There’s something about classic vanilla Megaman that hasn’t really grabbed me. I’ve played through a couple of them but never felt much other than “that was a decent platformer”. I never walked away from the games feeling like I was a fan, hell by Megaman 8 I was tired of them. The formula never really changed from game to game, they did improve but not really evolve.

With Zero though, it’s all fresh and new. From my knowledge it’s taking Zeroe’s gameplay from Megaman X and working off of that. I can’t really speak to the truth of that since I haven’t played anything in the X series beyond 1. It does cause me to have some interest in playing X4 or X5.

Anyway, the gameplay is amazing. I really do prefer Zero’s saber combat over the usual buster stuff. It adds more of a challenge than the hit and run potshots that I usually do with the buster since you have to get up close. The game in general is a lot more difficult than that of mainline Megaman. It’s probably a skill-issue on my end, but I think I lost all of my lives on Maha Ganeshariff, the first mission I chose.

A change they made from the mainline series and X is the stage structure. You can still choose what stages you do, but it’s out of a set group of missions instead of being presented with 8 boss stages and going from there. I think this change was for the better since it makes the game easy to play a mission or two then stop, which is crucial for a portable game.

The challenge of the game was fun, it felt nice to memorize the bosses patterns and combo-ing them with your weapons. There is a lot of cheese with the Boomerang Shield, it completely melts certain bosses' health with no effort. I really hope they fixed that later on, despite how funny it is to do.

There is a bit of a case of what you may call “first game syndrome", where some of the decisions made like the grindiness of leveling up the weapons or how compared to later games in the series it’s not as fluid. I’ve seen people(the one other friend I was playing with) make it through the game without all of the beam or buster upgrades because he didn’t deliberately grind in the first stage.

Something they did do right with the exp gain is that it’s based on number of hits instead of kills, that probably made the grind a lot less, but still, the amount of exp needed to level-up is too high. From what I’ve played of 3 so far, they did fix it.

The story is the best from what I’ve experienced in the entire series so far. Granted, the Megaman games I've played aren't exactly story heavy, although I doubt that my opinion will change after I play the X games. I think them deciding to have the story happen 100 years after the end of X6 is smart since it gives them some wiggle room to make a different story and not be too held down by previously established characters.

I’m not saying the story is super ultra amazing original thing or anything. Mostly that I’m a fan of a more angsty Mega Man in the same vein as something like Shadow the Hedgehog even if it's an extremely juvenile version of it.

Another change they went for is in Zero’s redesign. Some don’t like it, claiming that it makes Zero look childish and less cool. I personally think the sleeker, more humanoid design is way cooler that Zero’s blocky way too colorful original design. From my knowledge they changed the design because he’s in a completely different body and as you can see throughout the game, reploids opt for a more humanoid look in modern day. So lore wise, the change makes sense.

As mentioned before, the reploids look a lot more human now. My favorite character look is probably Ciel, she’s a really cute loli and I’m a sucker for the young scientist troupe. I do find her actual character to be a bit infuriating at times, she’s completely helpless at times. The designs for the resistance soldiers are also cool. While they’re a bit simple because most of them are nameless grunts, they’re one of the cooler designs for that role.

I really enjoy the art style of the game, Nakayama’s artstyle kinda peaked around the era of the Zero and ZX series. His newer stuff is a little too cutesy for my taste. I think there's just enough edge in the Zero era to balance it out. I also liked how they included pieces of his art to certain cutscenes, definitely way better than them just animating the sprites.

On the topic of sprites, they’re some of the best in the series. I really didn’t like the art for the X series that much other than 4. X3 and below feel too chunky but X5 and above feel too detailed, like the SVC Chaos sprites but worse. I don’t think it’s better or worse than Mega Man 8 though.

One of the weaker points of Mega Man Zero is the soundtrack. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but nothing particularly stood out to me until late game. Other Mega Man games have much better soundtracks compared to this one.

Overall, this is my favorite Mega Man game so far and I really enjoyed the 30 hours I spent with it. I wouldn’t say this is one of the best gba games as from what I’ve played of its sequels so far, they’re much better than this. I will say that if you are into gba games, you should check this game out.