When this game was first announced, it was supposed to be Japan only. I wished and hoped and PRAYED it would finally come to our shores! The gaming gods smiled down upon us and finally delivered. You get all four Megaman Zero games packed perfectly unaltered inside of one cartridge. Considering that Megaman Zero was one of THE best series on the Gameboy Advance, this is a collection not to be passed up. And being that I only had the first one, I was totally in for a treat.
Gameplay
+ The “Devil May Cry” of handhelds - Pure, unadulterated speed and destruction. Never are you standing still, it’s just a constant push to the end of the stage until your final showdown with the residing boss of the area.
Like the Megaman X games, you have your dash and wall-climb abilities, Zero’s sword and Megaman’s buster (although it’s just a pistol in these games). Basically you play through a stage as fast as possible, taking as little damage as you can manage. As you dash through the stage, you’ll end up using the sword to slice through enemies, watching their bodies separate as they explode in the wake of your speed and mercilessness. SUCH A RUSH! It just has that “Devil May Cry” feel to it when it comes down to the speed and precision of everything. If only they transplanted Dante's personality into Zero... Hmm...
+ Tough as nails, smooth as butter - First time going through each title, you’ll be dying endlessly as the waves of enemies, level design, and bosses just don’t give a **** about your wellbeing. If you stop out of frustration though, you’ll be missing out. Fighting through the frustration to complete every level is what makes you a better, more confident, and precise gamer. Playing this collection is an opportunity to prove your worth.
After you go through a level once successfully, you know how it’s done; when to dash, to jump, and to slash. It gives you the opportunity to transform yourself into a total bad-ass as you ambush baddies before they even appear on the screen. Going through the stage again after that, you get to try for the high S ranks, awarded only to those with the best speed, enemies destroyed, damage taken and items collected. It’s HARD to S-rank and if you manage to receive one, it’s because you really deserve it and you worked hard memorizing every step and rhythm of the level.
= A mode for all mankind - So the games are just way too hard for you. Fine. Lucky for you, there’s a continuous mode where you play through all four games without breaking up the story and every game is set to an easy difficulty. I wouldn’t recommend this unless you really can’t push yourself to make it through the rough difficulty or you’re in a supreme rush and you just want to know the story. It’s much more worth your time to just fight through each game and show it what’s for. BE A WO/MAN! It would have been really cool if you could have adjusted the difficulty for continuous mode.
As a plus though, if you go through on easy and learn the layouts of the levels, normal will become much easier. At least it should…
+ Weapons cache - The main weapons available in each title only get better through every game. You have the Z-saber, buster, shield boomerang, and triple rod. Most of the time, you’ll only use the Z-saber but there really isn’t a drawback from using everything else. It really depends on how you want to play. The shield can reflect bullets and be tossed about the screen like a saw blade on a boomerang and the triple rod can be extended three times (you’ll stab in one of 8 directions and you can attack two more times while increasing the strength and reach of the rod), you can jump and stab downwards to bounce on enemies, and you can charge for a rod-spin attack to negate any bullets. I preferred the Z-saber for dash-cuts and spin-slashes; it was just more speed-oriented and that's how I roll, pardon the pun... Get it? Roll, Megaman, his sister?...
+ The way a sequel is meant to be - Every next installment of the series improves on the last at the same time as succeeding at trying to do something new. Megaman Zero 4 was really good but after hitting its plateau with Megaman Zero 3, the series was bound to begin losing steam. Luckily enough, it seems like they recognized that and gave the fourth installment to the fans as a last hurrah. Every one of the games are incredibly awesome and it pays to go through them in order. Jumping around to whatever title can cause you to perform poorly since they evolve the gameplay formula in each title so drastically. The Megaman Zero series on the GBA is a great example to the rest of the industry on how to constantly build and improve on something already so successful.
Story and Presentation
= Am I good or bad? - The tale woven through the four titles is a story of Zero kind of figuring out who he is. Is he a savior of mankind or is he really just a tool of destruction gone rogue for the moment. While the stories aren't incredibly deep, it's holds your interest enough to actually wonder what might happen in the next game and how the series will conclude.
+ Humans or robots... Does it matter? - Reploids have been cast out from the society of humans and it seems, in the role of Zero, that you are protecting them from a genocide of their kind. There are reploids who protect the humans in their utopia and form assaults on helpless, outcast reploids. When you kill the attacking reploids though, instead of just feeling that you destroyed a machine, they split apart, showing their insides and motion their bodies in a reactionary pose of pain. You destroyed a sentient being, not merely a machine. Making observations between the morals and ethics of how artificial lifeforms should be treated are part of what makes the series interesting. It's also alluring to be aware of such violence even though the game is hardly that gratuitous.
= Don't judge a book by it's cover - While all of the artwork for the Megaman Zero series has been nothing but AWESOME, there seems to be a lack of focus in the look of the game's menus. Kinda lets me down since I feel like the game deserves a blaring fanfare for its achievements of being such a bad-ass action game but the games tend to speak for themselves. I guess it keeps the unwanted demographics from a gem... Whoever those demographics are... I wanted more artwork! *weeps*
Sound
= Just enough - The soundtrack can be good at times but I seem to get a much larger rush from playing using my own music. I'd suggest you do the same. If not though, no worries. Nothing ever hurt anyone's ears while playing.
Graphics
= You look good for your age - For whatever they lack in any technical area, they make up for with great artwork. At times, it comes of as visually simplistic but it does what it needs to to stay aesthetically pleasing. Luckily, it still holds up today, avoiding a visual style that plagues old Playstation games.
Should you buy it?
YES! A large, emphatic YES! There's so much bang for your buck with this collection! You get 4 full games in their original form to play through and the gameplay is fitting for small sittings or lengthy run-throughs. If you're a fan of action games, or if you want something new to play on your DS, or both, I can't imagine that there exists any reason that you haven't picked this up. Go out and buy it, NOW!
Megaman Zero Collection was developed by Inti Creates and Natsume and published by Capcom for the Nintendo DS. Completed the entire collection and attempted the various difficulties and S-ranks clocking in at a playtime over 20 hours.
