So it came out this week. Any one excited for this? I certainly am as I just scored a brand new DSi XL for $140. One thing has been bothering me though. Do you guys think all the gore and such has been restored to the game? How about customizable controls? You think they are in?

Whats everyone's favorite Zero game?

^__^

I was going to bump up the existing thread in light of the game's release this week.  I'll probably pick it up by the weekend.

Not sure if the games still remain censored, but this is what NeoGAF has been saying about customizable controls:

"You can't directly set actions to X and Y, but you can choose to have X and Y mirror A and B. Which is kind of the same thing, just not as intuitive. The proper control scheme of Y to attack, X to jump is possible, though. However, you can't map all four actions (attack, jump, dash, toggle weapons) to the face buttons at the same time, so two actions have to be set to L and R."

And yes, Easy Mode most definitely made it in.  Says Game Informer's review:

"If you were turned off by the unforgiving nature of Mega Man 9 or 10, Mega Man Zero has you covered with easy mode. Unlike Mega Man 10’s newbie-friendly mode, which idiot-proofs spike pits and reduces enemy numbers, this easy mode decks Zero out in all his end-game gear. Maxed-out sub-tanks, life bar, weapons, and abilities are granted to those who prefer to feel like a badass robot right away, rather than earning it throughout the game. This mode robs much of the game’s reward factor, but it makes playing all four games back to back a much smoother process."

I have a hard time considering the Zero games as classics.

Wow knowing that makes me a little disappointed. The easy mode I can forgive because it makes the game more accessible but no true custom controls? C'mon Capcom! Theres finally a machine that can support a proper control scheme and you give it the bird. Oh well. Like I said I'm still looking forward to this on my XL. I hear the music has been cleaned up of that old GBA hissing sound too which is nice to know.

Just wondering Ashley, why don't you consider it classic? Reading the other thread I see you don't like X6-X8 (can't blame ya there) but the link up of the two series is never very good. Going from classic to X was confusing as hell story wise and I think we have a similar case here. Its even more difficult when you consider that X6-X8 weren't really canon (I'm not sure if this is changed or not or if it really is canon at this point)

Ultimately I thought Zero had a wonderful story that took him out of his badass hero zone and made him even more identifiable as a character. I will say the games were gruesomely challenging, the cyberelf didn't do anything for me, and the grading system was retarded but even all that aside we have an extremely competent series.

Oh if you prefer I post this in the existing thread lemme know and I will gladly abandon this one

button clarification from Parish himself:

...what do you mean by "proper control scheme", though? You can assign two actions to any of the four face buttons and two to the L/R shoulder buttons. It's kind of odd in description but it's how the game is actually played. You should be able to dash, jump and slash all in one smooth movement, and that's pretty hard for me to do without using the shoulder buttons.

that's a shame, because as a whole they definitely are. As individual ones, I don't think 4 makes the cut.

The weirdest thing is that Capcom forced a border on the gameplay screen to make it GBA resolution, then the handheld pira- emulation community made a patch that removes the border. I'm not sure how to feel about that - I dislike borders, but I can see why Capcom would want to do that.

http://www.taleschannel.org/Guide/zerocorrectsize.jpg

The NeoGAF thread also floats out the rumor that this had a very low print run. I really hope that's not the case. After the mess with both ZX and ZX Advent, and then going to Mega Man 9 and 10, I think Capcom has lost some of their faith in continuing the series the way Inti Creates was doing with Zero/ZX. But I want them to hang in there and pound on the ZX formula until they can turn out a product that stands on it's own without nostalgia/fan loyalty to sell it.

I played a little bit of it yesterday, and it's a good enough port.
I was rather disappointed by not being able to map the secondary weapon to any of the face buttons (not without pressing a shoulder button at least) but that just means I'll have to play the games they way I'm used to.

I went into Easy mode not knowing what to expect exactly, and I was really disappointed they give you a maxed out Zero right from the start. Takes away about 80% of what made the games fun, if you ask me.

Still, having all 4 of these classics on one cart is very nice.

I think they mean the "preferred" layout for action-platformers such as these.  That is, Y for your weapon, B for jumping -- like the SNES Mega Man X series.

Actually, you can..... assuming it's either X or Y.  I picked up the game today, and played just long enough to fiddle around with the button customization.  It's a little confusing to describe on paper; what you need to do is set the GBA-specific "Attack Mode" Option to Type B.  Then, you use the Touch Screen Option to configure either X or Y to whatever your sub weapon is already assigned to in the GBA-specific option. 

