So some Zero lore for anyone who cares and doesn't know: 1) Elpizo doesn't destroy Copy X. That's actually the REAL Megaman X's body. He used himself to seal the Dark Elf away several years before the first game, essentially being the lock to it's cell. His "soul" (basically a cyber-elf) helps Zero in the first 3 games, before he dies for real in 3. 2) The Dark Elf was originally the "Mother Elf", created to defeat Sigma (the main bad guy from the original X games), specifically the Sigma/Maverick Virus. 3) Dr. Weil isn't Dr. Wily. He LOOKS like him, but it's two different people. Weil is the one who corrupted and turned the Mother Elf into the Dark Elf (out of spite: the government denied his idea to mind-control reploids to counter the Maverick Virus, while X wanted to make the Mother Elf.)
@@AStrangeWindmill ha yea for me the hardest megaman games were 5) Battle network series 4) classic megaman 3) Megaman & bass 2) Megaman X series 1) Megaman zero
X's death hit me pretty hard as well. It's even better according to the audio drama when his last words to zero are "Zero, I will go on living . . together with all of you !!"
The thing with repeating the cutscene constantly is because you have the checkpoints on, in the old game if you already died to the boss and enter the room there are no cutscenes
I’ve never been a “get good” gamer but the amount of times I vocally reacted during this video lol. Every time Kbash dashed to the wall in the Frog Boss, I was like “if you died enough times, then you know the wall isn’t safe. Why are you dashing jumping into the wall!”
Yeah these critiques were literally “i dont like playing platformers”. Exhibit A: “boss fights are hard and the bosses had multiple attacks they randomly scrolled through. Because i couldnt beat them the first time i had to learn what they did by dying multiple times until i was good enough to win the battle.” Like bro… have you ever played a video game before?
@@Pharoah2 Yeah, it really feels like he gave Z4 so much of a pass just because it was the one he played when he was younger and had more of a tolerance for actually learning the levels as opposed to the game being that much easier.
EDIT: Okay so I did feel this way at the time, but if you're seeing this comment now, the following is not true of KBash's content anymore. I feel he's become much better about this and many other issues over time. Just like someone should be critiqued fairly, I think they should be praised for improving- so that's me doing that here and now. Good work KBash, you do great stuff! "I liked the review overall, as I do with your reviews in general so far- but one thing is that you seem... strangely embarrassed by sincerity? A villain explaining their worldview isn't always supposed to make you relate to them- half the time it's done to do the opposite. The "Selfish Myopic Old Man" trope found in the classic Chinese Mojun vs Minjun "defeat your awful old master" trope is a celebrated tradition for a reason. Some people just become deranged and terrible, and that's a valid villain archetype too."
Yeah agreed. Learning of Weil’s origins in 3 and 4 puts his dialogue scenes into context and solidifies a different and maybe even more interesting not trope, but trope inversion. Rather than a good soul getting wrongfully cast out of somewhere and having to clear their name, a common protagonist setup, Weil is an outcast in exile but for warcrimes and cruelty. He’s not out to clear his name but has been subjected to near-immortality and can do nothing but wander wastelands beyond civilization, suffering but never dying. So he chooses to claw his way back towards where he was cast out of, but in this case in the name of inflicting indiscriminate pain on both humanity and Reploids alike. I wouldn’t say he’s nuanced at all which is maybe what KBash was making fun of him on the whole for, but I think Weil manages to be something interesting and very hate-able all the same. Not to mention that he marks the first and last time in the whole series that a human villain doesn’t get to hide behind the “you can’t kill a human” defense, within this series canon they basically would have to write a truly vile (lol) b***rd to warrant such a break in convention. Hence why Weil is what he is: raw unfiltered hatred and malice, not very nuanced but adequate to justify his fate and the weight that entails within this series.
@@zeromythosver. Exactly! That's what makes them perfect rivals- not nuanced and interesting character writing, but their significance to the plot, and the world overall. Zero started life as a murderous weapon who, after gaining lucidity, chose to more or less follow the Rules of Robotics of his own volition... while Weil is a human who takes the assumption of innocent humanity those rules for written for, and stamps it into the dirt. They're outliers in the philosophies of Dr. Light and their conflict represents the nuances in that philosophy as it's applied.
Honestly I think that kbash is speaking a matter of opinions seriously. To seriously understand the story and characters you have to check the audio drama. For instance, gamewise only elpizo may seem like he only suffers from inferiority complex and wants to be a glorios hero, but according to the drama cd he was exposed to the archives of the elf wars found in zero3 and apparently them being machines, the digital archives can be uploaded to their electronic brain circuits. As a result he suffered from identity crisis and falsely believed he was supposed to be a messiah who was supposed to save reploids.
That became apparent in his Persona reviews. Every time a character was expressing themself for who they are he had to needlessly chime in with the childish overractions. A character expressing themselves doesn't mean the game wants you to agree or sympathize, it's literally just a character expressing their characteristics... Like in persona 5 where he somehow thinks Ann is supposed to be relatable because Hot+Girl+Model+Fashionable instead of... you know, what the text tells us? That she's relatable because she struggles with her own view of herself and how she failed in the past? Honestly the big reason I'm still watching his videos is because of the once-in-a-while actual good takes and the fact that he's one of the only people making long-form content about old games I want to nostalgiaze about.
It's so weird to me that Capcom apparently announced recently that ZX3 was canceled. Its been 15 years and Inti Creates went off and basically made their own spin-off MegaMan Zero with Gunvolt. I think most people figured that ZX3 was dead at this point.
Unh no, you are the one that got the message wrong. It was Inti Creates who said in a livestream that a third ZX game was well in development but it was ultimately cancelled. That's it. No an announcement, no nothing, it wasn't even from capcom, hence your confusion. And as the comment said, the guys from Inti Creates were also pretty adamant about the name being ZXC and not ZX3.... like, who cares... .you didn't even make the fucking game anyways, nobody is gonna call by your shitty name that never came up lol
My lord Capcom should just let them finish it up and release it alongside a possible X9 announcement Capcom has been playing it to safe and hearing that zx3 was being made And canceled dissapoints me it would catch more attention especially if put on switch
Something not brought up in the review: some of the best music in the entire Mega Man series. The intro to Zero 2, “Departure” is still one of my all time favorite pieces of video game music. Sidenote: I’m one of the absolute weirdos who love these games enough to speed run them. A perspective from a relatively new player to the franchise is always interesting to see!
I wish I could add something more insightful to this comment. But I just agree flat out. The remastered tracks have a special place in my heart and "Departure"(followed by Awakening Will which is just a melancholic remix) is king among those tracks. I remember as a kid just leaving my SP running on that intro stage just to listen to that track.
40:43 IF you were paying attention to the dialogue You'd know that's not copy x lmao That's THE X who's holding the dark elf at bay from being released. Pretty important plot point mentioned quite a few times in the game. His ghost shows up in 3 as well which is kind of a weird plotpoint.
I played and finished all of the Zero games except the first lemme tell you it feel SOO GOOD when you finally no damage a boss with saber only and get that Sweet S rank
I want a fighting game of the zero series of only the main characters. Zero, copy x, the guardians, elpizo, omega, craft, and weil as a final boss. Maybe add x as a secret character.
Hey dude, it's okay. Every line of work, and I really mean, everyone, tends to become monotonous and grinding. Still, you make great videos. Thanks for your hard work.
Everyone doesn't see it that way. right? If your enjoying the game, then improving is fine. if you aren't enjoying it, it's a chore and bothersome. People improve cause they actively like what they are doing and want to get better at it. But when you don't, it's like your coach or parent dragging you through the mud. Yeah you got better but you hated every second of it Zero games appeals to a certain audience and if you don't like that, yeah, too bad. I don't think it's invalid to have an unpopular opinon. I love zero games btw my favorite on gba. it's understandable to a degree
No, they are right about it not being a waste of time if you're too lazy to complete the game you bought that's your personal problem not the games when the majority of people who play the game want to beat it,and the Games give you some extra content for completion that makes it easier, KB said themselves that the games were made to be more difficult .
@@SOULETRED it's like finishing something you hate versus something you like. You still put effort into finishing both but you'll be better at the thing you *like* doing. That's my point. It's a chore to finish games or parts of games when it's just tedious. I'm just assuming you beat the game even if you hated it If you didn't then I agree. But if you beat games and didn't like parts of it for valid reasons then I wouldn't call that laziness. Not your cup of tea more like
Always been quite fond of ZX, despite the shortcomings it felt like a love letter to the franchise after Z4, and the little things tying the story together are pretty nice. Blessed be Prairie Advent tho... it sure is a game that exists.
