Mega Man - We're Here Forever!

[Stink Terios]

I strongly recommend switching up your control style. There are three types:

A:The one you're using. Holding the subweapon button then pressing the main weapon buttons uses the subweapon. Garbage! Specially for a game as technical and unforgiving as Zero 1.

B: The good one. Tapping main uses main, tapping sub uses sub. The way it's meant to be played.

C: Tapping sub toggles between both equipped weapons. It's fine if you're not confortable with two different buttons for attacking, so inexperienced players such as children.

[Blivsey]

I've played or seen most of the Megamans up to now, save for the off-the-wall ones. But apart from playing like two stages of Z1, realizing how continues work, then giving up promptly, I know nothing of the Zero series!

Literally my only knowledge of anything in this subseries is Cannonball... and I like Cannonball, so I have no choice but to assume the series lives up to it.

[Crow]

obviously alia uploaded her consciousness to X's body to gain infinite power for committing genocide

[Mea]

ooh now this is really exciting. I believe the original japanese release of the game featured a lot more blood or something, which was toned down for western release.

I like the aesthetic design of the characters and robots in the Zero series, very sleek and stylish. The concept arts look really cool too and there's a ton of them online. I don't know what they did with the art director or whoever because the ZX art style looks worse--much more colorful, blocky, and cartoonish and kiddy. I don't like it. In gundam terms, it's like the progression from the art style of 00 (cool) to Age (cartoony).

In case someone not familiar doesn't know, Zero isn't supposed to look any different in-universe, it's only the art style that has changed. So in-universe, Zero looks he did from the X series.

[Blivsey]

In case someone not familiar doesn't know, Zero isn't supposed to look any different in-universe, it's only the art style that has changed. So in-universe, Zero looks he did from the X series.

That's just not true though? Zero's leg parts are completely different, and things like his 'scalp' are black in this design when they were white before. seems a little too far to say "art style is different but he has the same design"

i don't mean for this post to come across as like, an attack or anything, no worries, but it just doesn't seem right

[Mea]

In case someone not familiar doesn't know, Zero isn't supposed to look any different in-universe, it's only the art style that has changed. So in-universe, Zero looks he did from the X series.

That's just not true though? Zero's leg parts are completely different, and things like his 'scalp' are black in this design when they were white before. seems a little too far to say "art style is different but he has the same design"

i don't mean for this post to come across as like, an attack or anything, no worries, but it just doesn't seem right

No worries. But it is official that it's only due to a shift in the art style that he looks different. Something about the artist wanting Zero to look more human or something. And if that doesn't convince you, there's always

MMZ3 to back this up

[ano0maly]

I agree with Stink Terios for controls: use type B, since it allows you to use the two weapons independently. Type C is ok but I tend to prefer one button for each weapon instead of one attack button and swap controls, unless the game becomes overly complicated.

You can also switch which weapon is the main one, for some reason you never thought of doing that. Also, yeah, the saber is a one-hit kill on the first boss. You have to be careful if you want full Mission points, though, as you can easily hurt Ciel with it.

Back when I first played the game and I was reading some online text-based walkthroughs of it most of them were only telling you to protect Ciel at all cost, but if you're not going for the points, Ciel actually makes a good tank to absorb hits.

Honestly, once you ignore the ranking system, the cyber elves you find make the game interesting in small ways. They're like e-tanks but much more expansive in variety. Some can be consumed for effects when you need, wheres others are permanent upgrades.

The opening cutscene, as well as some other parts of the game, are quite morbid. I played this when I was much younger and it was a bit traumatizing. There's a lot of backstory for Zero series that we can discuss now (and more later when the other games are being played) but I'm not quite sure how much should be shared at the moment, as I feel that some of it would be revealed through playing the game anyway, and my memory is somewhat fuzzy.

[AlchemistHohenheim]

So I guess the intro of MMZ1 doesn't quite link up with the ending of X5 as well as I thought (I thought Zero was just a torso like in the X5 ending, but he clearly has legs here).

