A Megaman game that finally stars my favorite character, Zero. Come join Zero in some fun hacking and dashing!
I hadn't really noticed that Zero's new look really made him that different, and that much more mean looking. Although he may look a bit younger, he has that very cool feel to him still since he obtains the Z-saber once again, since it IS the Z-saber. Comparing what the X Zero looked like with the ZERO Zero look, I have become more used to the ZERO series look rather than the X series for it makes a better apeal to me. Well enough about how Zero looks like, it's time to explain the gameplay.
In Megaman Zero, playing as Zero hasn't really changed much besides the fact that he slashes faster with his original triple slash combo and that he can dash mush faster than usual. Zero may have always been super tough with a lot of vitality in the previous X games in which made him last longer, but think again, in this game, Zero has the most smallest bar of health ever seen on a Megaman game. It's almost nothing to live off of, and considering that fact that when you barely touch an enemy, you flinch back with a good portion of your life knocked off. So, being fast really helps in this game rather than how in the X series you got a few seconds to actually get out of the way. Almost everything in Zero is fast paced keeping you evading enemies bullets to jumping over spikes from slashing them up to peaces. You never get a time to really rest your fingers unless you want to die. Zero's life isn't all that great, but this is what makes the game so challenging when you fight bosses that have a really huge bar of health while yours is nothing but a piece of crap. Not only do they have a huge bar but they have a second one over that bar as well, making it TWO times harder for you to defeat them. So the difficulty of this game really throws players off course but it's so addictive that they have to keep trying until they drop.
Zero can now use the buster at his disposal but it isn't part of his arm, this time it's a regular buster gun that he wields. It's your starting weapon when you first get to control Zero, but as it was before, it's not all that great when Zero uses it. You'll get the Z-saber sooner or later anyways. Zero can now learn skills with all the weapons he gets, and yes, I said weaponS! He can have up to four depending on how you play out the stages of this game. The first two weapons are a must have by the storyline while the other two can only be obtainable by beating certain levels. The third weapon is a weapon by the name of the Triple rod, it can extend up three times in one direction making a triple combo while also extending in 8 different directions. The fourth weapon is the Shield Boomerang, it allows you to ward off bullets back at enemies to damage themselves while you can also charge the shield, once you let go, it flies through all the enemies in a certain range. Mainly though, the Z-saber will still be his primary weapon for all players. This time, Zero does not start off with the triple combo though, he can only slash once as soon as you get it. To perform more hits, you have to use the weapon against enemies numerous times to level it up. Once you have leveled up the weapon by one level, you are granted a new skill to use, such as double slash going on to triple slash on the next level up. One of the best skills Zero can unlock for the Z-saber is the ability to charge the saber, which you couldn't do in the X series. When fully charged Zero slams the ground, causing an exploding slash to pound upward at the enemies. This skill is very powerful alone and even more stronger when added with elements. Elements too, are a new feature for Zero. You recieve chips of Ice, Fire, and Lightning. You can only equip one at a time but this also allows you to change the attribute of your charged attacks to add more damage and different affects on the victim.
Zero can also be powered up in this game as well by your own customization, but only with the use of the new Cyber-Elf function. Cyber-Elves are creatures that need to be bred with energy crystals that Zero can collect during his adventures through the levels. When you have enough crystals you can feed it to the Cyber-Elf that you have in your Trans-server. There are many Cyber-Elves and they are all easy to hard to find. The most rare ones with the better effects are the harder ones to find, such as in places you cannot see or places where you have to do this certain jump to reach. There three categories of Cyber-Elves that Zero can find. Nurse, Animal, and Hacker. Nurse is of course, Cyber-Elves that can heal you on the field or some that need feeding to grow up and have a permanant effect on you like increase your health bar. These Cyber-Elves that need to be fed are the ones that have to grow up a little with energy crystals before they can be used. Animal is the Cyber-Elves that can change the way Zero runs or slides down walls with better effects while some can help him against enemies. Hacker are the elves that change data in stages like covering up all the spikes with some kind of barrier for Zero to walk on or cutting the main bosses health by half. But even though Cyber-Elves may seem really useful(which they are)but once you use the elves, they die and can never be used again.
Another thing that is very important is how the Cyber-Elves affect Zero's rank, or the player's as we should say. Zero takes up the ranking system again in this game from an awesome rank S to a petty rank F. To get a rank of F, all you have to do is use all your Cyber-Elves that you have and lose on the categories of the rankings on purpose. The categories range from mission, which means how much of the mission have you completed. Simply beating a level doesn't exactly get all the points for you in that area but it does help to actually complete the level. Another category is one such as Time which basically means how much time you use on a level while Enemy determines how many enemies you have defeated. There are a few more, but overall it all adds up to 100 points to get you a good rank. Also the rank you recieve on that level is adding and divided between your ranking from another level to balance it out. While not only obtaining grade level, Zero obtains certain titles for all the actions you have performed or which weapon you have used most in the level. Such as dashing constantly might get you the speedster title or while sniper from using the buster as your main weapon without switching it out.
About the story for the MegaMan Zero, it really does star Zero but not only does it just revolve around him, it also goes about the problems Reploids and Humans have been engaging in. Right from the beginning, the Reploids on are a search to find the legendary Reploid that was only spoken of. Zero, of course, is that dream Reploid who is being searched for. The Reploids are on the run from humans from Neo Arcadia, where all who reside there are human. Their leader is none other than X, the famous hero of the X series. Although, this time you might not be too thrilled about what he's doing now if you're a real fan of X. Anyways, now that X is trying to retire all the Reploids, he's on the human's side doing their dirty work for them. With many bosses in their arsenal, they reign terror over all the Reploids. There is one human though, that wants to help save the Reploids and keep them at peace. Her name is Ciel, she is a scientist who is working on a project to create peace with Neo Arcadia. But before that, she wants to find Zero to help fight back a little against Neo Arcadia so they can at least have some chance of survival. When their team of scouts becomes ambushed by golems, Ciel and another human Milan find themselves trapped in some dead end. While they bust through, a body is found attached to some kind of device, a very familiar face that we all would know. Zero is found sleeping, for almost an eternity until Ciel found him. She resurrects Zero with a Cyber-Elf and then, the legendary Reploid, Zero is awakened and then your adventure begins. Enjoy.