Hey K-bash. I love your videos, they're all amazing and this one was no exception. Social media can be pretty rough but your channel is one with exceptional quality. When I started following you (don't remember exactly how long ago, maybe about a year), you were at around 15-20k subscribers and I couldn't fathom such a high quality channel had so (relatively) few followers. At 100k now, seems like your work is paving its results. That is to say, you don't owe anyone an explanation for how you play your games or whether or not you enjoy them (as fun as it might be). Your honest input, your impeccable writing, your amazing personality, your really interesting insight, and your high-quality editing are what has driven you so far, and will continue to drive you. You don't need to be a pro speedrunner or a gaming encyclopedia. Thank you for doing what you do.
I'm not a long time viewer but I also felt like kbash defending himself preemptively felt unessisary. It seems like the games and the community around them this time around were unreasonably harsh! I've played all of these except zero 4 and I think this was a totally fair analysis. I only got through them with them help of walkthroughs and all the free time I had as a mid teen lol.
Great stuff as ever. Zero 4 and 1 were the favorites I played to death as a kid but you're right, it feels like the intended way to enjoy these games is to get beaten into submission memorising the layout. That said, mechanically the whole series has this one thing that still irritates me from the main x series where some boss attacks become functionally unavoidable spreads if you're in *the wrong place* onscreen during the brief neutral state between boss moves. For whatever reason I never really clicked with the DS sequels or the gunvolt games - they have the wild visual designs and speed, but there's a weird sort of loose, floppiness to them under a mountain of probably deep systems that seems somehow less immediate.
I agree. I replayed the Zero games over and over and over again, while only a couple times with the ZX and Gunvolt games. The forms in ZX were good and all, but not enough to carry the games by themselves. Everything else felt like a step back from Zero. The characters wasn’t as engaging, all the running around finding stages and doing side-quests felt time-wasting, and you couldn’t customize nearly as much as you could in Zero. Gunvolt felt really refreshing, but I wasn’t a fan of how speedrun encouraging the stages was, and not towards challenging level design. The bosses where fun, but also too flashy. Sometimes I got hit because I couldn’t see what’s going on.
@@niclaswa5408 Mega man ZX has a good chunk of customizing and adaptability with how play each one of them, and they can use the overdrive mode where you get acess to a powered form with new techniques, besides ZX's utility.
Review would have been better if you focused on talking about the game instead of your struggles with adequately playing through and reviewing the game and blaming it on the time you don't have/make for the game while ironically filling up said time with complaints on the schedule you decided for yourself for other games, of Which have no affect on the actual quality of the game in question . The average person does exist and it's good to look out for them but thinking a little more about it you might just find that the average person likely won't binge all of the games in a row for a TH-cam video on a time limit because of a self inflicted schedule. They'll enjoy it at their own pace or not at all.
here's the thing, I've always found the passive yet very close-ended timing, counting your strikes and when to really strike it, as very satisfying. I love megaman and zero presents a gameplay loop that makes a lot of sense to me. I've always loved more passive gameplay were I grind my teeth and take my opportunities and win. I feel like megaman zero's movement, design, and gameplay loop are very satisfying and don't need to be completely looked into to be enjoyed. Sure taking the extra step does help with enjoyment of this game but stepping back and just grinding through a difficult yet largely skill based game is really fun to me. that's all really
I loved the open world exploration in MMZ1. Not a lot of people realize it, but most of the stages are interconnected and between missions you can leave the base and explore the different areas. As you progress through the game, some open up, some become closed off, and some have their layout/terrain altered by story events .
@@dreamcastdazia4753 you can't say any game is objectively good. An no, 3/4 of the Zero games are dog water. Poorly designed Mechanics, unnecessarily cruel difficulty and some of the crappiest level design. Zero 3 is pretty good because it feels forgiving and fun to jump in and play. The mega man X Games (X1, X2, X4) have much more focused level design, bosses that are challenging but fair and the difficulty overall is a lot more balanced
@@ultrarising2983 X1, X4 and X8 are good. 2 and 3 are aggressively mid. X5 is mediocre. X6 and X7 are poo Zero 1 is alright, Zero 2 is good, Zero 3 is a masterpiece, zero 4 is amazing. And the zero games have a better plot.
it's not that everything is reactable on paper, it's that quite literally everything is telegraphed before it happens and if you didn't catch it the first time look at them again, ie actually take your eyes off zero during a boss fight rarely do you need to know where he is on screen so long as he isn't within immediate striking range.
I don't like saying "get gud", since it's generally a shit argument, but when you're literally jumping into the same enemy over and over...just fucking stop. This is certified "stop hitting your self" moment. The games aren't THAT hard and no I'm not a speed runner and I didn't play the games multible times. You just have to stop for a moment sometimes and look around. Every enemy you dash jumped into can be easily avoided if you just DON'T BLINDLY DASH JUMP OFF SCREEN.
2 years late, but I entirely agree. The main reason I enjoyed z1 was because I realized really quickly that I couldn’t play it like it was mega man X. I played slow, and only dashed in combat, and it made the game much easier.
I'd like to chime in and say that the score system is an integral part to why I loved the series. I didn't have a lot of games growing up, so the ones I did have I would play over and over again unless it was something long like an RPG. And even then I'd still play through those at least a few times, SMRPG and FF7 for instance. But I did have Mega Man games, and I played 2+3 on the NES with my father most likely thousands of times taking years to beat them. And by the time I got an SNES with MMX, I could beat MM2 or 3 in a single sitting. I was probably around 6-7 at the time. Fast forward to the GBA era, I saw a classmate playing MMZ on a school bus trip. I had no idea handheld Mega Man games existed and they let me play it. It was incredibly hard, but I'd been there and done that. I never had the first game myself, but got Z2 as a gift soon after that experience. I'd play it over and over and over again, aiming to get to that perfect score. It always let me know how to improve based on the score, it was essential to my experience with the game. And while I completely understand that it is brutal and locks out elements of the game and how extremely flawed that is by design to the majority of players, it's what I loved to do. I already played the NES games by that point as buster only runs, how hard could playing through Z2 without elves really be. My experience with Z3 was pretty much the same as MMZ. Except this was at a sleepover and I played through it all in one night and pushed for S rank at minimum. I ended up unlocking the Ciel minigame at the end and had a blast playing that until everyone else woke up lol. That friend eventually ended up gifting me that cartridge which is a wonderful memory. That was a long spiel, but I really wanted to voice just how important games that trend towards mastery are to me. And for me it peaked with the Zero series. Nowadays I mostly play fighting games and rpgs, but it's because it's getting harder and harder to find 2D platformers that fit that niche I'm looking for.
Even though advent isnt looked upon very fondly, It pains me that it'll never get the chance it deserves to flesh out its characters and world out in the forever in limbo ZX3. While most of its good or interesting story beats ended up being contingent on previous megaman titles, I think there was bottomless potential for improvement. I can only hope that when capcom is done doing whatever the fuck they planned on following up megaman 11 with, they give it another look.
"Zero 2 is probably someone's favorite, but I don't know who that is" I'll give you an example, me. Also Zero 4 is the easiest??? Nah, I ain't gonna try and correct that
You can burn the leaves for Burble Hekelot, you made it harder for yourself and earlier in the same level you can burn the trees so you should've put 2 and 2 together, plants burn
There’s a difference between learning boss attacks to punish, and trying to use i-frames to get through and complain the games are bad. I played them for the first time a few months ago and absolutely fell in love. Bosses all have like 5 attacks at most and for the most part they’re orchestrated well enough that you should only get hit the first few times. I understand some of the level design is very flawed which I’ll give you that but just about everything else in this review seems half assed. Pretty bad review if I’m honest.
9:45 Weird, because the conflict isn't really about humans oppressing reploids - It's reploids oppressing other reploids because of the energy crisis. That is why Ciel wanted to come up with the new energy souce
15:45 that's the real x and not copy x. If you're reviewing, you're not very good at what you're doing. I think that people should keep quiet about things that they don't know much about, instead of saying false things.
It kinda feels like you are projecting your own failure at playing the game as a issue with the games design. When you say that the game encourages you to play safe and held back, you show no arguments besides "it's safer". Like, you can use that argument for almost any action game, so what is the criticism here??? Yeah it's safer but it's boring that's a choice YOU, THE PLAYER, makes, not one the game does. Like when mention the boss fights in Zero 2, you mention a strategy you came up for every boss and talks like the game encourages you to fight like that, but that this strategies aren't fun to use. Did it not pass through your mind to try a diferent strategy??? I never seen anyone fights those bosses like that, and there's probably a reason for it. Again, it feels like you didn't enjoy the games because you purposefully try to fight them in a way you won't enjoy.
