Mega Man Zero 3 Gameboy Advanc

The Mega Man Zero series came to the GBA and came off as unique. It repeated a lot of the themes that made the original Mega Man X series on the Super Nintendo good. Mega Man Zero 3 could very well be the best of the Mega Man Zero series thus far.

Mega Man Zero 3 has several elements that more than outshine Mega Man Zero 2. The game doesn't just rehash elements it expands upon them and makes the game a more unique experience than the other Mega Man Zero games have been.

The basic gameplay of Mega Man Zero is unchanged. Zero has the same moves he had in the previous Mega Man Zero games. He can jump, dash, climb walls and has a large arsenal of weapons (most of which are repeated from Mega Man Zero 2).

But as I said, Zero 3 expands on what Mega Man Zero 2 presented. Zero has four weapons he can use. The Z-Saber, The Buster, the Shield Boomerang and the new recoil rod which Zero can bounce on and pummel enemies with. Zero can also level up his weapons by killing more and more enemies.

The game also adds on other twist with the gameplay. The first couple of bosses you defeat give you different suit upgrades of fire, ice and lightning. There's more to it than just having the suit. Many bosses are weak vs. one element over another. Also, after each level Zero is given a ranking. This ranking can determine whether he can perorm a new combo for certain weapons or whether he gains an EX skill or not.

The Cyber-Elf system, which was first introduced in Mega Man Zero has come to be more developed. Throughout each level Zero can collect and use Cyber-Elves. Cyber-Elves are also broken down into groups. There are the hacker elves that change data, nurse elves that heal Zero and improve his vitality and animal elves that enhance Zero's abilities.

In previous Mega Man Zero games once you used a Cyber-Elf it was gone forever, regardless of what it did. Also, when using a Cyber-Elf your rank was penalized for it. In Mega Man Zero 3 there are now two different groups of Cyber-Elves. There are now "Satelite" elves and "Fusion" elves. "Satelite" elves can be used over and over again and don't count against your overall score. "Fusion" elves disappear after each use and do count against your score. Zero can equip up to two satelite elves at a time and change them at any time during any level. I personally thought this made Mega Man Zero 3 a tad bit easier than Zero 2.

Mega Man Zero 3 also has several different "chips" that Zero can use to enhance his abilities. From chips that make him run faster to some that allow him to double jump. Each "chip" you find can be used in either his leg, body, arm or helmet. The possibilities to the gameplay are endless.

The levels are fascinating and fun. They're not too long but not too short. The levels are also populated with challanges and interesting enemies. Bosses are also very big and present a challenge.

Graphic wise, Mega Man Zero 3 doesn't look any different than Mega Man Zero 2. Most of the graphics are rehashed from Mega Man Zero 2. This isn't a bad thing as it still looks nice... just don't expect it to look as good as say... "Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow".

The music in Mega Man Zero 3 is also good. A few remixed tracks from the first two Mega Man Zero games and some really good sound effects. Every now and then Zero grunts or something but it isn't as annoying as the Mario Advance games. Most of the music is action based and presents itself rather well.

There are also lots of bonuses in Mega Man Zero 3. If you have a copy of Mega Man Battle Network 4, you can link up and Zero can get more chips, Cyber elves and EX skills. There's are also mini-games and difficulty level enhancements. Since the game also presents good replay value, it doesn't hurt to try these extra difficulty levels and challenge yourself.

The game isn't as difficult as Mega Man Zero 2. There are moments where you might feel frustrated but the difficulty is pretty evenly balanced out to the point where you'll come to surprises but once you learn the layout of a level and know what to expect, you can exploit it. If you want a REAL challange in any Mega Man Zero game, then do it without the aid of any cyber-elves. Since Mega Man Zero 3 is more open-ended than Mega Man Zero 2, it allows you to tweak more with the difficulty level to the point where even "Hard Mode" can turn out to be easy.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the game is that it really is too short. You can finish the game in just under five hours. But it has replay value and mini-games to better make up for it.

Overall, Mega Man Zero 3 is probably the best one in the series so far. It's a lot more detailed and open-ended and while it has its frustrations it isn't the worst of the GBA. This is one of the BEST of GBA.

I should point out that the first Mega Man Zero game felt a bit mediocre to me. Technically it was well done, but there seemed to be something missing from it that previous Mega Man games had (especially the first 3 Mega Man X games, of which the Zero series is an off-shot). I'll get to that in a minute, though.

One thing that has amazed me about the Zero series is the visuals. While they look deceptively simple in screenshots, like those you'd see from game review websites, they look amazingly good in action. Zero himself is smoothly animated. Everything from simply running in one direction to jumping from wall to wall, Zero performs the actions with ease and style. Like-wise can be said for the controls. While it could take a while to get the hang of the controls if you're new to this series, or Mega Man games in general, once you know how everything works in detail you'll be able to control him almost as easily as if you were just watching him execute cool moves.