Here's a snapshot of my current setting.  With this, my controls end up playing like so, with the bolded entries the ones that count the most for me:

L = Dash
R = Sub Weapon
Y = Main Weapon
X = Sub Weapon
B = Jump
A = Main Weapon

A is always jump.

If A is not jump, see above.

That's funny, I got the exact opposite feeling from the series. I mean, okay, Zero is the main character and you play as him throughout all the games and conflicts but isn't how he inspired the members of the resistance the true bread and butter of the story? Doesn't Zero himself say he's not a hero? Because of this the focus never seemed to be on Zero because we had the X series form the basis of his character; this is why I probably I enjoy that series more, the focus being more on the main characters more than what they inspired in NPCs as a result of their battles.

Thanks, Angie!

Hadn't thought of using the touchscreen, but it works like a charm!

On NES and GBA, yes, on SNES and DS, NO.

Had to pass on this, sadly.  I would like to have it in my collection, but it's hard to justify the $30 for something I know that I will never play considering I've already played all the way through the originals.

I don't think anything could drive me more insane than one of the sholder buttons being dash. I mean it's fine on the ground but when on a wall, having the dash near the jump button is pretty much essental to me.

I have played and beaten MegaMan Zero. Combat is just what you want from a futuristic Ninja action scroller (cool moves and challenging bosses), but the game's hub really brought down the game's presentation for me by adding boring empty levels to navigate through (save the exploration bits for the boss stages). The weapons, without spoiling what you get, were hit or miss disappointingly.

Only makes sense that this is from a magazine review. I'm really glad these 'perfect whores' are going under.

I'm probably not the one that should be advertising this since I'm not into the series but you may like the other installments more. Zero 2 and beyond brings back the stage select system and while there still is a hub per say, the levels aren't connected to it like the first game, which eliminates some of the hiking. It changed the feel of the game to me.

Not being able to revist some of the areas in the first game helped kill it for me though.

Are you confusing MMZ with MMZX!?
Stages are not connected to the hub in MMZ, and you do have a stage select system, so there is no hiking.
Levels can also be revisited by using the transportation system, so I think you're thinking of ZX here.

Also, the hub being too big and empty is something that never gets changed in the series, unfortunately, although later instalments do give you a bit more to do.

I fail to see the problem.
They point out that Easy Mode robs the game of its reward, right?
How's that being a "perfect whore"!?

And how are magazine reviews any better (or worse) than online reviews!?
You don't honestly think the drivel that gets written by IGN and the like is any better do you?
Or is this you getting on your Insomniac Horse again?

This should all be duh duh duh stuff by now: The reviewer doesn't denounce this mode as step backwards for gaming, despite acknowledging it ruining the game--and recommends it to others to ruin (or bullshit word: smooth) newcomers gaming experience. The newcomer player is being targeted in a way where he might as well just sit back and watch the game be played by someone else (don't worry Nintendo has got you covered newcomers); he might as well just get into another hobby like watching movies. This purification of difficulty nonsense is an insult to 'winners' aka gamers. It has to do with the whole topic of "accessibility"--how you can't appeal to everyone.

Also, if you think I like IGN, you need to reread the Vanquish thread.

I think you're blowing this way out of proportion.
"a step backwards for gaming"!? Really?

It's an OPTIONAL easy mode, you don't HAVE to play it (unless you want to unlock everything), it's there for people who just want to experience the story and settings of the Zero universe without getting their asses handed to them by the brutal difficulty.

I'd say it's a step FORWARD if anything.
It takes the fun out of the game, certainly, and it would have been nice if they'd let you adjust exactly what makes it easy, but like I said, there are people who just want to experience the story without any stress. I don't think that's a bad thing, and I most certainly don't think it's a "step backwards" for gaming when devs offer that opportunity.

You sound like those people who immediately denounced Nintendo when they introduced the auto-play feature in NSMB Wii.
It's there for people who need/want it, noone is FORCING you to use it, so how this could possibly be constructed as a step backwards in gaming is totally unfathomable to me.
As if challenge/difficulty and the resulting stress are somehow an essential part of videogames...

This is where I end the conversation. Sorry.

Then I am sorry that you have a very restricted (not to mention elitist and arrogant) view on videogames.

Why does this remind me of Mega Man Legends, a game that is so easy and, ironically, has an unlockable easy mode that makes it even easier? Still, love the game to bits.

Well if easy mode incline more people to play the damn game while still keeping the bone crushing difficulty settings of the game then I am all for it sir. Whats the harm in making difficulty that allows more people to enjoy the game?