I know it's been long, but the worst thing is that this person just refused to upgrade his health with the specific Cyber Elfes. His defensive options would be so much better if he just found like 4 of them and upgraded them.
I remember playing Zero 1 it was hard and unforgiving. Could never beat Aztec Falcon. Fast forward to a more seasoned and confident gamer playing the collection on DS and I hit the same walls and never picked again. This and Mega Man & Bass for GBA are the bain of my gaming life.
Nice video, very entertaining! It was quite interesting to hear your opinions on these games and I think the skits you put in between are really well done. Your style of videos are always fun to watch and I hope you had just as much fun getting the footage and making the video. Have a nice rest of your day!
Imagine my fun as a young elementary school student, having beaten MMX once or twice, playing Zero 1 for the first time. It was instantly hooked, fantastic theme change. Loved it. But I absolutely got wrecked literally every time
alot of the time it isn't about perfect reactions to 50/50 chances, it's about putting yourself in a position where you'll be prepared for either attack. timing your dash from the right center so that if he drops he drops behind you and you just have to not jump off the wall, or if he rolls you have enough time to jump afterwards and using the leaves to figure out when that will be.
Choosing to play in a way that isn't fun ("laming out" bosses) because you "don't want to waste time" is really bizarre and counterproductive. You're choosing to turn the entire game into a waste of time. Just say you don't like the game instead of giving me this weird tortured "logic". Also really bizarre to suggest that the game wants you to be in melee combat just because the melee weapon is stronger than the ranged weapon. Obviously if the long-range weapon did as much damage as the melee weapon, the melee weapon would be worthless. Like, Bro, YOU HAVE A GUN. You don't have to be passive, just shoot the guy lol.
Perhaps playing from zero 4, 3, 2 then 1 may have made the playing experience easier While the understanding the story may have suffered And while i know megaman zero is hard, is the community around it sounds a lot more painful for you then usual...
32:00 Model HX isn't considered the best just because of its utility, it's the best because of its utility, _and the fact it has the highest DPS in the game._ Its tornado sheers off an entire HP bar, and properly learning the combo system allows you to kill bosses in seconds. Even without learning the combo system properly, that tornado alone will destroy any boss that isn't Ice element aligned.
18:49 breaks my heart that the persona videos didn't do well. I found it to be some of your most enjoyable content. More than maitaining youtube numbers and plaques or patreon funding, I hope you can maintain your sense of self (and sanity) throughout this journey of exploring and critiquing games.
KBash, just want to say I appreciate you. Every video is a treasure. Something you're finding out for the first time, or revisiting because you want to. It's always fun to be along for the ride. Just keep doing what you're doing, as long as you're enjoying it and still making that dough. I'm always down to see whatever pops up from your feed next.
I remember being so angered by the Desert level of Zero 1 that I physically mapped it out, so I'd never forget where the annoying stuff was. Great times for kid me.
I’ve played zero 1 a ton and it’s a lot of fun to play but almost everything else is ROUGH in a lot of ways (level ups, rankings, cyber elfs, the lives system)
I really appreciate how intelectual and comprehensive your videos get, it sets them apart. I’ve always loved megaman but really knew nothing about these, so I’ll have to check some out
I'm really glad kbash is starting to get the recognition he deserves. I don't remember when I subscribed, but I knew from the first episode I watched that kbash was smarter than me and deserved more acknowledgement for his hard work.
What you said about Cyber Elfes taking extreme numbers of crystals to upgrade just a tiny bit of health, only applies to Zero 1. It's way more reasonable in Zero 2 and 3, I don't think I ever had to grind in those games
Can't believe you made a video about my childhood game. The MegaMan series which made the person of who I am today. But yeah, MMZ was one of the best games I played, the story was dark but yet action-packed. My favorite MMZ is MM3 and MM4. I really want Capcom to take the opportunity and make a Zelda BOTW style type of MMZ game. Just imagine an open world MMZ5!
I came for a Megaman Zero Review, I instead came out with a person complaining about the type of beat the TH-cam is doing to a person and how that might be leading to said person just not enjoying their work.... as much as how it helps him discover stuff. There's a side of me that wants to say, he should take rest and just enjoy a game uninvolved with Work for awhile. But I know he cant cause TH-cam Scheduling and the nature of his work. Edit: Side Note: Man this Review was terrible compared to the KH One or Nier or Even the Persona Ones.... it legit feels like Kbash is making this for a Job then Passion and It Sounds so Dreary...
Indeed. These games have a lot of excellent mechanics and depth that reward replays. The reason that these games are so fantastic is the ranking system combined with the brutal difficulty. Mastering the game and being able to zoom through it and tear apart everything in your path with tech and combos feels fantastic because you've had your teeth kicked in a few times to get to that point.
ZX was the first Megaman game I’ve ever played, so it was pretty weird, yet fascinating going back to play the Zero games with no biometal gameplay, and seeing all the characters that were based off of said biometals in their prime.
god this video is making me hope you cover Battle Network one day. Zero and BN were my childhood so this video was like a slap of nostalgia in my subbox. Keep up the amazing work!
I can't even beat Mega Man X games, and when I attempted Mega Man Zero I never made it past the first boss. Always seemed like there was cool stuff in there, but the barrier for entry is just too high for me.
Ironically, the first boss was incredibly easy after I got how one is meant to take it on, as in only one attack could actually hit and potentially kill me. I expected the whole game to be like that and was then spooked by how genuinely unapproachable the next few bosses felt and just gave up because I did not want to use save states. And I'm glad I did because some of the later fights looked genuinely miserable(even with infinite checkpoints) when I looked them up online, not even factoring in the bossrush. And I was playing the GBA version where dying meant a free trip to the beginning of the stage.
Man, I've never considered how much trouble you might have when you produce your videos. To be honest, you are probably among my top 3 channels, and that means whenever I see a new video uploaded, I rush into watching it till the very last patreon suporter name. Thank you for such nice content, mate.
I remember playing the Zero series a decade ago and enjoying them but I also sure used save states via emulation at the time and never used cyberelves because I felt bad about lowering rank/the fact they die from use in lore and so now I just go "dang how would I play and feel about these games now". I still appreciate the memories I have of them though, and it's nice that 3 and 4 at least still have good things going for them.
I actually really enjoy the difficulty in the mega man zero games, I specially remember enjoying staying hours to get past the first stage and the grind that took that essentially forced me to play in a half-perfect way, It's like the atmosophere and difficulty really added up to the grim level of tension and the level of immersion just peaked, every victory was earned and satisfying. It had a weird effect when playing it again the game felt like the easiest thing ever.
Azure Striker Gunvolt as a spiritual successor definitely gets annoying with the "this game is only enjoyable as a speedrunner" stuff the game is either too easy aside from true ending and a few bosses before that when for true ending you finally have to disable prevasion, or you're going for high score no hits taken speedruns, no real inbetween, prevasion and the game being balanced around either "prevasion easy mode, no prevasion hard mode" with no inbetween ruined it for me
I mean you could just....disable prevasion from the start lmfao, if you already do it from the start it's not that extreme of a jump in difficulty, and nothing changes when you do go for the true ending
MMZ2 is one of my all time favorites. I loved the speed. I S ranked the whole game back when I was a kid. I still remember the day my mom bought me this with mega man and bass. Another favorite.
Love your work as usual KBash. This is the first time I've disagreed with your take on a game I played when I was younger, I loved 1-3 and found 4 unengaging. But then again, they got me at the right age. With an emulator. That had a save/load function...
Man, massive ups for your self awareness. Really respect your thoughts and your willingness to try new things. Your output is unreal, but whatever you do, at least I'll always watch it.
Megaman zero 2 is one of my childhood favorite games... i cannot defend it in anyway... but that game made me cry... not because of difficulty... because of story, still love it to this day! Had to comment immediately as you said "it's probably some ones favorite, but i don't know who that is." Because now you know who that is :)
Something I would like to note regarding ZXA's voice acting, the collection uses the original voice line recordings, before being compressed, for both games (ZX1 had JP only voice acting). Something about the compression process they had for the original DS version did a pretty decent job of masking the accents, except for Grey's. Grey's voice is an unfortunate case of good character, good lines, VA recognized for previous work, in this case, X7. This is the first time I've heard complaint's over Ashe's voice, which is actually interesting to hear after years of "omg whiny x is grey" nonstop. Wonder if they'll revive that ZX3 project someday?
