Recent reviews by Zeph

Before I begin this review, if you don't own any kind of PC compatible controller, don't bother with this game, unless you don't mind developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

When I first heard about this game, being developed by Inti Creates, and being a "spiritual succesor" of the Megaman Zero series of sorts, "hyped" wasn't enough to describe how I felt, seeing the trailers and such was amazing and i really expected the game to BE amazing.
Sadly, at the time of its release, I didn't own a 3DS, so I had to skip it, until it came to steam, and got is as soon as i could but all i got was disappointment...

Booting the game, everything fine, resolution, audio, etc, all fine, except for the small bottom right window (that I assume originally was the 3DS touch screen) is really small even on 1920x1080, game runs at 30fps but it's not quite terrible unless you're one of those 60fps or bust kind of people.

Problems started when i loaded the game and i started playing, this "port" still has the console controls setup, A, B, X, Y, RB, LB, etc, no mention of keyboard keys at all, so i had to play the guessing game at first to see what button did what, after a few minutes i got it down, but playing with keyboard was borderline impossible, you just have to press too many buttons at the same time and it felt terrible, thankfully i own PC controller that I currently use and works decently, so unless you own a controller, you're going to have a terrible time playing this.

The story is mediocre at best, anti-hero saving the damsel in distress, plot is explained further through loading screens (which go too fast to read unless you own a prehistoric PC), and in-game conversations between characters, there's not much to it really though, gotta save the special snowflake woman from the bad guys that want to use her powers for evil, until a plot twist later which changes the tone of the game, but it's essentially the same deal even then.


Graphics are ok, can't really improve much from a 3DS port, but it looks nice, a few problems are that enemies are big and the screen feels compact, and too much stuff can go on at the same time on screen thanks to you shooting, avoiding bullets, using flashield and the lightnings is shoots, enemies moving around, etc making it hard to maneveur or see anything at some times.

Music is nice, also if you manage to score enough "Kudos" (Game's equivalent to a combo counter) during a stage, you get rewarded with J-Pop for some reason, which is not bad unless you dislike that kind of stuff.

Now, gameplay:

As I said, if you don't own a controller, don't bother with this game, you have to press too many buttons at the same time to actually do anything, you have: jumping, dashing, shooting, flashfield (your special lightning skill), special skills and general movement, and sometimes you have to use a mix of them at the same time.

Stages aren't really hard unless you rush them (which you want to do if you want a good rank at the end), they're your typical megaman platforming stages, sometimes bland and a bit uninspired, go from point A to B, fight a midboss if the stage has one, and reach the boss room at the end, which a healthy amount of spikes and pitfalls in between (thankfully spikes don't kill you instantly this time).

Bosses are your typical megaman boss fights here, they have set movement patterns and attacks, the difference is that each boss has its HP is separated in 3 parts, and depleting one bar gives the boss more movements to use during the fight, kinda nifty, until you deplete the 2nd bar, and the boss does its special move, which will kill you unless you do "something", and that "something" varies from boss to boss, so expect trial and error on each boss since their skills are not really intuitive, and OHKO's can be cheap...

Speaking of dying, the game has an integrated "You suck" mode that sometimes happens when you die (not sure exactly what triggers it, maybe the crappier you do in the stage or something? not sure), which starts playing another J-Pop song and makes you practically invincible, you have infinite flashfield charge, you can fly, but you can't rack in combo counter which could potentially kill your scoring, which ill explain in a bit, by the way you can't disable this, so if you feel like it's a total slap to the face and totally kills the challenge, your only option is restarting the stage or checkpoint and... not dying...

The game has a similar ranking system as the Megaman Zero series but harder to work with. Scoring in this game works like this: You have a combo counter called Kudos, which increases by shooting enemies and bosses with both your gun and flashfield, this counter adds to your score multiplier and remains as long as you keep killing enemies and don't get hit (didn't time how much it takes for the counter to roll down for not killing enemies for too long though, but it's enough time if you keep moving on), along that, you also get extra points at the end of the stage based on how fast you finished the stage.

With better scores you're rewarded with more items at the end of the stage, but given how much stuff happens at once on the stages, unless you memorize everything and are ready for every bullet, missile, laser, etc coming at your way, odds are you're going to get hit, lose your combo counter, and have to repeat the stage/checkpoint again if you plan to get anything past A rank, otherwise it's inconsequential and totally meaningless for the average player since you can keep repeating stages to farm items.

The items you get at the end of the stages can be used with the game's crafting system, which is "Collect X, Y and Z, plus some currency, and craft items", items which range from getting more HP from HP items, double/triple jumps, flashfield recharging faster/lasting longer, weapon upgrades, etc, not a bad system, but if you want them all you'll find yourself repeating stages a lot to farm certain items.

Overall the game is not terrible if you can get past the god awful default keyboard control setup, the insanely hard requirements to get anything past A rank, the cheap OHKO's the bosses can do unless you know exactly what to do, and the amount of crap going at once on the really small looking screen, the game is not bad, just don't expect the same level of gameplay as the Megaman Zero series if you came to this game expecting that level of story or gameplay.

You can play the game as it is just fine, but everything past the ranking, speedrun mode, challenges, etc are clearly aimed towards experts players, so expect an exercise in frustration if you decide to get past A rank and do everything this game as to offer.