Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

If you're hungry for more platformers staring robots from Capcom then look no further as this title will surely delight. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Mega Man Zero 3


 
Price: GB £6.29, EU €6.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Inti Creates
Released: 2004
System: GBA
 
Following on from the two previous titles in the sub-series Mega Man Zero 3 starts mere months after the events of the second game, Zero along with Ciel have been tasked with looking into a crash site as they have their suspicions that the ship may be harbouring the Dark Elf. But of course getting it won't be that simple as Dr. Weil wishes to claim the Dark Elf for his own, of course it falls upon you to stop him; there's an excellent story which unfolds before your eyes as you play which will delight any of you who have played the preceding titles, like the part where Zero gets... Ah, but that would be telling. In any case it's an excuse for another excellent platforming adventure so mega-suit up and set your blaster to obliterate!

Usually the course of action for a direct sequel is to iron out any issues which the earlier game might have had, then improve on things even more though here most of the work was already done by the second title so this entry so rather than overhauling anything all you will really see are minor alterations to how the game plays such as the new Recoil Rod which Zero can use to repel enemies or even push away from flat surfaces while airborne; there's no more grinding of weapons to contend with either thankfully. Hopefully you'll recall the Resistance base of operations as you get to enjoy this hub area one more time which is actually rather refreshing to have an interconnecting world which is shared between this series offering a familiar space taking you to newer places and yes after each stage you'll end up facing off against one of at least eight robotic bosses; some things you just don't mess with.

It seems the difficulty level has taken something of a hit even though it still poses a reasonable level of challenge to it, this is owing to the newly added 'cyberspace' which allows you to play an easier variant of the stage at a cost to your potential high-score, fortunately this is optional. There's plenty to keep you playing in the collectables stakes as you can obtain many different chips to equip which will grant you various abilities, there are also a hundred plus secret disks which will grant you either information on aspects of the game, ability chips or even Cyber Elves which make their return yet again; if you're still looking for more after that then you might like to try unlocking the mini-games by meeting certain conditions including but not limited to obtaining an S Rank on every single mission when limited to using one specific weapon only.

As you'd expect from previous entries everything is very nicely detailed indeed featuring some nice backgrounds, solid animation plus some decent variation throughout, personally I still prefer the look of the Mega Man X series on the SNES as the colours always seemed to be more vibrant to me but this is just a preference as this series still looks more than the part. Of course the soundtrack still stacks up pretty well too so you'll be quite happily humming along as you play but perhaps not for as long after playing just as you might after playing one of the classic NES titles but again this is just for the sake of comparison as this game is still an aural achievement.

While there aren't that many changes to the formula, there would have been not much need to drastically alter all of the good work achieved by the second entry, Mega Man Zero 3 remains an enjoyable offering which gives more of the same for fans of the series while being easy enough to get into for anyone to enjoy. If you are new to these titles then I would still advise starting with the first entry but if you only have time to play one then make it the third game as it's probably the most enjoyable out of them all.      

Verdict : More masterful Mega Man goodness which simply must be played.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!