Aw, I missed the contemplative, introspective monologue at the end, but still awesome video. I only ever played 3, and really enjoyed it, seeing this video made me feel like I was playing it again
I count the Zero series as my favorite platformers of all time, and y 'know what? I don't think your criticisms are unfair. Sucks you didn't enjoy them as much as I did, but I understand completely why you didn't. These games can be aggressively alienating and difficult to get into. They're all dear to me in specific ways, and I think once it clicked with me, few things could really match it. I love speeding through the levels and shooting for higher grades in them. Its like a platformer Devil May Cry to me. But that does not make them particularly intuitive. I've tried to get some of my friends into the games and they both bounced off of it in the first game. I'm glad the story mostly was a success with you for the Zero games. I've always held those games to have the best story of any Mega Man series, and its cool to see that element work for someone who didn't click with most of the games as much as me. Small side note, oddly Elpizo is my favorite villain in these games. He reads really tragic to me, like he was pushed by desperation and anger to attack Neo Arcadia hastily, putting blood on his hands that drives him nuts. His dialog in the last cutscene makes it sound like he's authentically come by the mentality of Sigma without being influenced by a virus. And the prospect that this was underlying his actions the entire time I think says a lot about the state of the world in the Zero games and how messed up everything is. (The Dark Elf stuff is explained pretty badly, though. I think because there were like, Japan-only audio dramas that go into it more. Really wish they'd have been more clear about that stuff in-game.)
Another thing: You're absolutely right about the story of ZX. Just feels like such a regression after the really definitive, heartbreaking conclusion 4 has. I do kinda like those games, but the story was a huge drop-off point for me when I started playing these games in my teens and I was past my childhood feelings of "WOW COOL! MEGA MAN POWER RANGERS!"
I love how copy X is such a simple idea yet works so well and Elpizo i hated him at the start of the game he was seemed so overconfident, then the attack on neo arcadia failed and i felt really bad for him then he became a villian and i still felt sorry for him.....then he killed X....Overall he is a very tragic character(im still upset that he killed X tho lol)
Great vid! I played all the games as a teen, I guess I forgot how hyper-hard they were. I'm disappointed you didn't comment on the sweet death animation of robots sliced by the saber.
You gotta stop worrying about comments yelling at you for enjoying what you like. You decided to make your opinions public (which are good by the way) and clearly you know how people would react, don't bother repeating it. I know it's your job and it kinda depends on your audience's appreciation for the opinions, but you're fine.
Could've harped on minor nitpicks I found with the video (e.g. "Copy X wasn't stabbed by Elpizo, that was the Original X who's body had sealed the Dark Elf") but honestly it doesn't really matter. You're coming in with the mindset of a casual player looking for some fun, and that's extremely fair. A lot of gameplay/ plot elements aren't mentioned in game and require external explanations, like what happened to the Guardians after Zero 3, or just about every single Cyber Elf mechanic and how to make the best use of them. Zero 1, 2 and 3 in particular do rely on the X series for a lot of context (specifically X1-X5) and I can see how they won't really vibe with newcomers who didn't experience those titles first. With that nonsense out of the way, I do agree with just about everything you said about Z4 though. And thank you for commenting on the great boss designs, the Eight Gentle Judges are still some of the best Mega Man bosses in the series' history.
i feel like a lot of the complaints here are just skill issues entirely especially with the zero 1 review. complaints about the bosses needing memorization is like a key design philosophy of every mega man game lol. it also seems that you just haphazardly damage boost through a lot of stuff? which is not how you’re supposed to play at all and i don’t think is encouraged in any mega man game. zero 1 really just takes other mega man concepts and expands upon them which is fine to criticize on z1’s behalf but these complaints are very general and don’t specifically tie to z1. the “not having a lot of options” thing is also prevalent in like every other mega man. you start off with just your main weapon and then go from there. even then zero has way more options available at the beginning than other mega man games.
I don't think this guy knows what he's talking about. Or that he's just speaking opinions. Look at how he calls the original x "copy x" when he arrives at the final battle in zero2. He's really not good at what he's doing.
The zero series is definitely a weird experience. Takes up to a year to “get gud” but when you eventually gain that skill playing any of them with graceful flow feels euphoric. Kinda like watching games done quick
uh... i think you way overstate the difficulty of zero 1. Its not THAT hard. Not even looking at this from an "elitist" standpoint. It was even a requirement to not use any fairies while getting all to get a secret fairy (which was required for Ultimate mode, not sure if that's still a thing for the rerelease). Sure enemies coming out from outside the screen can be bad, but that's normal for games with short levels. You are suppose to learn the enemy layout and get S ranks. Its built for replayability. They were even nice enough to give you an infinite respawning tower enemy in the first level so you can grind for weapon levels if you wanted. How is that "remembering boss patterns" not good design? That's how boss fights should be. If they have a random pattern, you anticipate for the worst and play around it. It seems like a basic thing. I mean sure if you just want to feel powerful and overpower bosses, sure that may not be a playstyle you like but that's every megaman game (outside of going for weaknesses, then it suddenly makes most bosses a joke).
Somebody takes Dunkeys opinions on Video Games seriously? But he is a comedian first and anything else second so there is literally no point ever to take him seriously even when he tries to.
So some Zero lore for anyone who cares and doesn't know:
1) Elpizo doesn't destroy Copy X. That's actually the REAL Megaman X's body. He used himself to seal the Dark Elf away several years before the first game, essentially being the lock to it's cell. His "soul" (basically a cyber-elf) helps Zero in the first 3 games, before he dies for real in 3.
2) The Dark Elf was originally the "Mother Elf", created to defeat Sigma (the main bad guy from the original X games), specifically the Sigma/Maverick Virus.
3) Dr. Weil isn't Dr. Wily. He LOOKS like him, but it's two different people. Weil is the one who corrupted and turned the Mother Elf into the Dark Elf (out of spite: the government denied his idea to mind-control reploids to counter the Maverick Virus, while X wanted to make the Mother Elf.)
The feeling of becoming efficient with zeros tools and movement is one of the best feelings
Yeah. I'll probably never play it again, but mmzero was probably the first game that made me think "I'm really good at this" growing up.
@@AStrangeWindmill hahaha same but that day of revisiting will come for all of us
@@AStrangeWindmill ha yea for me the hardest megaman games were 5) Battle network series 4) classic megaman 3) Megaman & bass 2) Megaman X series 1) Megaman zero
It reminds me of the nes times, and frankly I'm here for it
Zero 4 was one of the first times a game made me feel sad about a video game character.
Dude same
X's death hit me pretty hard as well. It's even better according to the audio drama when his last words to zero are "Zero, I will go on living . . together with all of you !!"
The thing with repeating the cutscene constantly is because you have the checkpoints on, in the old game if you already died to the boss and enter the room there are no cutscenes
No true. The cutscenes still plays no matter if you used checkpoints or not. In Zero 1 that is.
Zero 1 doesn't have skips and they weren't added in the collection.
Guys, you can press start to skip the cutscenes... God damn it.
@edsonsouzaneto6251 You can't skip cutscenes in Zero 1 or 2.
you can! I'm playing through the collection right now and start/+ work to skip intro dialogue even in 1!
I’ve never been a “get good” gamer but the amount of times I vocally reacted during this video lol. Every time Kbash dashed to the wall in the Frog Boss, I was like “if you died enough times, then you know the wall isn’t safe. Why are you dashing jumping into the wall!”
Yeah these critiques were literally “i dont like playing platformers”.
Exhibit A: “boss fights are hard and the bosses had multiple attacks they randomly scrolled through. Because i couldnt beat them the first time i had to learn what they did by dying multiple times until i was good enough to win the battle.” Like bro… have you ever played a video game before?
@@Pharoah2 Yeah, it really feels like he gave Z4 so much of a pass just because it was the one he played when he was younger and had more of a tolerance for actually learning the levels as opposed to the game being that much easier.
EDIT: Okay so I did feel this way at the time, but if you're seeing this comment now, the following is not true of KBash's content anymore. I feel he's become much better about this and many other issues over time. Just like someone should be critiqued fairly, I think they should be praised for improving- so that's me doing that here and now. Good work KBash, you do great stuff!
"I liked the review overall, as I do with your reviews in general so far- but one thing is that you seem... strangely embarrassed by sincerity? A villain explaining their worldview isn't always supposed to make you relate to them- half the time it's done to do the opposite. The "Selfish Myopic Old Man" trope found in the classic Chinese Mojun vs Minjun "defeat your awful old master" trope is a celebrated tradition for a reason. Some people just become deranged and terrible, and that's a valid villain archetype too."
Yeah agreed. Learning of Weil’s origins in 3 and 4 puts his dialogue scenes into context and solidifies a different and maybe even more interesting not trope, but trope inversion.
