Story:

100 years after Sigma's defeat at the hands of X (and Zero), Reploids have been more or less banned by humans who have finally decided that maybe Reploids are so potentially dangerous that they shouldn't be running the show. A small resistance force has been created as a shelter for Reploids who have been wrongly accused of being Mavericks. One human, a female scientist named Ciel, has joined with the resistance force and searches to uncover the legendary Reploid named Zero, who helped save the world so long ago. With his aid, she's sure the resistance force will be able to overcome the new threat that now endangers them, one that also takes the form of a resurrected Reploid from the past...

Gameplay:

Pretty good, particularly if you change your configuration settings in the options. If the manual did a better job at explaining how to play the game, probably the play control would feel more intuitive, but once you get used to the quirks, it works quite well.

I give the gameplay: 9/10

Graphics:

Generally pretty crisp. There are a few instances of ambiguity, and some of the graphics look like scanned sketches, but overall the backgrounds are well done.

I give the graphics: 9/10

Sound:

Average. There's nothing significantly wonderful or horrible about the music. Interestingly enough, they use Zero's other theme music from Mega Man X1 here, rather than the tune that other games have been using so often.

I give the sound: 7/10

Replayability:

You do get different plots depending on whether you succeed or fail at missions, which warrants playing through the game at least twice. However there is just a touch too much replaying of stages during just a single play through of the game, not only because of the lack of 1-Ups, but also because many missions reuse old stages. This can bring in fatigue of the game prematurely and retard replay value.

I give the replayability: 6/10

Challenge:

AKA "1-Ups? What are those?" The marketing for this game claims this is the "most challenging Mega Man game to date." While it doesn't quite win that mantle, it sure tries its best. Anyone looking for a nice relaxing game should stay far away from this one

I give the challenge: 10/10

Value:

Ehh...You'll find it pre-played for 18 dollars. Still, it's sort of rare that you'll even find it at many stores now.

I give the value: 8/10

Overall:

It's a pretty high-quality game spoiled by the fact that you have to replay missions from the very beginning every time you die if you don't want to either (a) fail them, or (b) lose one of your precious continues. This gets old extremely fast. Overall, it's a very nice game. To bad it was so hard.

I give Mega Man Zero: 9/10

Written By: Adam
E-Mail: adamgach@gmail.com
Date Submitted: November 13th, 2005

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