Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
By Danielle Zacarias
Generally, I don’t mind hard games. However, I tend to run out of patience for games that feel like they were developed specifically to drive me so insane I would actually contemplate throwing my DS out the window. Megaman ZX for the DS is hard. Really hard. Even on the easy setting it is still kind of hard. Then again, a couple weeks ago, I was playing Megaman on the subway and a kid, after watching me play, asked to play and then made me look like an idiot. He was seven. So maybe it’s just me. Yet even though Megaman ZX often crosses the fine line between challenging and frustrating, it more than makes up for its more frustrating aspects by being a game well worth playing.
The story of the game revolves around two selectable characters, Vent, a boy, or Aile, a girl. Both work for a delivery company called Giro Express. One day they are attacked by evil robots known as Mavericks while transporting something called biometal. In the hubbub, the biometal fuses with your character and you become capable of morphing into Model X, which comes with blasters and the ability to dash and jump up things. So it’s kinda like taking Ecstasy. As the game progresses you acquire more biometals and the Model Xs get more interesting. There are five models and each one lets you do something a little different. One lets you glide, another comes with powerful fire blasters, and another works well underwater. The best model though is Model ZX which comes with both a blaster and a sword.
This Megaman isn’t markedly different from its predecessors on the Gameboy Advance, but that isn’t a bad thing. First, it means that if you’ve played the older versions of Megaman you’ll already be familiar with the environmental hazards that instantly kill you and how to deal with some of the bad guys. Second, it means there was no attempt to add on excessive gimmicky touch-screen features. The action on the top screen is so intense that a second screen competing for your attention would only complicate things.
All around, Megaman does play well. The visuals are good for a side scroller, as colours are vivid and some of the backgrounds are exquisitely rendered. The controls are comfortable, which is a must since you will be playing for extended periods of time. The music is so good that I found myself lingering in some levels just so I could keep listening. Save for the big and mini bosses, most enemies are not difficult and even easy and fun to deal with. Being able to talk to other characters in the game can often also help immerse you in the game by providing you with a lot of extra back story.
So far it all sounds good, right? Well, now for the reasons why Megaman ZX might drive you mad.
There are not nearly enough save points, the big and mini bosses have insane abilities, you have barely enough lives to get by, several environmental hazards are capable of killing you instantly (particularly on the normal setting), the map needs a helluva lot more detail and in order to get some special items, you often have to talk to people repeatedly. But all of this pales in comparison to the thing that drove me really nuts. Suppose you have three lives for a mission and you have three items that will give you health. Use them all up on one life and you will not have them for the remaining two lives. This is compounded by the fact that such health items (like apples, e-tanks and bread) are rare finds.
This basically means you will be playing missions over again many, many times. When fighting bosses, you will encounter moves that are all but impossible to avoid which take off an uncomfortable amount of health. If you want to play Megaman ZX through on normal, be prepared for hours of frustration and the paranoid feeling that Capcom made this game this hard to drive you insane. I suspect hardcore gamers might actually enjoy this aspect of the game, but anyone else out there just looking for a good game with a couple of intriguing challenges should play it through on easy so it’ll grow on you before it can frustrate you to the point of wanting to throw it out the window. Or give it to any seven-year-olds you know.