Rather than a good soul getting wrongfully cast out of somewhere and having to clear their name, a common protagonist setup, Weil is an outcast in exile but for warcrimes and cruelty. He’s not out to clear his name but has been subjected to near-immortality and can do nothing but wander wastelands beyond civilization, suffering but never dying. So he chooses to claw his way back towards where he was cast out of, but in this case in the name of inflicting indiscriminate pain on both humanity and Reploids alike.
I wouldn’t say he’s nuanced at all which is maybe what KBash was making fun of him on the whole for, but I think Weil manages to be something interesting and very hate-able all the same.
Not to mention that he marks the first and last time in the whole series that a human villain doesn’t get to hide behind the “you can’t kill a human” defense, within this series canon they basically would have to write a truly vile (lol) b***rd to warrant such a break in convention. Hence why Weil is what he is: raw unfiltered hatred and malice, not very nuanced but adequate to justify his fate and the weight that entails within this series.
@@zeromythosver. Exactly! That's what makes them perfect rivals- not nuanced and interesting character writing, but their significance to the plot, and the world overall. Zero started life as a murderous weapon who, after gaining lucidity, chose to more or less follow the Rules of Robotics of his own volition... while Weil is a human who takes the assumption of innocent humanity those rules for written for, and stamps it into the dirt. They're outliers in the philosophies of Dr. Light and their conflict represents the nuances in that philosophy as it's applied.
Honestly I think that kbash is speaking a matter of opinions seriously. To seriously understand the story and characters you have to check the audio drama. For instance, gamewise only elpizo may seem like he only suffers from inferiority complex and wants to be a glorios hero, but according to the drama cd he was exposed to the archives of the elf wars found in zero3 and apparently them being machines, the digital archives can be uploaded to their electronic brain circuits. As a result he suffered from identity crisis and falsely believed he was supposed to be a messiah who was supposed to save reploids.
That became apparent in his Persona reviews. Every time a character was expressing themself for who they are he had to needlessly chime in with the childish overractions.
A character expressing themselves doesn't mean the game wants you to agree or sympathize, it's literally just a character expressing their characteristics... Like in persona 5 where he somehow thinks Ann is supposed to be relatable because Hot+Girl+Model+Fashionable instead of... you know, what the text tells us? That she's relatable because she struggles with her own view of herself and how she failed in the past?
Honestly the big reason I'm still watching his videos is because of the once-in-a-while actual good takes and the fact that he's one of the only people making long-form content about old games I want to nostalgiaze about.
this guys gets off on hating on anything so I'm not surprised lmao
It's so weird to me that Capcom apparently announced recently that ZX3 was canceled.
Its been 15 years and Inti Creates went off and basically made their own spin-off MegaMan Zero with Gunvolt. I think most people figured that ZX3 was dead at this point.
It was Inti Creates that said it. I wish we could at least see what ZXC had, since we at least had A LITTLE concept art for SF4
Unh no, you are the one that got the message wrong. It was Inti Creates who said in a livestream that a third ZX game was well in development but it was ultimately cancelled. That's it. No an announcement, no nothing, it wasn't even from capcom, hence your confusion. And as the comment said, the guys from Inti Creates were also pretty adamant about the name being ZXC and not ZX3.... like, who cares... .you didn't even make the fucking game anyways, nobody is gonna call by your shitty name that never came up lol
My lord Capcom should just let them finish it up and release it alongside a possible X9 announcement Capcom has been playing it to safe and hearing that zx3 was being made And canceled dissapoints me it would catch more attention especially if put on switch
That's still fucking stupid.😠😆
I see nearly nothing's improved at Capcom when it comes to cancellations.
Don't worry guys
ZX/Legends 3 will totally gonna be the 35th anniversary Megaman game!
...right?
Here's a late tip: you can dash underneath projectiles and electric wires. Your dash is not invincibility, but it lowers your hitbox to a crouch.
Hurtbox
Something not brought up in the review: some of the best music in the entire Mega Man series. The intro to Zero 2, “Departure” is still one of my all time favorite pieces of video game music.
Sidenote: I’m one of the absolute weirdos who love these games enough to speed run them. A perspective from a relatively new player to the franchise is always interesting to see!
I wish I could add something more insightful to this comment. But I just agree flat out. The remastered tracks have a special place in my heart and "Departure"(followed by Awakening Will which is just a melancholic remix) is king among those tracks. I remember as a kid just leaving my SP running on that intro stage just to listen to that track.
Megaman zero series soundtrack in general is great
Cannonball is one the best final boss themes of all time and I will fight people on that.
@@GoldLight73 Falling Down is pretty GOATed as well
I have mixed thoughts on zero soundtracks. When it's good it's really good. Othertimes I found it repetitive.
40:43 IF you were paying attention to the dialogue You'd know that's not copy x lmao
That's THE X who's holding the dark elf at bay from being released. Pretty important plot point mentioned quite a few times in the game. His ghost shows up in 3 as well which is kind of a weird plotpoint.
Fun fact: ZX Advent's "easy and normal" difficulty modes were originally named "normal and hard" but were changed in localization
So... Easy was originally normal?
Eeeugh
Oh for fucks sake not another Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
To be fair they did the same all the way back to megaman 2
@@aokyoutsuki7744 and that's what we call setting the tone.
Yep
These bosses look sooo cool! You're right there really needs to be a fighting game for this.
Imagine having to memorize their names though XD and I say that as someone who actually has and can name them on sight
A mega man game with all bosses and main characters through out the entire mega man franchise would be cool.
I played and finished all of the Zero games except the first lemme tell you it feel SOO GOOD when you finally no damage a boss with saber only and get that Sweet S rank
@@convergeman7825 Bet you can't name them off hints I'll give you four boss. Lizard, Reindeer, Horse, Dog (bonus Beetle the one from Enemy Hall)
I want a fighting game of the zero series of only the main characters. Zero, copy x, the guardians, elpizo, omega, craft, and weil as a final boss. Maybe add x as a secret character.
I LOVE the Zero Series! It's super underrated no one talks about it!
They do. but it's just been like 16 years since the last entry so we kind of move on to other games after so many years but never forget it.
Hey dude, it's okay. Every line of work, and I really mean, everyone, tends to become monotonous and grinding. Still, you make great videos. Thanks for your hard work.
He could just get a real job
He could definitely get a real job.
@@Norse art is a real job. As is art analysis
@@sirrealism7300 art is a real job. As is art analysis
@@mgalusic creating things is a job. analyzing things can be a job. This is neither.
Its not wasting time geez, its improving. Its like saying that losing a game in a sport is wasting time.
Everyone doesn't see it that way. right?
If your enjoying the game, then improving is fine. if you aren't enjoying it, it's a chore and bothersome. People improve cause they actively like what they are doing and want to get better at it. But when you don't, it's like your coach or parent dragging you through the mud. Yeah you got better but you hated every second of it
Zero games appeals to a certain audience and if you don't like that, yeah, too bad. I don't think it's invalid to have an unpopular opinon. I love zero games btw my favorite on gba. it's understandable to a degree
No, they are right about it not being a waste of time if you're too lazy to complete the game you bought that's your personal problem not the games when the majority of people who play the game want to beat it,and the Games give you some extra content for completion that makes it easier, KB said themselves that the games were made to be more difficult .
@@SOULETRED it's like finishing something you hate versus something you like. You still put effort into finishing both but you'll be better at the thing you *like* doing. That's my point. It's a chore to finish games or parts of games when it's just tedious. I'm just assuming you beat the game even if you hated it
If you didn't then I agree. But if you beat games and didn't like parts of it for valid reasons then I wouldn't call that laziness. Not your cup of tea more like
Always been quite fond of ZX, despite the shortcomings it felt like a love letter to the franchise after Z4, and the little things tying the story together are pretty nice. Blessed be Prairie
Advent tho... it sure is a game that exists.
Nah, Advent is fun as hell.
@@MiyaoMeow588 better than ZX in many ways, and also a love letter to what came before, even connecting to legends (supposedly).
I actually prefer Advent to ZX, never understood why people don't like it
Hey K-bash. I love your videos, they're all amazing and this one was no exception. Social media can be pretty rough but your channel is one with exceptional quality. When I started following you (don't remember exactly how long ago, maybe about a year), you were at around 15-20k subscribers and I couldn't fathom such a high quality channel had so (relatively) few followers. At 100k now, seems like your work is paving its results. That is to say, you don't owe anyone an explanation for how you play your games or whether or not you enjoy them (as fun as it might be). Your honest input, your impeccable writing, your amazing personality, your really interesting insight, and your high-quality editing are what has driven you so far, and will continue to drive you. You don't need to be a pro speedrunner or a gaming encyclopedia. Thank you for doing what you do.