This is never stated anywhere in the actual games (that I remember, anyway), but I like to think that the sentient Dr. Light hologram from the latter X games was a proto-Cyber Elf with Dr. Light's consciousness (or an approximation of his personality, at least) uploaded into it. Makes him healing X in the X5 ending less of a random Deus Ex Machina and more foreshadowing.

[Leet]

This is a really strong opening, it makes me want to play the game but ... gameplay issue I described before. Also "pretty beat-up 3DS" issue.

[Chirei]

Welcome to Megaman Zero 1! I've secretly been anxious for you to play this, because all(?) of the Resistance members names' are in French, and i've always wanted to hear a native French speaker pronounce them correctly.

Right in the intro, the game teaches you the harshest lesson. Passy actually straight up died to remove the protection on Zero's resting place. If you use any other Cyber-elf, without even going into all the other consequences it has mechanics-wise, they too, will also perish for Zero's sake. Make of this information how you will.

To use Cyber-Elves, you have to go to a Trans Server and select "Download Elf". They will appear as icons next to Zero's "Elf" slot on the pause screen that are usable like items, and only up to 3. As stated, using one will kill them forever to provide a one-time effect, and your rank points will suffer permanently, even across New Game+. there are three sizes of elves.

• Small Elves - They only have one-tile huge portraits, like the one you picked up. These always provide a one-time, temporary effect for a permanent negative score across your whole save file. What a great trade-off!

• Medium Elves - They have bigger portraits and tend to inhabit the top-left and right corners of the Elf collection. These usually provide a permanent boost to Zero's abilities (maximum health up, speedster effect), but just like all the others, using them will permanently kill them.
  
  However, you cannot use these elves immediately. They must be fed enough with E-Crystals to grow one stage, which are what those weird blue powerups that you have been picking up are. The costs are rather exorbitant in this game, so don't feed bad if you never get enough. A small E-Crystal pickup gives 4, and a big one gives 16. They have almost no other purpose in this game other than to interact with the Elf system.

• Big Elves - There is only one big Nurse, Animal, and Hacker elf in the game, and they take up the top-center slot with the biggest portrait of all. I believe two of them you'll get naturally via the story, and they all provide insanely powerful permanent effects, but must be fed to grow two times, and the amount of E-Crystals needed to do this is way too much, probably more than you'll ever get from one natural playthrough. Still, the penalty for using a Cyber-Elf is counted numerically, rather than the quality of the elf you used, so if you're worried about this or the moral cost of using them to get through, ask for these elves' powers, as any single one of them should be more than enough to get you through the game... if you can somehow get the crystals.

Cyber-Elves can be hidden anywhere, ranging from killing X amount of the same type of enemy in a certain stage, finding them in white-red canisters that you have to hit to open, or obtained from defeating a boss/via story. They'll look like floating lights, and they actually move vertically across all surfaces while they do so. They'll move up or down through screens towards Zero, so if you happen to see one and want to get it but it's too high, wait for it to come to you.

On the last note about Elves for this episode, I absolutely don't mean to discourage their use if you find this game to be too hard, but just keep in mind the E-Crystal costs for the bigger ones, and the very temporary nature of the small ones. If you don't feel there's any other way to beat it within your ability, there's nothing really wrong with using them in the end, though most people admit that this kind of system is rather shoddy and makes the player feel worse overall for having used it.

I HIGHLY recommend messing with your control scheme. This series will absolutely eat you alive if you don't set your controls correctly, and the same options are available across all four games. For some reason, Type A is always what it defaults to, and I always use Type B. I have seen someone perfect all the games using Type A, but I personally know that person as kind of crazy. Just use Type B.

Ciel actually does save your game. Also highly recommend you do a hard save, as continues are insanely unforgiving. I don't know what will happen if you game over and don't have a hard save.

The Z-Saber does 64 damage to the Golem, and since bosses naturally take 1/2 damage from all attacks in every Megaman game, this defeats it in one hit even though it has 32 health.

As many people have said, this is basically just another artist's lens into the world of Megaman X/Zero, so they effectively look the same, but we're just viewing it through how someone else is drawing it.