Now to sound. The sound effects are pretty standard fare here. Sound effects themselves could've been improved a bit. The music score is quite good. One melody even seems to have some piano in it, and it's executed very well to fit the style of the game. Now, one of the aspects I like the most about the sound is that they kept some of the Japanese voices. If you've played Mega Man X4, you can see what I hate about english voice acting for Mega Man games. Anyway, almost every boss you fight up against will say something in Japanese before the fight, and it actually adds to the experience, making the boss seem more skilled and menacing (I'll never forgot that fight against the mantis looking boss, which had a cool animation as well).

Speaking of that, the difficulty. This is actually a mixed bag. The game most certainly starts out difficult (with the exception of the first area), as is standard fare for the Mega Man series. However, later on in the game, the line between hard and easy begins to blur. The cyber elf system is largely to blame for this. The cyber elves are things you find in several stages that have upgrades that help you. These upgrades range from vitality increases to simple healing to some temporary help. If you want to make things harder, try to limit yourself to a certain amount of upgrades. If you have no self-control (like me), this system will drive you nuts, and completely obliterate the difficulty setup of this game.

Finally, one of the best improvements in this game is the secret disk system and the chips. The secret disk are... well... disks you find in several of the stages. They sometimes contain useful stuff (like cyber elves, chips, etc...), and sometimes they just contain information on some things. The chips are upgrades you can swap in and out, and this is greatly expanded from the simple element only setup of the first Zero game. There's several chips to find, but you can only use one per area (head, hands, feet, and body) at any given time. One of the coolest of these is the double jump chip which allows you to jump once and then jump again in mid-air.

If you didn't care for the previous games in the Zero series, this probably won't change your mind much. However, there are significant upgrades to this game compared to the first, so it might be worth giving a try. It's certainly a solid game, and fun. You'll probably only have a problem with it if you're a major stickler about difficulty unbalance, like I am.

I just beat Mega Man Zero 3 a few days ago. While the soundtrack wasn't as haunting as the previous installment (who can honestly say the Oceanic Highway Ruins song is catchy?) and the gameplay experience is very similar to that of the first two Mega Man Zero games, the overall package is good to look at, and it's quite playable. Mega Man Zero 3 is not the hardest of the Mega Man Zero games, because the previous game features a lot of pits and the Chain Rod is quite difficult to use...provided we're given only a small D-Pad to grapple it with. From the very start, Mega Man Zero 2 has proved the most difficult in the series, and Mega Man Zero 3 is truly a breath of fresh air. The game looks awesome, even though a lot of stages are recycled, like the Forest of Anatre, and at first the plot doesn't mobilize very much. However, the additional bosses you must confront at the intermezzo of the game are quite worthy of remembrance for Mega Man Zero aficionados. *Ahem* Let's just say they're a blast from a past.

The cyber-elf system is in MMZ3 is the best to date. Now you can upgrade your Cyber Elves so that they don't die! There are basically two types of Cyber Elves: Fusion and Satellite. Unfortunately, some Fusion Cyber-Elves die, and they cannot be upgraded to the permanent Satellite mode. No need to worry, because most of the Cyber-Elves you'll be using will affect your Health Bar (that is, increase your vitality) and for the most part, these "Nurse" Cyber-Elves can remain with you indefinitely. Maximum upgrades of these Cyber-Elves usually display the letter "A" by the symbol next to its name. This means that when you enter Cyberspace (there are several holographic doors throughout each stage) the effect of the Cyber-Elf will activate, whether or not you are equipping it as a Satellite! This comes in handy when you revisit annoying stages--that way your health bar skyrockets and other effects will take place, including the ability to use certain EX Skills we once thought Zero forgot completely...

Instead of "Forms" and the three elemental chips that Zero utilized in the first game, we now have a whole glossary of chips to collect! Some of these chips not only contain interesting information on the game's characters (I mean it's always nice to know about Ciel :) ) but may also contain E-Crystals to upgrade your Cyber-Elves, and you get Cyber-Elves that way too! They are no longer loitering the stage, but the drawback is that you can't use them until you decode the chip with Cerveau's help (you won't even know what it has inside--it's a surprise!) But your upgrades will also appear in the form of chips: Foot Chips, Head Chips, and Body Chips. Head Chips are the harder ones to acquire, but the Body Chips have substituted the three elemental chips with which Zero infused with his weapon of choice. Now his armor changes color depending on the chip he's wearing, and certain EX Skills can only be used with a certain Body Chip, kind of like in MMZ2.

I highly recommend this game. Mega Man Zero 2 is the best (and hardest) of the series, but the subsequent games are not easy to put down! 5 Stars!

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