I'm not a long time viewer but I also felt like kbash defending himself preemptively felt unessisary. It seems like the games and the community around them this time around were unreasonably harsh! I've played all of these except zero 4 and I think this was a totally fair analysis. I only got through them with them help of walkthroughs and all the free time I had as a mid teen lol.
Great stuff as ever. Zero 4 and 1 were the favorites I played to death as a kid but you're right, it feels like the intended way to enjoy these games is to get beaten into submission memorising the layout. That said, mechanically the whole series has this one thing that still irritates me from the main x series where some boss attacks become functionally unavoidable spreads if you're in *the wrong place* onscreen during the brief neutral state between boss moves. For whatever reason I never really clicked with the DS sequels or the gunvolt games - they have the wild visual designs and speed, but there's a weird sort of loose, floppiness to them under a mountain of probably deep systems that seems somehow less immediate.
I agree. I replayed the Zero games over and over and over again, while only a couple times with the ZX and Gunvolt games. The forms in ZX were good and all, but not enough to carry the games by themselves. Everything else felt like a step back from Zero. The characters wasn’t as engaging, all the running around finding stages and doing side-quests felt time-wasting, and you couldn’t customize nearly as much as you could in Zero.
Gunvolt felt really refreshing, but I wasn’t a fan of how speedrun encouraging the stages was, and not towards challenging level design. The bosses where fun, but also too flashy. Sometimes I got hit because I couldn’t see what’s going on.
@@niclaswa5408 Mega man ZX has a good chunk of customizing and adaptability with how play each one of them, and they can use the overdrive mode where you get acess to a powered form with new techniques, besides ZX's utility.
Review would have been better if you focused on talking about the game instead of your struggles with adequately playing through and reviewing the game and blaming it on the time you don't have/make for the game while ironically filling up said time with complaints on the schedule you decided for yourself for other games, of Which have no affect on the actual quality of the game in question . The average person does exist and it's good to look out for them but thinking a little more about it you might just find that the average person likely won't binge all of the games in a row for a TH-cam video on a time limit because of a self inflicted schedule. They'll enjoy it at their own pace or not at all.
Great comment! Pretty much what I was thinking.
Dude is so noob that he said that COPY X was stabbed by ELPIZO during the Ygdrassil finale...
KBash has been going hard so far this year.
“Man copes with his terrible hand eye coordination for 40 minutes well trying to deflect any criticism by calling it *dehumanizing*”
here's the thing, I've always found the passive yet very close-ended timing, counting your strikes and when to really strike it, as very satisfying. I love megaman and zero presents a gameplay loop that makes a lot of sense to me. I've always loved more passive gameplay were I grind my teeth and take my opportunities and win. I feel like megaman zero's movement, design, and gameplay loop are very satisfying and don't need to be completely looked into to be enjoyed. Sure taking the extra step does help with enjoyment of this game but stepping back and just grinding through a difficult yet largely skill based game is really fun to me. that's all really
I loved the open world exploration in MMZ1. Not a lot of people realize it, but most of the stages are interconnected and between missions you can leave the base and explore the different areas. As you progress through the game, some open up, some become closed off, and some have their layout/terrain altered by story events .
Megaman Zero is pretty cool, I haven’t played any of them since I was like 7 but I remember it being cool
Very meaningful comment
@@zayxen9346 lmao
They are the best Megaman games objectively
@@dreamcastdazia4753 you can't say any game is objectively good. An no, 3/4 of the Zero games are dog water. Poorly designed Mechanics, unnecessarily cruel difficulty and some of the crappiest level design. Zero 3 is pretty good because it feels forgiving and fun to jump in and play. The mega man X Games (X1, X2, X4) have much more focused level design, bosses that are challenging but fair and the difficulty overall is a lot more balanced
@@ultrarising2983 X1, X4 and X8 are good. 2 and 3 are aggressively mid. X5 is mediocre. X6 and X7 are poo
Zero 1 is alright, Zero 2 is good, Zero 3 is a masterpiece, zero 4 is amazing. And the zero games have a better plot.
it's not that everything is reactable on paper, it's that quite literally everything is telegraphed before it happens and if you didn't catch it the first time look at them again, ie actually take your eyes off zero during a boss fight rarely do you need to know where he is on screen so long as he isn't within immediate striking range.
I don't like saying "get gud", since it's generally a shit argument, but when you're literally jumping into the same enemy over and over...just fucking stop.
This is certified "stop hitting your self" moment.
The games aren't THAT hard and no I'm not a speed runner and I didn't play the games multible times. You just have to stop for a moment sometimes and look around. Every enemy you dash jumped into can be easily avoided if you just DON'T BLINDLY DASH JUMP OFF SCREEN.
2 years late, but I entirely agree. The main reason I enjoyed z1 was because I realized really quickly that I couldn’t play it like it was mega man X. I played slow, and only dashed in combat, and it made the game much easier.
People should stop marathoning series if they can't avoid burnout bias.
Zero story still the best however
Right and then it effects the other reviews like this one…
I've never actually sat through someone's Patreon name listing but god that was funny, good one
I'd like to chime in and say that the score system is an integral part to why I loved the series. I didn't have a lot of games growing up, so the ones I did have I would play over and over again unless it was something long like an RPG. And even then I'd still play through those at least a few times, SMRPG and FF7 for instance. But I did have Mega Man games, and I played 2+3 on the NES with my father most likely thousands of times taking years to beat them. And by the time I got an SNES with MMX, I could beat MM2 or 3 in a single sitting. I was probably around 6-7 at the time.
Fast forward to the GBA era, I saw a classmate playing MMZ on a school bus trip. I had no idea handheld Mega Man games existed and they let me play it. It was incredibly hard, but I'd been there and done that. I never had the first game myself, but got Z2 as a gift soon after that experience. I'd play it over and over and over again, aiming to get to that perfect score. It always let me know how to improve based on the score, it was essential to my experience with the game.
And while I completely understand that it is brutal and locks out elements of the game and how extremely flawed that is by design to the majority of players, it's what I loved to do. I already played the NES games by that point as buster only runs, how hard could playing through Z2 without elves really be.
My experience with Z3 was pretty much the same as MMZ. Except this was at a sleepover and I played through it all in one night and pushed for S rank at minimum. I ended up unlocking the Ciel minigame at the end and had a blast playing that until everyone else woke up lol. That friend eventually ended up gifting me that cartridge which is a wonderful memory.
That was a long spiel, but I really wanted to voice just how important games that trend towards mastery are to me. And for me it peaked with the Zero series. Nowadays I mostly play fighting games and rpgs, but it's because it's getting harder and harder to find 2D platformers that fit that niche I'm looking for.
Cool story!
Megaman Zero is a very questionable game to me during my childhood. I always keep wondering why I always play it whenever I am bored.
This franchise will always live in our hearts.
7:45 you can skip intro dialogue with the start button...
Even though advent isnt looked upon very fondly, It pains me that it'll never get the chance it deserves to flesh out its characters and world out in the forever in limbo ZX3. While most of its good or interesting story beats ended up being contingent on previous megaman titles, I think there was bottomless potential for improvement. I can only hope that when capcom is done doing whatever the fuck they planned on following up megaman 11 with, they give it another look.
"Zero 2 is probably someone's favorite, but I don't know who that is"
I'll give you an example, me. Also Zero 4 is the easiest??? Nah, I ain't gonna try and correct that
Z4 did feel like the easiest to me, though maybe its because i had to beat Z1, 2 and 3 to get there 😂
You can burn the leaves for Burble Hekelot, you made it harder for yourself and earlier in the same level you can burn the trees so you should've put 2 and 2 together, plants burn
The ZX series has always been my favorite, purely because shape shifting in games is like _crack_ to me. *TRANSFORRRRRRM*
15:48 I don't know how you can miss this but that's Original X's body.
There’s a difference between learning boss attacks to punish, and trying to use i-frames to get through and complain the games are bad. I played them for the first time a few months ago and absolutely fell in love. Bosses all have like 5 attacks at most and for the most part they’re orchestrated well enough that you should only get hit the first few times. I understand some of the level design is very flawed which I’ll give you that but just about everything else in this review seems half assed. Pretty bad review if I’m honest.
9:45 Weird, because the conflict isn't really about humans oppressing reploids - It's reploids oppressing other reploids because of the energy crisis. That is why Ciel wanted to come up with the new energy souce
That wasn't Copy X stabbed by Elpizo, that was our goold ol' boy X, main character in like 10 games.
