ZXA first impressions
ZXA is definitely pretty different. Granted, it's probably not too different in the whole realm of the Mega Man franchise, but compared to its predecessor it's not exactly what I was expecting. I'll probably approve in the end, but I'm still not even halfway through the game.
I think what threw me off a little, because I didn't realize it right away, is that a good chunk of the game is incredibly linear. It still has the interconnected areas and exploration theme and such, but there's no mission select for you when you get to the Hunter Camp. The Hunter Camp, in fact, is a bit of a disappointment to me. It's nothing like Guardian from ZX, it's basically just a loose group of Hunters hanging out. There's no real leader to the group and not many of the Hunters stand out character-wise. They're all just kind of there, and they'll talk to you a little if you stand next to them and press up. Sure some of them have requests for you and such, but there's not much of a feeling of closeness. The whole Hunter Camp seems more like just another landmark than some kind of HQ.
Getting back to the gameplay, there's not really a mission select as I said. Once you enter a new area, boom, mission starts. Go through the area, beat the boss, then find out where you can get to next with your new powers. It's kind of nice that the game does away with the busy work of selecting and reporting missions, but at the same time you get the feeling you're just being tossed into the action and already know what's expected of you. On the other hand, you are given broad objectives. The location of these are indicated by a large target on the rough map. However, you can't expect to go directly to these targets; you'll usually need to go out of your way a little and get some things in order to reach that area. It reminds me a little of Metroid Zero Mission.
The stages make surprisingly considerable use of the transformation abilities. A lot of the stages are setup in ways that make transforming convenient, if not completely mandatory to pass (though you can't get to a stage that you're unable to complete because you don't have the right transformation yet, hence why the game starts off so linearly). Still, you get the general impression that some of those stage areas are all the transformations are good for. Some of the transformations are pretty useless for just playing around in general, and I tend to stick with Model A unless I'm forced to switch.
Teleporting around has also changed a little. Each area has its own Trans Server room. But aside from that, each section of an area has a Warp Point that you can pay 100EC to activate (they're apparently free in Beginner Mode). When you activate one, you can warp to it from any Trans Server, but the Warp Points themselves don't let you warp. It's a one way trip.
The music is pretty decent, no surprises there. A good deal of music from ZX is reused, however. There's also plenty of voice acting. However, the dialog voices are lower quality now. The character voices sound like they're talking into paper cups.
I haven't been following the story too closely but I have a pretty good idea what's going on, and it seems pretty predictable. I'm wondering how much things will differ playing as Ashe.
That's all for now, really...
I think what threw me off a little, because I didn't realize it right away, is that a good chunk of the game is incredibly linear. It still has the interconnected areas and exploration theme and such, but there's no mission select for you when you get to the Hunter Camp. The Hunter Camp, in fact, is a bit of a disappointment to me. It's nothing like Guardian from ZX, it's basically just a loose group of Hunters hanging out. There's no real leader to the group and not many of the Hunters stand out character-wise. They're all just kind of there, and they'll talk to you a little if you stand next to them and press up. Sure some of them have requests for you and such, but there's not much of a feeling of closeness. The whole Hunter Camp seems more like just another landmark than some kind of HQ.
Getting back to the gameplay, there's not really a mission select as I said. Once you enter a new area, boom, mission starts. Go through the area, beat the boss, then find out where you can get to next with your new powers. It's kind of nice that the game does away with the busy work of selecting and reporting missions, but at the same time you get the feeling you're just being tossed into the action and already know what's expected of you. On the other hand, you are given broad objectives. The location of these are indicated by a large target on the rough map. However, you can't expect to go directly to these targets; you'll usually need to go out of your way a little and get some things in order to reach that area. It reminds me a little of Metroid Zero Mission.
The stages make surprisingly considerable use of the transformation abilities. A lot of the stages are setup in ways that make transforming convenient, if not completely mandatory to pass (though you can't get to a stage that you're unable to complete because you don't have the right transformation yet, hence why the game starts off so linearly). Still, you get the general impression that some of those stage areas are all the transformations are good for. Some of the transformations are pretty useless for just playing around in general, and I tend to stick with Model A unless I'm forced to switch.
Teleporting around has also changed a little. Each area has its own Trans Server room. But aside from that, each section of an area has a Warp Point that you can pay 100EC to activate (they're apparently free in Beginner Mode). When you activate one, you can warp to it from any Trans Server, but the Warp Points themselves don't let you warp. It's a one way trip.
The music is pretty decent, no surprises there. A good deal of music from ZX is reused, however. There's also plenty of voice acting. However, the dialog voices are lower quality now. The character voices sound like they're talking into paper cups.
I haven't been following the story too closely but I have a pretty good idea what's going on, and it seems pretty predictable. I'm wondering how much things will differ playing as Ashe.
That's all for now, really...