09-29-2011, 07:44 PM
I wouldn't call zero mission amazing - it was good, but it didn't live up to its potential; a lot of what the game was trying to do kind of fell short. the linearity was forced and didn't make much contextual sense - at least in the case of fusion, the linearity made contextual sense and added something to the game; that is, being pursued and hunted by the SA-X, with an ever-shifting environment requiring you to find alternative ways to traverse its environments. back doors, secret tunnels, tubes, et cetera. this kind of focus helped to do a lot for the architecture of the game, which is one of the most identifying traits of the series.
zero mission also suffered from being way too easy, even more so than super or fusion: by the time i got the super missiles, no boss lasted any more than 30 seconds. i killed ridley the second he came in by firing 8 super missiles at him, before he could even do anything. the unfortunate thing about that is that it would have been forgivable had the game not strove to give you a helping hand and guide you to wherever it was you were going, removing the fact that the exploration itself provided a different kind of challenge and thrill. by telling you where to go, not only did remove emphasis on that, it also - however slightly - dissuaded the player from exploring outside of that intended path.
i also thought the jumping physics were pretty jarring. you shoot up and then almost instantly start moving down; there's no real sense of gradual flow or of grace, its just this sudden spurt up and then down.
zero mission also suffered from being way too easy, even more so than super or fusion: by the time i got the super missiles, no boss lasted any more than 30 seconds. i killed ridley the second he came in by firing 8 super missiles at him, before he could even do anything. the unfortunate thing about that is that it would have been forgivable had the game not strove to give you a helping hand and guide you to wherever it was you were going, removing the fact that the exploration itself provided a different kind of challenge and thrill. by telling you where to go, not only did remove emphasis on that, it also - however slightly - dissuaded the player from exploring outside of that intended path.
i also thought the jumping physics were pretty jarring. you shoot up and then almost instantly start moving down; there's no real sense of gradual flow or of grace, its just this sudden spurt up and then down.