Rockman Zero Collection!

It was inevitable that I would write a blog about this considering it is part of Rockman's world: They are releasing a Rockman Zero Collection on DS! I've known about this collection for a good couple days since the very first assumptions, but I've actually waited for a trailer of some sort to be released before posting it, that and the fact that I had just recently written my latest blog lol.


The video has been updated with a version that is dubbed in english

Rockman Zero is one of the least known series spawned out of Megaman. Containing 4 titles, the games were originally for GBA and featured Zero as the main protagonist. They are known to be the hardest Megaman games out there and were considered as being for the hardcore gamers only, though those who wanted and easier time had plenty of tools at their disaposition called Cyber Elves.

Reploids have evolved to a point where discerning a robot from a human is becoming quite confusing. Happening nearly 100 years after the Megaman X series, Zero is awakened from a slumber by Ciel, a great (and cute at that) researcher, to help the reploids fight against Neo Arcadia.


Ciel

Neo Arcadia was created by X as an Eutopia for the reploids, which quickly turned into the council becoming paranoid with reploids going Maverick and becgan persecuting them, which resulted in Ciel finding Zero. This is an ongoing battle between the Resistance and Neo Arcadia throughout the small series.

A lot more of story happens during the games and it could be considered, put apart Megaman Legends, the MM series with the most story as it is. You learn about the Cyber Elves story, Zero's story, X's story, the Resistance, Neo Arcadia, the different characters you will face, heck, you sometimes even end up knowing the story of what seem like mindless and useless characters, such as this reploid who looks really old, yet reploids do not age. You learn the story of that reploid as well. It also plays differently than the previous games as while you can still, sometimes, choose the area you want, it doesn't have the usual 8 stage bosses. You simply pick missions given by the Resistence and you blast your way in there with nothing but your Z-Saber to which 3 elements can be added: Ice, Fire and Eletric. That's it.

Resistance

There are 3 types of Cyber Elves: Nurse, Animal and Hacker. Each type have their own powers which will have temporary or permanent effects on Zero. When used, the Cyber Elf dies and cannot be used again. They also substract points from your overall score because yes, in MM Zero, you are given an overall score and that is exactly where the game shines for hardcore players. Anyway, here's the Cyber Elves:

Nurse:
These Cyber Elves will permanently increase Zero's Health or transform permanently into a subtank, known as energy tanks. Temporarely, they can also drop energy pellets and such.

Animal:
These are mainly provided to boost Zero's abilities, some of which are permanent as well (such as sliding down the walls at a lower speed).

Hacker:
These are what they are called: Hackers. They can help you rewrite the data of areas/missions to gain a better score, rewrite the reploids data to cut the boss' life in half, and many more uses.

In Zero 3, there exists what they call Satellite Cyber Elves, which two of them can be equipped at any time granting their abilities to Zero when equipped. They are called satellite because, unlike regular Cyber Elves who dies after being used and substract points from your overall score, they do not die and do not substract points either, so a combination of two can be used throughout the game (which believe me, doesn't make it any easier lol).


Cyber Elves... sort of lol. In game they only appear as big energy balls (you can probably see them in the trailer)

The games have scores depending on your time, damage, enemies defeated and Cyber Elves used during the area. Of course, that is where the game truly shines as it is the only way to unlock special minigames and other unlockables, on top of unlocking the long rumored super powerful Cyber Elf "Jackson" in Zero 1 (which exists, personal experience ;p). For hardcore Megaman fans like me, the best part fo the Zero games is going through the game without using any Cyber Elves yet collecting all of them, on top of finishing every missions with a rank A or S and unlock everything we can. I never actually finished this myself on the original GBA cartridges.

Oh and let's not forget the best characters to have ever existed in a Megaman game: Harpuia, Levathian, Phantom and Fefnir, which are the four X guardians and are, quite simply, badass.



Top left to right: Harpuia, Leviathan
Bottom left to right: Phantom, Fefnir

I'll finish by saying that Megaman Zero has been my favorite series of the entire Megaman world ever since the first title got released, for which I actually bought a brand new GBA back in the days. The Collection is announced for Japan only so far, but hopefully it'll make it to North America and Europe so I can get my hands on it. Despite owning all 4 of them on GBA, I still want that collection lol.

Zero

Thanks to The Megaman Network for providing every Official Artworks as well as the link to the trailer on YouTube, one of the best Megaman dedicated website.