Score: 4
"HIGHLY overrated."
date: May 13, 2009
Back in the day, when I was younger and didn't know squat about game creation and such, I loved all of your games. Etherena Beta was a favorite of mine, me and a friend would play it all the time. However, coming back to your games today and replaying them, I can honestly say they need alot of work, this one especially.
The movement in this game, unfortunately, is HORRIBLE. The controls are screwy and non-reactive, ESPECIALLY for jumping/wall jumping, which is where every single death I had in this game came from. Not good level design, not good enemy programming, but glitchy controls. I would've gotten through this game without taking a single death if the controls were able to keep up. Controls are a major part of Megaman Zero games, as I'm sure you know, so this was a HUGE blow to the game.
The enemy AI in this game was just plain bad. There was a very small variety of the enemies in this game, and it was obvious they had no intelligence whatsoever, aside from "see zero, attack. do not see zero, do nothing." I know you can program better AI, you did so in Etherena Beta. The AI in that game was great. But in this game, the only hits you take are from cheap shots, like the reactor boss, who has MASSIVE pieces of rock or whatever they are that it throws at you that NOBODY sees coming, because they just appear out of thin air and damage you, and also the endless hordes of enemies that come after you which make it nigh impossible to attack the boss without getting hit.
The graphics for characters were fine, but that's not saying much; It's kinda hard to ruin a pre-animated sprite. The background graphics for the most part were good, EXCEPT for the intro level. The desert graphics were TERRIBLE. They didn't flow together at all and the sand just stopped out of nowhere on ledges. It would've been nice to see some custom graphics too, rather than purely ripped.
The sound effects and music were fine... except for the volume levels. The sound effects were virtually silent compared to the music, and one of the best parts about the Zero series was how great the sound effects blended in with the game and everything. Also, it would've been nice to see a change in music. Hearing the same song throughout almost all of the game was really annoying.
The level design was okay SOMETIMES, but the rest of the level designs were awful. I liked the platforming in the spike level. It was fun to do, although it didn't really feel like Megaman Zero to me. MMZ focuses more on challenging enemies than platforming, although it's definitely not out of the question. But the thing about level design that really bugged me was how the levels progressed. You randomly go from inside a factory or something, to riding across flying cars, to inside another factory, with NO explanation whatsoever. It was confusing and made me lose hope in the small amount of storyline this game had.
The gameplay itself was lackluster, because of everything mentioned before. Awful controls that felt NOTHING like the real games, cheap shots left and right, terrible level design (for the most part,) bad sound/music balancing.. Alltogether this was just a VERY disappointing game.
I'm gonna have to give this one a 4. It worked, but just barely, and it had almost no fun value whatsoever.
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 4/10
Level Design - 4/10
Programming - 5/10
Controls - 1/10
Challenge - 3/10
Replay Value - 0/10
-Froodjakle
