Mega Man Zero 3 Review

       Mega Man Zero is a nice little series. It has some great hardcore Mega Man style platforming action featuring everybody's favorite red rampager and continues nicely on some of the cooler themes of the Mega Man X series. It also has some flaws of its own. Let's see where number 3 stacks up.

      Mega Man Zero 3 is a GBA game that I played on my DS as part of Mega Man Zero Collection. In it, Zero and his human companion Ciel face a new threat with the appearance of a scientist who has brought the giant, ultra-powerful reploid Omega back to earth. This guy was so powerful and dangerous that he was exiled from Earth to space. The scientist, Dr. Weil, claims to have him under control. It's obvious from the start that this guy is up to no good and is using Omega to complete his goal of using the Dark Elf for some evil purpose. Like all Mega Man X and Zero story lines, this one makes little sense and is mostly garbage. Ciel is as annoying as ever, as is everyone in the resistance base, and ignoring them as much as possible is a good idea. Actually, pretty much all the dialogue, including the mandatory conversations with boss enemies, is downright terrible. At least in this one, I didn't agree with what the bad guys were up to, which I did to a large degree in Zero 1 and 2. Having said that, Zero 3 does have some interesting themes and ideas. Most X and Zero games have this same dichotomy going on; the story is in general pretty bad, but with some cool themes. Zero 3's main interesting part is a giant truth bomb it drops on you near the end. There is some foreshadowing, but I was too dense to figure it out. I really liked this element, but after the big reveal, the game (story-wise) goes back to stupid mode and totally fails to capitalize on the bombshell it just dropped on you. It's a shame, but at least all the stupidity has a big bright spot in it, which is more than I can say for many games.

       Now onto what the gameplay is like. I felt like I could describe the story first since you probably know what a Mega Man game is like gameplay wise. In case you don't, you choose different stages that you must complete in any order. Each level is run by a boss, and if you get to the end, you must fight them. The 2d levels are pretty large and require traversal in all directions, but they all move from left to right in general. Enemies populate the levels. These typically take a few hits to kill. You have four weapons from the get-go this time around: the Z-Saber, a gun, the shield boomerang thing from the previous game or 2, and the new recoil rod. I used the Z-Saber and gun almost exclusively except for some specific situations. I equipped the saber to the b button and the gun to the R button as I found it easier to charge up a more powerful shot using a shoulder button as opposed to a face button. A is jump and L is dash. As usual you can cling to walls for a second before you start sliding down them, which means you can climb them by clinging to them and then continuously jumping higher and clinging again. You'll need to do this a lot to avoid enemy fire, traverse the level, and save yourself from falling down cliffs or into insta-kill spikes.

       Cyber Elves make a return in this game. These are basically one-time use abilities that are gone forever after you use them. You earn them by killing enemies and by finding hidden crates in levels. They do things like destroy enemies, damage bosses, or boost your score. As usual, this isn't a very well fleshed out system, as most of the elves aren't worth using. However, this time around there are satellite elves. These guys float around Zero when equipped, which is a cool visual touch reminiscent of a shmup power up. They grant him abilities as long as they are equipped, and they don't permanently die when used like other elves. I only found 3, and only one of them was really useful (the one that lets you slice bullets with your sword to block them), but that's better than nothing.

       The levels have a pretty nice feel to them. Dashing toward an enemy and slicing them just before they fire on you still feels amazing, as does jumping around at high-speed through tricky platforming sections. There are a few difficult jumping sections to complete, but overall they seemed less frustrating than previous games. Mini bosses pop up in a few of the levels, and they typically aren't very hard. My MO throughout the game was to use the sword throughout the levels and then switch to the gun to fight the bosses.

