A brand new adventure staring Zero!
Story: While Maverick hunter X continued to work for peace the maverick hunter Zero disappeared from the scene, it seemed that there were still traces of the Zero virus trapped in his body, in order to remove the virus Zero must encapsulate his body in order to slowly remove all traces of the maverick virus, as a result leaving X to be the only maverick hunter left to save the world.
100 years have passed since the end of the Maverick wars, a new order was brought out to society. In order to preserve peace and avoid any conflicts the government assemble a large utopia called “Neo Arcadia”. The main policy of Neo Arcadia was to eliminate all mavericks that show up in the surface. Later on these activities turned into dictatorship, and whoever seemed to have opposed Neo Arcadia were immediately labeled maverick and have ended up executed. The “Resistance group” formed by Dr Ciel have done many rebellious activities and were being hunted down by Neo Arcadia. Many from the resistance group have been executed and it almost seemed that doom was drawing near, until Dr Ciel stumbled upon an information about the legendary Maverick Hunter Zero, who has been almost forgot in the course of the years. Dr Ciel lead a search party to seek the legendary Reploid, as it was their last hope, however Neo Arcadia caught up to their plans and chased them down to an ancient Laboratory. Ciel and her group have succeeded in locating Zero, but the Reploid was not only completely out of commission but his body was protected by a barrier. The rest of the troops were annihilated by Neo Arcadia and Ciel was the only survivor. As her doom drew near her cyber-elf decided to risk it’s life in order to save Ciel. The Cyber-elf loaded all its energy to not only break the barrier but fully restore and reawakened Zero. After successfully rescuing Ciel and obtained his Z-saber Zero learned of the great threat Neo Arcadia represented to the Reploids and decided to aid the Resistance. Zero also learned that the one person who leads Neo Arcadia is his former Ally, X.
Game design: The game takes place after Zero's ending in Megaman X6. The game introduced a new Megaman art style. Zero looks more human than Reploid, although his older design looked a lot better this design is also considerably acceptable. Character animation is done very well, which shows how good the Gameboy Advance really is. There will also be picture cut scenes like in X6. Game play: Although the game has the Megaman title you will be playing as Zero. At first you will have the Z-buster and Z-Saber. Later on you will obtain new weapons like the Triple Rode and the Shield boomerang and will later learn new moves for each weapons as you progress. You can also perform dash, jump dash and wall jumps. The most distinguishing new feature is the cyber-elf system. Cyber-elfs are small living energy that can help Reploids power up in any ways, including health, strength, speed and other features. You can also feed Elfs and raise them to make Zero a lot stronger. Just like the old games there are stages to select from and at the end of each there are Bosses you can fight and obtain elemental chips from them. There are also other features you can unlock so you will have a lot of work to do to finish the game at a 100%.
Sound: The music is great, especially considering it is a hand held devise that can play orchestrated music rather than tingle tones. The sound effects are also great and there are some voice acting in the game as well (in Japanese though)
If you are a big fan you might get skeptical about the new character designs and story, but it is a great game that will remind you why you played Megaman in the first place. I recommend this game for all those who love platfoming games, and as for fans if you can drop a few issues about the design and story then you will definitely love this game.