I love my difficult games but I see no problems with this. In the new Japanese Fire Emblem for the DS it allows you to toggle perma-deaths on and off. I have a friend who I suggested to play FE after he just got done enjoying Advance Wars. He replied no thanks because the deaths turned him off. As far as I'm concerned I will have one more person in which to discuss the game with. I win, and he wins.

*sigh*

I'll probably set my controls like I had them when I played the carts in the DS' extra port:

A = Dash
B = Jump
R = Weapon
L = Weapon Switch

It sounds cumbersome, but dash-jumps are my most precious manuevers in the X and Zero titles, and I was able to get an S-rank most of the way through Zero 3 with this setup.

As far as this other discussions goes, I probably won't use Easy Mode myself, but I don't see why whether or not others would use it is worth the hand-wringing, honestly. There's no 'wrong' way to play games any more than there's a 'wrong' way to listen to music, insofar as the reward is simply enjoying the medium.

I have it set to:

A = Weapon (although I use Y obviously)
B = Jump
X = Subweapon
R= Dash

And that's all I need.
Performing a wall dash is easy enough by pressing R and B together, but the L button never seems to come natural to me (the L button on my DS is also completely borked, so that doesn't help either).

Since you've made it somewhat relevant and can't wait for my article: The thesis of the article is that you cannot escape challenge. Even watching a cutscene is a challenge. We as individuals want challenge in our lives. In other words, we get bored if we are not challenged. We cannot grow. When you keep playing piss-easy games, you should eventually feel bored and start wanting to move on to games that are more challenging to you. So, easy games become an insult to players who want challenge; i.e. players who want to be good at the games they are playing and test out their skill. The less skill it takes to win at something, the less satisfying the reward. You may get some joy out of playing tic-tac-toe, but the game is not satisfying like a victory in chess. You may enjoy flipping coins, but the enjoyment of winning (calling the right side) is practically meaningless due to it being on 50/50 chance than a more complex game testing skill. So then we have Russian Roulette and other more complex games of gambling.

When a game is so easy that it does not challenge you, then you will start to not enjoy it as much as when it did. That is why players may be able to demolish a game, but challenge themselves further competing with others to have the best score. Think about the worthy opponent. A good fighter wants to fight another good fighter. His skills must be challenged; his opponent must be worthy. Now, you may be fine playing yawn-inducing easy games, but I am not. I am not a difficulty-challenged player. If one does not want to be challenged in life that much, they should go watch a short movie and get the f out of gaming.

So downgrading the difficulty is an insult to gamers. The default and lowest difficulty should be normal mode. Now we are dealing with easy mode, piss-easy mode, and "don't even play the game the computer plays it for you" piss-easy mode.

I recommend you read this thread for the moment (the last post is the consequence of downgrading games):
On Complexity, Depth and Skill

Challenge in life is fine, but sometimes people want an escape from those challenges, a relief, a breather. Some people choose video games as that form of escape. Sometimes that escape comes in getting caught up in achieving difficult goals... sometimes that escape comes in knocking around for 20 minutes.

Hide and seek is a game with rules. Unless you're playing with Batman or Andy Kaufman, though, it's not usually much of a challenge. Why do people (most often, kids) play it, then? Because it's something to do. Because it's fun. That is what a game truly needs.

You do not have the right to tell other gamers who do not thirst for the ultimate challenge to "get the f out." Your standards and definitions of what makes a proper game and a proper gamer are not universal.

Fine.

Not fine.

Your standards and definitions of what makes a proper game and a proper gamer are not universal or definitive, and a dismissive statement such as that is unacceptable. Who the f--- do you think you are?

When the person in question has linked to insomnia.ac, the answer is inevitably "someone who is not interested in rational or nuanced debate".

Word. Insomia.ac doesn't encourage anything intelligent; let alone discussion. It's just a place for enlightened people who know everything to spew their sacred words in an attempt to educate all of us lesser life forms.

Oh jesus christ...The second page of this thread came up first. Did Vert1 link to YET ANOTHER of those stupid trailer-park-gamer-trash articles on the first page of posts?

Edit: *cringe* I wish I hadn't looked...The only thing worse than actual articles from that pigpen is their forums. My eyes...they burn. I want to kill myself for clicking on the link.

Not that this is the only thing I take issue with in your post, but I hope you elaborate a bit in this upcoming article of yours exactly what about a typical cut scene constitutes a challenge.

And I find it interesting that you qualify a video game cut scene as a challenge, yet demand that people not interested in being challenged "go watch a short movie" (which is basically what a cut scene is).