       Reaching the boss represents about 50% of the difficulty of each level as bosses are very hard. You must learn their attack patterns and be able to read when they are open for an attack. They can kill you very quickly if you are unfamiliar with them. This edition's set of bosses are pretty challenging. Usually in a Mega Man game there are a few pushovers, but in Zero 3, even the pushovers occasionally got a kill in on me. The design of the bosses is pretty good too. There is a really big guy with 3 life bars and also a tiny little boss that's really mobile, and everything in between. Most bosses have a weakness to one of the elements you can equip, but not all, and unlike some Mega Man games, you only do elemental damage with charged-up shots. Some of these bosses are in tight little rooms. Others are in less claustrophobic spaces that scroll a little bit. Some have you climbing the walls to avoid attacks, others have attacks that require you to hold still to avoid damage. Some have attacks that seem un-dodgeable until you notice the one little corner of space you can put yourself in and be safe. There is a great need to dash, jump, climb, and run in order to avoid certain death in all kinds of patterns and shapes.

       Once again, you have three lives to complete each level. That number is balanced pretty well. Unfortunately the very weird design flaw of not refilling your lives when you start a new level is in this game, as it is in many Mega Man titles. For example, if you beat a level on your last life, you will start the next level on your last life. Since there is no chance that you will beat a brand new level in one life, the best thing to do is purposely kill yourself so you can get a game over and then re-start the level with a full set of lives. This is terribly annoying. And if you save your game between levels when you are in this situation, you may have to repeat this process many times until you beat the level you are stuck on. You may even want to go into an older level, kill yourself, continue, and then exit the level and save again so that when you boot up you are at 3 lives. I had to do this once after I had to do the seppuku ritual many, many times while I was stuck on the last level.

         You may be aware that most Mega Man games end in a boss rush level where you must kill all of the bosses again and then face the final boss. This game is no exception. This time around it is especially brutal because, as stated earlier, the bosses seem a bit tougher this time and even the easier ones can get a kill in on you from time to time. I easily spent more time on the final level than the whole rest of the game; maybe even twice as much time. This is exacerbated by the fact that the last boss is super-hard too, and you can't recharge your health between the different segments of that multi-form fight. After many, many days of trying this level over and over, I decided to use some cyber elves to help me (I was abstaining on the one-time use elves up to this point because I thought I was too cool to need them). I used a couple that drained the last boss's health considerably, and was able to beat him that way. I felt a little dirty, but I was so ready for the game to be done, I didn't care. I usually pride myself on not using too many cyber elves in a MM0 game, but I think I did the right thing this time.

       Audio-visually, Zero 3 is ok. The sprites and animation are pretty smooth, but with some rough spots. Character design is pretty good. Two or three of the bosses are really cool looking. I especially like the little ice frog boss. Everything else is pretty standard though. Like most portable games, I played this one mostly on mute because I play in the break room at work while also having conversations. I don't feel like I missed out on too much though. The music is pretty good, although there aren't really any stand out tracks. Most of the sound effects are good, but there are a handful that are really annoying. For example, some of the bosses' voices that they use to scream before they do certain attacks are downright shriek-ey. There is also a satellite elf that when equipped will constantly fire bombs out. This seems really cool, but the sound effect of the bomb is really bad and you hear it non-stop as it continuously fires, so you pretty much have to un-equip it so you don't go insane.

       In both Zero1 and 2, I immediately played hard mode after beating the game. In 3, I was so ready to be done with it by the end, I definitely wasn't going to play on hard mode. It's not that it is a bad game; it is plenty of fun. I just didn't feel the need to challenge myself to a more difficult version. Maybe that speaks to the difficulty of Zero 3's normal mode, which I'm pretty sure surpasses 1's and 2's. I think it also speaks to the fact that Zero 1 and 2 where more engaging than this version. Zero 2 is the pinnacle of the series for me. It had an epic and inspiring last boss fight that is probably as hard as Zero 3's but much more engaging. It also had some great variations on the standard formula. The part where you fight 2 bosses at once especially stands out as one of the most epic Mega Man moments ever for me. 3 doesn't really have anything special like that.

       Looking over this review again, it sounds like I'm really trashing this game. Let it be known that it is a totally solid and fun entry in the series, just not a particularly stand out one. It's not as good as Zero 2, and I was disappointed that it didn't inspire me to high-level hard mode play, but it does have a nice set of challenging bosses. It's a mediocre game, tier 1.