[Paragraph]

I completely forgot about Zero 1's stupid Continue system, but that's because there's a relatively simple fix: if you lose too many lives for your own taste (they won't grow back to two!) just reload your save instead of continuing. That does mean forcing a "Game Over" on yourself (as in, restarting from the beginning of the stage), but it's better than burning through e.g. five lives, barely winning and only having one to spare for the rest of the game until you find more. It's dumb but you can, like many dumb ideas in Zero 1 which they thankfully dropped for the sequel, ignore it by not engaging with it too much.

Ciel can indeed hard-save your game, if you're having issues with that: you have to talk to her from a bit of a distance, you can't do it while standing on top of her like in many other games. She'll also give you missions (that's not hard to figure out), so she's your main hub for everything. But you can also, and I'd recommend that to get a feel for the game, explore the Resistance Base instead. It'll even change occasionally depending on your game progression!

Once you did a mission somewhere, you'll usually unlock its location on the map for you to explore outside of a mission context. This can be good to get items (like the one clearly hidden on top in the intro mission*) without worrying about rank (as you're timed, after all), but most of the time, it's not particularly useful and won't lead you to any critical upgrades hidden away or anything; all exploration in Zero 1 is purely for Elves. It's a very barebones Metroidvania and that's why the sequels did away with that aspect entirely; it's pointless. ZX brought it back and arguably it's quite weak there as well, maybe these games just aren't meant for that...

Anyway, Elves! You can equip them into the currently empty "Elves" slot of your main menu using Ciel, and you have three slots to fill. Basically, you can choose what to bring on a mission, e.g. a "stuns all enemies on screen", an "automatically save you from pits once" and a "heal some damage" Elf which are standard examples of a Hacker, Animal and Nurse Elf. Like the intro showed, using one means sacrificing it (Passy was a Cyber-Elf) and that's kind of fucked up, yes!

There's Elves which have a more permanent effect (like, for example, increasing your health - the only way to do that), BUT that's where the Energy Crystals come in. Elves that are not the smallest size on the grid have to be fed the Crystals (again, via a Ciel submenu) and only when they're fully grown by feeding them enough can they be used. The three biggest Elves of each category have to be fed TWICE to fully level up, and that takes thousands of Crystals. For each of them. It takes literal hours just stupidly farming them in very small increments to level up all your Elves. Nobody should ever do that, you'll spend less time just getting good at the game and not getting hit.

You should be able to get enough Crystals for a few intermediate upgrades along the way though, and I do recommend just choosing one or two that sound sensible and going with them.

Finding the Elves themselves is where the exploration comes in. They're usually in small containers in hidden alcoves and such (you've actually already seen one, but it was sneaky!), but the brunt of them you'll find just playing normally are from enemies. Pretty much every enemy type (even ones you wouldn't think of) will drop an Elf if you kill enough of them, and yes, this does sometimes require deliberately respawning them so you can get enough kills in. The same is true for ranking, sometimes. As I said, the game is flawed in many ways but not nearly as critically as MMX6 of course.

As other people have said, you have to level up your weapons by killing enemies with them, another grinding aspect the game really could do without. Imho it's not so bad, if you go along normally, you'll eventually unlock higher levels naturally and just keep getting better attacks as the game goes on. I know a lot of people immediately go for a grinding spot and make the Saber max level over the course of like 20 minutes but I think that's a waste of time; it's perfectly fine to use in the first missions as-is, the crucial upgrades (most notably the basic combo) come in fast enough and you'll have your super powerful final level around the time the endgame rolls in to enjoy. The buster levels quicker and it's a good idea to use both in conjunction anyway, so even if you think the sword is lacking, just shoot things.


Finally echoing what everyone else has said, control Type B is the only sensible one. I like Dash on L and Sword on R, but you can easily put Sword on the main attack button, Buster on L and Dash on R - it's flexible and worth adjusting until you find something you like. Dash being default on the shoulder buttons also means that finally there is no issue from the get-go with having a charge primed and still being able to dash-walljump at will; the bosses are crazy affairs in these games so they will absolutely force you to use this tactic. Speaking of...

