much being lost by removing the Metroidvania elements, but because those features are also not too important they don’t damage the experience much either. Similarly, the often shallow side quests with small rewards and weak stories don’t really hurt things with their presence because you can usually just push on without worrying about missing much, the actual action platforming still enjoyable and having more thought put into it than these weakly added exploration elements. The background music is excellent as well and you have quite a few unique environments to explore, it’s just that the game arranges the experience in a way that does it few favors.
THE VERDICT: Mega Man ZX does the familiar Mega Man series elements well but flounders a little when it comes to trying to realize an interconnected world worth exploring. The enemy types on offer keep moving forward engaging and your different Biometals give you not only a few different ways to move around a space but some varied attacking options with different pros and cons, the bosses and soundtrack making the regular play a rather exciting and varied run and gun adventure. However, an awful map system complicates finding where you need to be and the mission structure is clearly trying to box areas into stages rather than have them work as explorable spaces, the game having to lean on solid gameplay fundamentals to succeed in spite of the features that were meant to set it apart.
And so, I give Mega Man ZX for Nintendo DS…
A GOOD rating. The unusual embrace of Metroidvania elements is definitely what holds this game back, there being plenty of interesting challenges to be found in both area design and boss fights that are kept out of your grasp a bit by the stapled on exploration concepts. When you do need to walk through old areas to find the way onward you’re often engaging with the simplest parts of those stages so it’s not like returning to them briefly has much substance and the side quests that can ask you to return to old spaces have rather paltry rewards in a game that does have things like health upgrades or sub tanks that could have been satisfying rewards for engaging with the extra content. On the other hand, having these weaker elements not be too important in the grand scheme of things keeps Mega Man ZX from being dragged down too much by them. The game can keep its attention more on making enemies that challenge you at a good rhythm in segments about moving straight forward and the boss battles can still provide a surge of challenging play. Biometals can give you additional ways to move around a space with no cost but you can spend energy to gain huge advantages over certain foes with them thanks to their special attack options. The plot does a good job of framing everything that’s happening and characters like Prairie and the protagonist of your choice have a bit more importance because of those moments that check in on them. Having to wrangle with the unusual map labeling or mission system won’t reduce the appeal of the rest of the game too much, but it would be interesting to see how this game could work if it was just a sequence of interesting and engagingly difficult levels.
Making Mega Man into a Metroidvania isn’t a bad idea at all, in fact Metroid and the Mega Man series both have some similarities already as you fire your arm cannon to blast away simple but dangerous enemies in your path. Mega Man ZX didn’t seem willing enough to break away from the more segmented level design ethos of its past when dipping its toes in these new waters though. It still works as an enjoyable action game where you face strong opposition with some interesting abilities, the halfhearted exploration-focused platforming elements not too intrusive because they weren’t fleshed out enough to have too much of an impact. It is a shame they hold back the game at all, but Mega Man ZX has more well designed moments than it does instances of badly implemented exploration.