Mega Man ZX Advent (DS) review "What a disappointing letdown for a series with such high aspirations."

A girl?! But then...nothing. And then everything. Control instructions, bad voice acting, awful scripting, an overcomplicated fast travel system, nonsensical map and immersive but questionable level design. A miss and hit soundtrack with muted sampling. We should be grateful that the writing on the wall was easy enough for anyone to read, spelling the end of this run of games.

Too much, you say? That is exactly my point, and I’m going to explain clearly why I reached that conclusion. So, let’s look at what I call the introduction level. My qualifier for this is the amount of gameplay the developers think it will take to set the player to be fully kitted out with everything they will need to acquire the rest of the goodies in the game.

In this case the introduction requires half an hour to complete. Great! This time we have less to acquire, and while it’s more content, it’s not as contenting. Sorry, I mean “satisfying”. We begin the game choosing between two characters who are both adults, presumably, since the preferred body type of the lead artist is adolescent, somewhere between 14-16.

Hips? Who needs ‘em when you’re a blend of Reploid technology and human biology? None of this is explained, rather assumed to be understood from the previous game, ZX, which lays out what the two races have somehow accomplished this since the days of Zero and the Dark Elf War, 100-some-odd years ago. The timeline has been shunted ahead another amount, but indiscriminately. We don’t know when it is, and it doesn’t much matter though it does add to the confusion.

But you better be darn sure that the animation and voice acting—yes indeed—have been invited to the charade party. Having chosen your Chosen, the story steps up and you have to figure out just what’s going on, except that it doesn’t matter? Here’s what does: You’re a Hunter, or you want to be one? Some named and voiced NPCs gripe and complain, setting the scene and waiting for you to barge in on their booty.

By all means, snicker, chortle, or whatever you want to do. The writers are oblivious and the voice actors give it their all, which is grade B at best and Supreme Edgeboy at worst. Kudos to the brave voice actors. Seriously. We totter on through some perilous plot points and poor writing and leap into a dangerous situation. The situation is bad and that’s good, because we’re the one with the problem solvent.

Whether or not you appreciate the art style, the pixel art is detailed and fluid. Absolutely top notch. Characters are unique, for the most part, with diverse body types and personalities. A lot of work has been put into making this a living, breathing world, except that it doesn’t feel that way for a solitary instant.

Well animated doors and unexplained passage blocks do not sell the living environment well enough. It’s a shame that we don’t see some of the blinking, half-alive wrecks of Reploids like we did in ZX. It smells of the same sort of series truncation that Mega Man Z 4 suffered. Some of it is understandable: Maintaining quality between scenes, missions and sequences is difficult, and I’m giving them a hard time for differing between games.

Darn straight I am, because a lot of energy went into ensuring there were detailed instructions for control inputs. Not advanced, unfamiliar stuff, no. We start with the basics: This is how we go left and right. This is how we climb a ladder. Now dash. Okay, shoot that thing. Put your right foot in and...no, forget I said that.

There’s one key example that I think exemplifies the problems with this game has in a nutshell, so I’ll set the scene for you: We’ve just been guided through a train after...oh right! Biometals! In this case just one, a mouthy character that no one likes. Or very few like. Anyway, he’s not popular. Of course I’m talking about Axl, who shows up here as Biometal A, or Model A. His copy ability is really annoying, and I’m about to tell you why. At least he’s thematically consistent.

So, we’ve been painstakingly instructed how to traverse this crazy train which, for some reason, includes charged electrical boxes, grenade launching turrets, and floating security drones. What do the Hunters need these things for, and why are they unsecured? Presumably because the Maverick code got into it all and caused problems...but we have to just let the dissonance exist, so we move on. We’re one car away from the engine, and a boss shows up! Yay?

This game has to get some credit for shaking up the boss structure. There’s no boss selection at all, which is a really appealing approach to the long standing choose-this-boss and steal-his-weapon style of gameplay. Kudos, INTI Creates. Except...oh boy...and is this a doozy.

The boss, a horse type fella with fire powers, is characterized as a 1940s movie indian, complete with stunted English as a second language. It’s stereotypical and degrading. What’s more is he gets on the player’s case if they happen to have chosen the female player character. “A girl!” he snaps. Maybe it’s intended to get you riled up, but the writing hasn’t displayed that sort of empathy in its history, so I doubt it.

He’s easy enough to take down, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the game, and having done so you acquire his code. Neat? Since when could we do that? In any event, Model A instructs you how to change into the boss, and how to use his abilities. You get to figure out just what he wants to you destroy in order to get him to stop pestering you with those instructions every minute or so.

This stereotypically characterized twerp boss is annoying to control, though it’s clear that it is intended to be cool. The design is pretty slick, but it comes across as a space and effort saving implementation of something that could have been at least 20% cooler. At least we don’t have to listen to any more of his terrible dialogue, no disrespect for the voice actor who had a job to do. Gotta get paid.

From there you wend your way back to HQ, which gets us into the bizarre fast travel system, too complicated for its own good. What happened to the good old days of jumping onto a pad that did everything? Sure, we get more personality and clear descriptions from distinctly functioning devices and the people that run them, but...sigh. Here’s how it works:

The “trans” pad is where you accept missions from the bigwig bosses who run the country, or something. You also teleport to your mission assignments, an abstraction of the level concept, which they have retained as a key component of the Zero/ZX series gameplay structure. It works and I’m glad that was not changed. You can accept missions from Hunters at the base, as well, and they are clearly laid out on the dedicated page of the status screen, aka the pause menu, which also sports dedicated screens for your items, character status and weapons. The least offensive component of the entire game.

Now the fun starts when you return from a mission, or presumably choose to do so. At the end of a mission you’re brought back automatically to dedicated points that you spend E-crystals to activate. Why? What’s wrong with the trans pad? The entire fast travel system is entirely too complicated and highlights the nonsensical level layout. NPCs, all named and backstoried, litter Headquarters. Some are in an upper level you can’t reach until you have Biometal A, so how did they get up there? I’m thinking too hard again, but it matters!

This is a world that INTI Creates has again spent counted hours to develop, with detailed characters, interwoven game mechanics and level layouts. How cool is it that you have to use multiple boss transformations to gain access to level secrets? Pretty cool. Unfortunately, interesting game mechanics like this are wrapped in a package no one wants to unwrap, and when they do they’re disappointed by its absurd instructions and awkward presentation. What a disappointing letdown for a series with such high aspirations.

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Community review by hastypixels (September 18, 2025) Retro, and moreso all the time.