Disappointed about the rant tbh. Should've been a separate video.
Sorry KBash. Disliked. Just take a break, man.
15:45 that's the real x and not copy x. If you're reviewing, you're not very good at what you're doing. I think that people should keep quiet about things that they don't know much about, instead of saying false things.
Aye Kbash thank you for doing what you do, I also deal with media in a suboptimal manner but you still put out bangers every month.
Banger after banger, after banger. Greatly anticipated your takes on the series and wasn't disappointed ! ♥
It kinda feels like you are projecting your own failure at playing the game as a issue with the games design. When you say that the game encourages you to play safe and held back, you show no arguments besides "it's safer". Like, you can use that argument for almost any action game, so what is the criticism here??? Yeah it's safer but it's boring that's a choice YOU, THE PLAYER, makes, not one the game does.
Like when mention the boss fights in Zero 2, you mention a strategy you came up for every boss and talks like the game encourages you to fight like that, but that this strategies aren't fun to use. Did it not pass through your mind to try a diferent strategy??? I never seen anyone fights those bosses like that, and there's probably a reason for it. Again, it feels like you didn't enjoy the games because you purposefully try to fight them in a way you won't enjoy.
I know it's been long, but the worst thing is that this person just refused to upgrade his health with the specific Cyber Elfes. His defensive options would be so much better if he just found like 4 of them and upgraded them.
I remember playing Zero 1 it was hard and unforgiving. Could never beat Aztec Falcon. Fast forward to a more seasoned and confident gamer playing the collection on DS and I hit the same walls and never picked again. This and Mega Man & Bass for GBA are the bain of my gaming life.
Nice video, very entertaining! It was quite interesting to hear your opinions on these games and I think the skits you put in between are really well done. Your style of videos are always fun to watch and I hope you had just as much fun getting the footage and making the video.
Have a nice rest of your day!
Patient: "I have depression."
Psychiatrist: "Well if you hate life so much, why even play it?"
*Job's done!*
Imagine my fun as a young elementary school student, having beaten MMX once or twice, playing Zero 1 for the first time. It was instantly hooked, fantastic theme change. Loved it. But I absolutely got wrecked literally every time
alot of the time it isn't about perfect reactions to 50/50 chances, it's about putting yourself in a position where you'll be prepared for either attack. timing your dash from the right center so that if he drops he drops behind you and you just have to not jump off the wall, or if he rolls you have enough time to jump afterwards and using the leaves to figure out when that will be.
You also can just burn the leaves with Fire Chip charged attack - making it easier to see attack coming.
Tldr: this guy doesn't have thumbs. And he blames the game for it.
Choosing to play in a way that isn't fun ("laming out" bosses) because you "don't want to waste time" is really bizarre and counterproductive. You're choosing to turn the entire game into a waste of time. Just say you don't like the game instead of giving me this weird tortured "logic".
Also really bizarre to suggest that the game wants you to be in melee combat just because the melee weapon is stronger than the ranged weapon. Obviously if the long-range weapon did as much damage as the melee weapon, the melee weapon would be worthless. Like, Bro, YOU HAVE A GUN. You don't have to be passive, just shoot the guy lol.
Therapy is going quite well, thank you for asking.
Perhaps playing from zero 4, 3, 2 then 1 may have made the playing experience easier
While the understanding the story may have suffered
And while i know megaman zero is hard, is the community around it sounds a lot more painful for you then usual...
32:00
Model HX isn't considered the best just because of its utility, it's the best because of its utility, _and the fact it has the highest DPS in the game._
Its tornado sheers off an entire HP bar, and properly learning the combo system allows you to kill bosses in seconds. Even without learning the combo system properly, that tornado alone will destroy any boss that isn't Ice element aligned.
18:49 breaks my heart that the persona videos didn't do well. I found it to be some of your most enjoyable content.
More than maitaining youtube numbers and plaques or patreon funding, I hope you can maintain your sense of self (and sanity) throughout this journey of exploring and critiquing games.
You really should have played both Grey as well, both characters in Advent have a completely different story from each other.
KBash, just want to say I appreciate you. Every video is a treasure. Something you're finding out for the first time, or revisiting because you want to. It's always fun to be along for the ride.
Just keep doing what you're doing, as long as you're enjoying it and still making that dough. I'm always down to see whatever pops up from your feed next.
I remember being so angered by the Desert level of Zero 1 that I physically mapped it out, so I'd never forget where the annoying stuff was. Great times for kid me.
I’ve played zero 1 a ton and it’s a lot of fun to play but almost everything else is ROUGH in a lot of ways (level ups, rankings, cyber elfs, the lives system)
I really appreciate how intelectual and comprehensive your videos get, it sets them apart. I’ve always loved megaman but really knew nothing about these, so I’ll have to check some out
I'm really glad kbash is starting to get the recognition he deserves. I don't remember when I subscribed, but I knew from the first episode I watched that kbash was smarter than me and deserved more acknowledgement for his hard work.
What you said about Cyber Elfes taking extreme numbers of crystals to upgrade just a tiny bit of health, only applies to Zero 1. It's way more reasonable in Zero 2 and 3, I don't think I ever had to grind in those games
Can't believe you made a video about my childhood game. The MegaMan series which made the person of who I am today. But yeah, MMZ was one of the best games I played, the story was dark but yet action-packed. My favorite MMZ is MM3 and MM4. I really want Capcom to take the opportunity and make a Zelda BOTW style type of MMZ game. Just imagine an open world MMZ5!
I came for a Megaman Zero Review, I instead came out with a person complaining about the type of beat the TH-cam is doing to a person and how that might be leading to said person just not enjoying their work.... as much as how it helps him discover stuff.
There's a side of me that wants to say, he should take rest and just enjoy a game uninvolved with Work for awhile. But I know he cant cause TH-cam Scheduling and the nature of his work.
Edit: Side Note: Man this Review was terrible compared to the KH One or Nier or Even the Persona Ones.... it legit feels like Kbash is making this for a Job then Passion and It Sounds so Dreary...
Indeed. These games have a lot of excellent mechanics and depth that reward replays. The reason that these games are so fantastic is the ranking system combined with the brutal difficulty. Mastering the game and being able to zoom through it and tear apart everything in your path with tech and combos feels fantastic because you've had your teeth kicked in a few times to get to that point.
ZX was the first Megaman game I’ve ever played, so it was pretty weird, yet fascinating going back to play the Zero games with no biometal gameplay, and seeing all the characters that were based off of said biometals in their prime.
To me it was weird playing zx back in the day after playing through the zero games.
These tangents are nuts. Man is literally spiraling.
god this video is making me hope you cover Battle Network one day. Zero and BN were my childhood so this video was like a slap of nostalgia in my subbox. Keep up the amazing work!
I can't even beat Mega Man X games, and when I attempted Mega Man Zero I never made it past the first boss. Always seemed like there was cool stuff in there, but the barrier for entry is just too high for me.
Thank you, that makes me feel warm inside.
Zero 1 is the absolute worst at that, the sequels are much better about gatekeeping with the first boss.
Seriously tho, FUCK Aztec Falcon
Ironically, the first boss was incredibly easy after I got how one is meant to take it on, as in only one attack could actually hit and potentially kill me.
I expected the whole game to be like that and was then spooked by how genuinely unapproachable the next few bosses felt and just gave up because I did not want to use save states. And I'm glad I did because some of the later fights looked genuinely miserable(even with infinite checkpoints) when I looked them up online, not even factoring in the bossrush. And I was playing the GBA version where dying meant a free trip to the beginning of the stage.
Mega Man X4 is probably the easiest of the bunch. If you haven't yet, I recommend you try that one. It also happens to be my favorite Mega Man game.
Man, I've never considered how much trouble you might have when you produce your videos. To be honest, you are probably among my top 3 channels, and that means whenever I see a new video uploaded, I rush into watching it till the very last patreon suporter name. Thank you for such nice content, mate.
In megaman zero 2 wasnt the body of copy x , it was the original body for mmx series
15:46 thats the Real X holding the Dark Elf at bay, not a regenerating Copy X
I remember playing the Zero series a decade ago and enjoying them but I also sure used save states via emulation at the time and never used cyberelves because I felt bad about lowering rank/the fact they die from use in lore and so now I just go "dang how would I play and feel about these games now". I still appreciate the memories I have of them though, and it's nice that 3 and 4 at least still have good things going for them.
I actually really enjoy the difficulty in the mega man zero games, I specially remember enjoying staying hours to get past the first stage and the grind that took that essentially forced me to play in a half-perfect way, It's like the atmosophere and difficulty really added up to the grim level of tension and the level of immersion just peaked, every victory was earned and satisfying.
