I've been playing the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection
I've always wanted to play these games. I'm not a huge MM fan in general but the fast gameplay and the saber had a lot of appeal to me. I think I bounced off it as a kid because of the difficulty, shameful as it is to admit.
Right now I've finished every game except ZX Advent.
So. The Zero games are sick and imo every entry is better than the last. At first it's frustrating, and I found the best way was to scrape through towards the end then restart and try to do a better run... given the ranking system and the short length of each game it seems set up with this in mind.
When you know what you're doing, you can dash through stages cutting and blasting enemies like a ninja. The blaster also shouldn't be underestimated, since charged shots can kill basic enemies at a distance, and strong enemies can be more easily dispatched by for eg. mixing a charged shot with a dash cut. It's simple but there's a real rhythm to it.
I'm not a fan of the elemental system. It's a MM staple but I don't like it in any of these games. You equip the correct elemental chip to counter the boss and suddenly you bypass the challenge of the boss almost entirely. That's it. By the fourth game, the system was neutered to the point of being a non-issue, so I guess Inti Creates knew it sucked too.
I don't like subtanks either. You find them hidden in a couple of levels (or in cyber elves allegedly, but I never used those since they affect ranking). How difficult the game is is largely dependent on how many of these things you get... I think they're just too big of an advantage for an optional thing that often requires returning to a level with a later ability.
Most of the bosses are great to fight and learn, but there are a few with moves that seem to be down to luck. Also, the first game has by far the hardest end boss, which makes the subsequent final bosses seem a bit weak (especially Zero 2's).
And as you might expect, many levels rely heavily on pits and insta-death surfaces. It can feel a little cheap at times, especially given the limited view that the game allows, and it makes me wish effort had been put in to extend the view to the full width of a 16:9 display.
My favourite game of the series was 4. The level design was stronger and generally had less annoying BS than previous games sometimes did. The elemental system nerf meant that I had to engage with the bosses. There's a system that involves changing the weather for a level into an easy or normal difficulty state, which is a fun way to give people an easy mode if they need it imo. There are no real stinker levels like the Sunken Library from MMZ3 or the Crystal Cave from MMZ2.
All in all I'm happy I finally played these games. It really can't be overstated how satisfying the saber feels... the various animations for enemies being sliced in two are satisfying. Oh, and the port is good. It's not an emulation, there's no input lag that I noticed. They should have added an option to instantly restart a level though. Actually that's my #1 gripe with these games. It's so frustrating to want to restart a level but have to instead reload and skip through some scenes.
Anyway... two more games. Fewer words.
ZX is okay. It's a worse version of Zero in a Metroidvania style world that exists solely to waste your time. The lava level is genuinely some garbage tier game design and the final level feels very much like something they had to rush... Nobody should care about the story in these games but even by those standards this is very poorly told. Oh, the player has multiple forms with different moves but you will only use two of these forms unless the game demands otherwise.
ZX Advent so far is another mediocre game but they took the saber away from you and replaced it with a weird lock-on projectile attack that you will NEVER use. They did add some more forms based off animal-like bosses rather than humanoids, which sounds cool but in reality they're of very limited utility and only serve to clutter the menu you have to navigate whenever you want to switch form.
I wouldn't recommend the latter two but the collection is easily worth it for the Zero games. I'm glad that Inti Creates is still around and making some of the best platformers ever (Curse of the Moon 2 and Blaster Master Zero 2 are amazing fyi) and Capcom should call them up and fork over the cash for a new Zero game of some sort