*you can get this secret right now, but it requires a stupidly finicky dash-walljump. Actually, iirc there's no better way to do this later, so if you want it, revisit the intro stage and just try until you make it ;)



EDIT: Oh hey Chirei

EDIT²: Reading your post, my memory was faulty, you do need the Transserver, not Ciel to do Elf stuff. Sorry!

[Cosmo Fishhawk]

When Ciel said she was a "scientist," I initially read it as "Satanist..." Make of that what you will lol.

Never played MMZ. I do really like the concept of Cyber Elves, though. Highly ambivalent about the art style.


Fun misanthropic opinion time: I'm glad the humans are finally all dead by the time of MMZ (I mean, more than I am at the thought of it happening in real life). They just felt like an afterthought in the X series (and in Classic, to an extent). Though it's kind of tragicomic that it makes X's life's work a failure...

Maybe if we'd actually gotten to see some non-Light humans once in a while, we'd sympathize with X wanting to sacrifice to protect them. But as is, it feels like he's just unquestionably following his instincts/programming (a bit like lil Miss Nurembot, actually). Maybe that's too much story to ask of a not-RPG though *shrug*

[Grounder]

weirdest prequel ever

[Arctangent]

Fun misanthropic opinion time: I'm glad the humans are finally all dead by the time of MMZ

Ciel's a human. A genetically modified human, but a human nonetheless.

A later antagonist is human, too, and the protagonists in the sequel series are human as well. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that it was only Reploids from this point onward, to be honest.

[Paragraph]

In fact, it's not the humans who're in danger of extinction. It's the Reploids,

because X is literally genociding them in favor of humanity right now.

I'll actually have to rewatch my own LP of this game because I forgot so much since...2012, damn. You actually have to respawn one of the spider webs to get the highest ranking (kill enough enemies), and to get all of the Elves (you have to kill one more web than there is in the stage without respawning it). I'm not quite sure if you can get "destroy enemy" Elves outside of a mission or if it tracks the total amount of enemies destroyed.

Funnily enough, in my LP I speculated that a blind player would like get "60-something points" in the intro stage and yup, that wasn't far off!

[BobisOnlyBob]

the protagonists in the sequel series are human as well

Humanoid

, but we'll see that when we get to it.

[Chirei]

EDIT²: Reading your post, my memory was faulty, you do need the Transserver, not Ciel to do Elf stuff. Sorry!

Yeah, it's 2 that relegates the function to Ciel. No worries, though.

[Cosmo Fishhawk]

Fun misanthropic opinion time: I'm glad the humans are finally all dead by the time of MMZ

Ciel's a human. A genetically modified human, but a human nonetheless.

A later antagonist is human, too, and the protagonists in the sequel series are human as well. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that it was only Reploids from this point onward, to be honest.

Ah, ok. I guess I've misinterpreted some dialog over the years or something. I'm not sure, myself.

[Paragraph]

EDIT²: Reading your post, my memory was faulty, you do need the Transserver, not Ciel to do Elf stuff. Sorry!

Yeah, it's 2 that relegates the function to Ciel. No worries, though.

That explains my confusion!

I also forgot how much the next stage sucks for a new player (and even for an experienced one). Otoh, raocow managed to clear the intro without so much as a scratch on Ciel, so if he gets the control scheme right, it should be okay...

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

In case someone not familiar doesn't know, Zero isn't supposed to look any different in-universe, it's only the art style that has changed. So in-universe, Zero looks he did from the X series.

As many people have said, this is basically just another artist's lens into the world of Megaman X/Zero, so they effectively look the same, but we're just viewing it through how someone else is drawing it.

I admit, this is the first time I've heard this explanation before before, and it not only seems kind of strange and counter-intuitive, but it's also somewhat ontradicted by the games themselves? In X8, Mega Man, Zero and friends have clearly switched out their bulkier armour pieces for somewhat lighter and sleeker variants, and it's not really difficult to imagine this trend continuing throughout the years in accordance with advancing technologies (which allow for the same protection and performance with less weigh and bulk) as well general fashion trends in their world. A good amount of time passes between the series, and Zero is awake for at least part of it, so it seems far simpler and more logical to say "Yeah, he got some lighter boots and gauntlets and opted for a color scheme with more black and less white before he went in to hibernation" than "No, black and white are the same thing, we're just seeing them differently".,.

