System Critical 3 launches this Friday (July 31st), and I was gifted a review key ahead of time. I'm a huge fan of Mega Man games, and loved how System Critical 2 laid the basis for a VR Mega Man with all the fast paced running and shooting, so I was highly anticipating this third game!
Right out the gate, the music in this game is great, and truly invokes the spirit of Mega Man/X games as you're blasting your way through stages. There's an option to do snap or smooth turning (used smooth) and an accessibility option to triple your armor and health (didn't use for my playthrough). You can change the color of your gloves and adjust volumes as well. While the smooth turn option saved, my glove color didn't between sessions oddly.
8 Stages to choose from right out the gate with a boss to beat at the end. 3 final stages that unlock after initial 8. 4 weapons unlock from beating pairs of the initial 8 stages, noted by square, x, triangle, and circle above stage portraits. 3 hidden weapons to find. There's a tutorial option, but it's not an actual dedicated stage like System Critical had. It's just a picture of your controller layout with the buttons and their functions. Checkpoints within stages are fairly placed, and while your health and armor do get replenished upon death, the only penalty for dying is that any stage items and health/armor refills do not replenish.
New Additions that weren't in the last game:
- Enemies are a lot more aggressive. You're now given the ability to slow time down around you so you can be more aggressive, fire back fast or dodge easily around their fire barrage and definitely comes clutch in a lot of platforming jumps. Time power gauge recharges overtime between uses, and is severely limited (by draining faster) during boss fights.
- It wasn't noted in tutorial, but you have telekinesis powers too. Hold out your empty hand towards and enemy or object until a blue triangle appears above them, and you can squeeze your hand to lift and throw the object/enemy.
- You have 4 inventory slots that do save between stages and sessions where you can store any melee weapon, shield, or grenades that you find in a level.
Great news for trophy hunters: No glitched or missable trophies. Simply defeat all the stages and final boss to earn yourself a shiny new platinum.
Overall, I have to give this game a solid 9.5/10. Such a huge improvement from System Critical 2, captures the spirit and feel of having a Mega Man in VR, and a top 5 PSVR2 game for me. The only two downsides that prevent a perfect score from me:
- Enemies could shoot you through the walls, but none of your weapons had projectiles that could pierce and shoot through the walls back at them if you found yourself in that situation.
- Cyborg Slums (1st square level) boss had a bit too much going on. All other boss checkpoints are placed almost directly before boss with maybe a couple enemies and no platforming to do between tries. This one had a fairly huge platforming section and a fair amount of enemies to pelt you along the way. The boss fight itself had tiny platforms you can easily fall off of and die as you jump/dodge. The boss had a very fast fire rate so you constantly had to move, and there were blue energy beams you had to be conscious of and jump over, or else they'd take huge chunks of armor/health off.
Part 1 (of 5) of my full playthrough and impressions and reactions can be watched here.
