Capcom smears another layer of grime over the dust and debris that covers this woe begotten franchise.
I think I will refer anyone reading this to my other review for the previous game in the series Mega Man ZX. I seriously didn't think that this game could be worse then what was previously done. Boy was I ever wrong!
I wouldn't call many of the new things improvements, unless having more mold is an improvement on a previously expired piece of cake.
So here we go.
CHARACTERS
Previously I wrote practically endlessly on how much the massive amount of useless characters and their horrible dialogues and lack of personalities damaged the license.
Capcom decided that instead of streamlining the game around the core game-play elements that make a Mega Man game fun they would add even more useless characters, practically tripling the number of irritating and useless oxygen pirates in the game. Now instead of having a bunch of annoying 5 year old quazi robots there are tons of teenage (I pretend that I'm
an adult) robots/hunters/whatevers with prepubescent personalities. I feel like I'm playing a post apocalyptic game with babies in diapers wearing their parent's clothes.
The bosses with their inane and laughable one liners are back and to add to the mix of horrible characters we got some other MEGAMEN who all have bad attitudes, pathetic performances and really no place in a mega man license.
Instead of having an interesting character whether it be male or female, or god forbid 2 interesting protagonists, Capcom has decided to go for a male and a female character with personalities as tenuous as vapor in a wind storm. Now you can replay the exact same game with a couple of minor dialogue differences and two "unique" opening sequences. I'm sure they'll wrap it all up in the end with some sorry excuse for a plot twist to explain why you have to play the beginning of the game twice.
The male protagonist has tubes sticking out of the back of his head... need I say more.
STORY
They obviously didn't fire their writers but instead hired the writers' 4 year old daughters as their new story creators. Now the characters "megamerge" (violently vomits into a bucket with the mega man logo on it) to create a "mega man" or women since you can play some saucy tart if you don't feel like playing the albino test subject. Why is there now a female lead character? Is Capcom trying to tap into the mystical all female gaming market in order to shore up dropping sales? Why then create a story that is obviously only for males of the subgenus "dorkus under tenus".
So we have a bit of a new mystery plot injected with a rusty needle except that the needle was previously used by a crack junkie infected with the ebola virus. Fantastic!
It's obviously too much to ask someone with a bit of writing talent to write these stories...
GENERAL GAME DESIGN
I guess they realized that giving only 4 broken suits pissed people off. So now they give the same lame suits which do EXACTLY the same lame stuff as in the previous game but you are also given a bunch of other useless armours none of which are particularly interesting except to solve 1 puzzle each, but otherwise be extremely limited in platforming capabilities and combat.
Oh and now you no longer start off as the ZX whatever model but instead you only have a blaster. But you get the ZX thingy later by which time you will wonder what the whole point of any of the millions of useless suits could possibly be.
So your special weapon gauge now refills with time. I have to say that it is a good addition, but it's like putting a band aid onto an amputated finger stump, it just doesn't fix the real problem.
Still no auto save feature.... is it really that much to ask?
COMBAT
Nothing has changed. The combat sucks just as bad as in the previous game. Meaning that nothing has been improved to make combat more enjoyable or to use the different suits in way that would make having them be worthwhile.
The retarded Ninja suit is back just as lame as ever, and just to spite you they threw in even more annoying areas for you to use it's broken game-play. The ninja suit sucks and interestingly enough it's the only suit that is there purely for marketing purposes......cause Ninjas are supposedly cool when you're 4. All the other suits have an element attached to them that could be used in elemental puzzles... although they're not, but they could be. Not the Ninja thingy though, that's just pure marketing BS.
USER INTERFACE (UI)
Someone woke up at Capcom and realized how horrible the previous game's UI was, then he was hit by a truck and the same design team quickly using crayons rehashed the same UI but with even more tabs.
Someone has put a giant wheel on the main screen so that you can switch between suits "easier"? Again, why break something that was working
fine for 20 + games. I bet someone thought they were being really clever.
CAMERA
Same 2D side scrolling camera with the exact same minor problem during vertical movement. You cannot see far enough above or below you when you're moving up or down.
ART & ENVIRONMENT
The visuals have actually improved. I guess everybody at the studio is an artist.
LEVEL DESIGN
And... we're switching back and forth between useless suits in order to get through multiple door/key puzzles like the chumps we were in the previous game.
Level design takes a plunge into the depths of despair with the most notorious area being in the garbage world where you had doors that warped you to different places. Wow, one of the most annoying and irritating level design ideas ever, it took me 5 times as long to get out of that bloody death trap. Talk about a level I will never, ever visit again for replay purposes.
Somebody decided that instead of making sure that the game is well balanced they will slap a bunch of different difficulty levels into the game.
You can now play easy which is full of horrible tutorials for all those kids who are mentaly handicapped and can't figure out how to play this game.
Or you can play normal where even if you're an experienced player you will get your ass handed to you for no apparent reason, except that the
difficulty curve and the level design do everything in their power to cause you pain. The ice level at the beginning of the game anyone?
To make the money/energy crystals even more useless you now have to pay for warp points. Except you can only warp from your "base" to the
points and not the other way making them about as useful as a flashlight in a blizzard.
The mini map is back. It's been streamlined to be more like a Fisher Price toy with big shiny buttons that still don't tell you where you are or how any of the levels are really connected. The game is less convoluted but getting around the world is still not interesting, fun or easy.
The fetch quests are back with a vengeance. From paying some low-life money to dig out some random rooms, to collecting flowers, or catching
moth queens for small children stranded on ice flows in the middle of hostile territory Capcom has made sure that instead of playing a Mega Man game you'll be spending your time platforming back and forth through environments you were hoping to never have to come back to for reasons that defy reason, while the world waits for you to get your act together and save it. Because the bad guys don't seem to have anything better to do than wait around for you to deliver shelving and recipes to every moron in the hunter camp.
MUSIC & VOICE ACTING
I tried to listen to the horrible musak but I turned it off. Especially the retarded videos that play whenever the character MEGAMERGES (vomits into
the bucket again). I couldn't bare to listen to the dizzying display of Sailor Moon fan-dom and it's audio accompaniment.
CONCLUSION
Capcom has yet once again demonstrated that when you break something, there is nothing stopping you from breaking it even worse. There is always
more room to squat over a well loved franchise and take a big fat stinking dump right on top of an already growing pile of manure.
Should you buy or play this game? I personally had my gag reflex working overtime but I forced my way through. My suggestion is wait for the Mega Man Zero collection that's supposed to hit the DS soon or better yet boot up the Mega Man and Mega Man X collections on your console, but don't waste your time on this ill puppy.