[Paragraph]

X8 did not exist back then. Zero's ending from X6 directly sets up MMZero as those games were developed concurrently, and it's shown there that X6-design Zero seals himself away to later be awakened by Ciel

I know about the BIG Zero 3 spoiler but that doesn't change this at all

. There is no reason to cling to the idea that a redesign took place at some point in-universe, things get redesigned and reinterpreted in a bunch of movies, TV series etc. and nobody bats an eye at that.

When talking about the story of Zero and its connection to the games before, one has to keep two things in mind as well:
- Zero originally had a very different story (related to this game's big twist, I don't want to spoil that), but they had to change that midway through when they learned of X6 being made after all, even though X5 was supposed to be the final one. So any inconsistencies might just be the fault of that rewrite, though I don't think the final product is bad at all and it's rather pointless to speculate how it "could have been".
- The story of AT LEAST X6 but I'd argue of at least all the Playstation games is utter nonsense, and the story of Zero 1-4 is so much better in comparison that I think every attempt to tie the two series together doesn't do it justice.

One also has to consider this: MMZ is deliberately set 100 years after the X series with an amnesiac protagonist who doesn't really talk much anyway because that allows them to do their own thing entirely (and, if you're being mean, for very good reason because of the mess the X series became). Hell, as we'll find out later

there is an entirely different cataclysmic event in the Zero games' backstory after the space colony crash of the X series to wipe the slate clean EVEN FURTHER and set up their own world.

[xnamkcor]

I was wondering if you'd say Ciel's name the way you did, given your heritage.

In other news, raocow, please take a closer look at the bottom of the options menu.

You can change how the subweapon is activated. I believe it's either hold both buttons, press the shoulder button to switch, or just one button for each.

You can also switch which weapon is the main one, for some reason you never thought of doing that. Also, yeah, the saber is a one-hit kill on the first boss. You have to be careful if you want full Mission points, though, as you can easily hurt Ciel with it.

In this game, weapons can be leveled up to give you more moves (including charge attacks), but it takes forever to get all the moves with the saber because it has like seven levels as compared to three or four for the other weapons. Zero 2 reduces that to three levels for everything, and 3 got rid of that system entirely.

I used L to switch weapons, and R to dash. I'm not very sure how anybody ever played X games with Dash on A/O. I'm even less sure how to play that way on a GBA.

PS: I'm pretty sure this game the the reason I had to send my GBA to Nintendo for repairs.

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

Looks like it's time for Mega Man Zero. I remember these games being pretty difficult, but I did for some reason decide to try to S rank them on my first time playing them. This usually meant playing through each stage once to learn what it's like and then trying to speed through them while taking out lots of enemies (which often required having to respawn enemies because for some reason they didn't put enough enemies in the stage) and taking minimal damage.

I probably don't need to say this at this point but I recommend changing the settings for using your sub-weapon. Also you can set the saber as your main weapon if you want. That's what I usually do but of course it's a matter of preference.

It's interesting seeing people explain how the Cyber Elves work. As I mentioned earlier I went for an S rank when I played these games, and since using them gives you a score penalty I pretty much just ignored them.

Last thing I want to say here is that I really like the character designs and artwork in this game. I especially like the way the character portraits look. Speaking of character designs I don't think I ever really cared about the fact that Zero looks different in this game. I just thought "oh Zero looks like this now OK" and moved on.

[Bean]

Usually have it set up where A is jump, L is dash, B is your main weapon, and R is the sub-weapon. That holding the button combo is not worth the trouble. Nope.

Also, I always laughed at this design since it feels like Zero went from tighty whities to wearing a diaper with the animation change. And that's all it's meant to be here, an animation shift.

[Chirei]

I admit, this is the first time I've heard this explanation before before, and it not only seems kind of strange and counter-intuitive, but it's also somewhat ontradicted by the games themselves?

I believe this is actually the official Capcom explanation, and while I might want to think otherwise, their intent is their intent.

LunarRainbowShyGuy pretty much sums up how I felt upon knowing this fact. The series has so much going for it that I just kind of went with it really quickly.