It had a weird effect when playing it again the game felt like the easiest thing ever.
Azure Striker Gunvolt as a spiritual successor definitely gets annoying with the "this game is only enjoyable as a speedrunner" stuff
the game is either too easy aside from true ending and a few bosses before that when for true ending you finally have to disable prevasion, or you're going for high score no hits taken speedruns, no real inbetween, prevasion and the game being balanced around either "prevasion easy mode, no prevasion hard mode" with no inbetween ruined it for me
I mean you could just....disable prevasion from the start lmfao, if you already do it from the start it's not that extreme of a jump in difficulty, and nothing changes when you do go for the true ending
@@Fres576 HI FRES
Christ. I thought the games were a bit rough too. But it just felt like you were whining for the 20 mins i stuck it out.
Well Copy X, Elpizo and the guardians are all dead by Zero 4 so them not being in the game makes sense if you paid attention to the story
MMZ2 is one of my all time favorites. I loved the speed. I S ranked the whole game back when I was a kid. I still remember the day my mom bought me this with mega man and bass. Another favorite.
Love your work as usual KBash. This is the first time I've disagreed with your take on a game I played when I was younger, I loved 1-3 and found 4 unengaging. But then again, they got me at the right age. With an emulator. That had a save/load function...
Well done Kbash I like the fact that you actually Improve, unlike others youtubers.
What?
Man, massive ups for your self awareness.
Really respect your thoughts and your willingness to try new things. Your output is unreal, but whatever you do, at least I'll always watch it.
Also the chameleon 50/50 can be avoided just by using a fire attack to burn the plants that block your vision.
Megaman zero 2 is one of my childhood favorite games... i cannot defend it in anyway... but that game made me cry... not because of difficulty... because of story, still love it to this day! Had to comment immediately as you said "it's probably some ones favorite, but i don't know who that is." Because now you know who that is :)
Something I would like to note regarding ZXA's voice acting, the collection uses the original voice line recordings, before being compressed, for both games (ZX1 had JP only voice acting). Something about the compression process they had for the original DS version did a pretty decent job of masking the accents, except for Grey's. Grey's voice is an unfortunate case of good character, good lines, VA recognized for previous work, in this case, X7. This is the first time I've heard complaint's over Ashe's voice, which is actually interesting to hear after years of "omg whiny x is grey" nonstop. Wonder if they'll revive that ZX3 project someday?
Inti doesn’t work with Capcom anymore so likely not
I can physically feel the self-loathing radiating from the screen. Please just relax and do whatever is most healthy for you.
Aw, I missed the contemplative, introspective monologue at the end, but still awesome video. I only ever played 3, and really enjoyed it, seeing this video made me feel like I was playing it again
Say what you will about the difficulty of Zero, but I bet anyone would choose Z1 over MMX6 every single time.
MMZ is hard, X6 is _punishing_ , there simply isnt a better example of the difference in game design between those two concepts
Can I just say that your thumbnails are the best?
I count the Zero series as my favorite platformers of all time, and y 'know what? I don't think your criticisms are unfair. Sucks you didn't enjoy them as much as I did, but I understand completely why you didn't. These games can be aggressively alienating and difficult to get into. They're all dear to me in specific ways, and I think once it clicked with me, few things could really match it. I love speeding through the levels and shooting for higher grades in them. Its like a platformer Devil May Cry to me. But that does not make them particularly intuitive. I've tried to get some of my friends into the games and they both bounced off of it in the first game.
I'm glad the story mostly was a success with you for the Zero games. I've always held those games to have the best story of any Mega Man series, and its cool to see that element work for someone who didn't click with most of the games as much as me.
Small side note, oddly Elpizo is my favorite villain in these games. He reads really tragic to me, like he was pushed by desperation and anger to attack Neo Arcadia hastily, putting blood on his hands that drives him nuts. His dialog in the last cutscene makes it sound like he's authentically come by the mentality of Sigma without being influenced by a virus. And the prospect that this was underlying his actions the entire time I think says a lot about the state of the world in the Zero games and how messed up everything is. (The Dark Elf stuff is explained pretty badly, though. I think because there were like, Japan-only audio dramas that go into it more. Really wish they'd have been more clear about that stuff in-game.)
Another thing: You're absolutely right about the story of ZX. Just feels like such a regression after the really definitive, heartbreaking conclusion 4 has. I do kinda like those games, but the story was a huge drop-off point for me when I started playing these games in my teens and I was past my childhood feelings of "WOW COOL! MEGA MAN POWER RANGERS!"
Elpizo is a great villain that few in the Mega Man community appreciate. Though tbh I think Copy X is a bit more underrated lol.
I love how copy X is such a simple idea yet works so well
and Elpizo i hated him at the start of the game he was seemed so overconfident, then the attack on neo arcadia failed and i felt really bad for him then he became a villian and i still felt sorry for him.....then he killed X....Overall he is a very tragic character(im still upset that he killed X tho lol)
Great vid! I played all the games as a teen, I guess I forgot how hyper-hard they were.
I'm disappointed you didn't comment on the sweet death animation of robots sliced by the saber.
You gotta stop worrying about comments yelling at you for enjoying what you like.
You decided to make your opinions public (which are good by the way) and clearly you know how people would react, don't bother repeating it.
I know it's your job and it kinda depends on your audience's appreciation for the opinions, but you're fine.
Could've harped on minor nitpicks I found with the video (e.g. "Copy X wasn't stabbed by Elpizo, that was the Original X who's body had sealed the Dark Elf") but honestly it doesn't really matter. You're coming in with the mindset of a casual player looking for some fun, and that's extremely fair. A lot of gameplay/ plot elements aren't mentioned in game and require external explanations, like what happened to the Guardians after Zero 3, or just about every single Cyber Elf mechanic and how to make the best use of them. Zero 1, 2 and 3 in particular do rely on the X series for a lot of context (specifically X1-X5) and I can see how they won't really vibe with newcomers who didn't experience those titles first.
With that nonsense out of the way, I do agree with just about everything you said about Z4 though. And thank you for commenting on the great boss designs, the Eight Gentle Judges are still some of the best Mega Man bosses in the series' history.
i feel like a lot of the complaints here are just skill issues entirely especially with the zero 1 review. complaints about the bosses needing memorization is like a key design philosophy of every mega man game lol. it also seems that you just haphazardly damage boost through a lot of stuff? which is not how you’re supposed to play at all and i don’t think is encouraged in any mega man game. zero 1 really just takes other mega man concepts and expands upon them which is fine to criticize on z1’s behalf but these complaints are very general and don’t specifically tie to z1. the “not having a lot of options” thing is also prevalent in like every other mega man. you start off with just your main weapon and then go from there. even then zero has way more options available at the beginning than other mega man games.
Yeah ngl, I understand if you don’t enjoy the series for it’s difficulty but this review is just kinda shit
I don't think this guy knows what he's talking about. Or that he's just speaking opinions. Look at how he calls the original x "copy x" when he arrives at the final battle in zero2. He's really not good at what he's doing.
Kbash, your beefy videos and rare video drops are the reason your videos are my fav. I watch every video. I'm sick of daily fluff
The zero series is definitely a weird experience. Takes up to a year to “get gud” but when you eventually gain that skill playing any of them with graceful flow feels euphoric. Kinda like watching games done quick
uh... i think you way overstate the difficulty of zero 1. Its not THAT hard. Not even looking at this from an "elitist" standpoint. It was even a requirement to not use any fairies while getting all to get a secret fairy (which was required for Ultimate mode, not sure if that's still a thing for the rerelease). Sure enemies coming out from outside the screen can be bad, but that's normal for games with short levels. You are suppose to learn the enemy layout and get S ranks. Its built for replayability. They were even nice enough to give you an infinite respawning tower enemy in the first level so you can grind for weapon levels if you wanted. How is that "remembering boss patterns" not good design? That's how boss fights should be. If they have a random pattern, you anticipate for the worst and play around it. It seems like a basic thing. I mean sure if you just want to feel powerful and overpower bosses, sure that may not be a playstyle you like but that's every megaman game (outside of going for weaknesses, then it suddenly makes most bosses a joke).
Omfg thank you
You putting the "DON'T LAUGH" picture in the intro has made my day. I reference that to no one all the time
ah yes a disater review in witch the reviewer is the disaster not the game.
Honestly the most disrespectful thing about this video is how you call this series a spinoff
Somebody takes Dunkeys opinions on Video Games seriously? But he is a comedian first and anything else second so there is literally no point ever to take him seriously even when he tries to.