Romero Z³

Romero Z³ (ロメロX 3 translates to Romero X 3) is a game released

for the Wii U by STYX Co., and is a sequel to it's predecessor: Romero Z². Unlike Romero Z2, however, it does not hold ports for the 3DS - making it a Wii U exclusive. It was released on January 2nd, 2015.

Story

Like it's two predecessors, Romero Z³ has 3 different episodes to tell the story. The basic story is that an epidemic known as Pandoritis has been breaking out, which causes the mind to become unstable and deadly, but the notorious leading hedgehog scientist: Dr. Erin Watt (Nicknamed as "Doc Watt") - has been kidnapped by the villainous Lab Rat, also halting the cure that Doc Watt had been working on. Suspecting Lab Rat's involvement with this mysterious disease, Romero and Dico journey to rescue Doc Watt and finish the cure for Pandoritis. However, everything may not be what it seems...

Episode I

After a peaceful day on Mallard, Romero sleeps under a large oak tree as usual, while Dico fishes in Duch Lake. Soon, however, an owl comes to deliver the new addition of Mallard News to their mailbox. Checking it, yet "another" article explains the worsening of a pandemic known as Pandoritis, which corrupts the mind to make victims of it mindless, violent slaves, has been getting worse. Although while the famous "Doc Watt"'s research on a cure for it seemed promising, it was discovered he had been taken by Lab Rat.

After waking Romero, the duo go on yet another quest to rescue Doc Watt, and cure the deadly disease "Pandoritis". After traveling through Duch Plains, they reach the surface of Wimper Woods, and going through it come across Lab Rat in a monitor. He greets the two and says 'he predicted you two would show up'. After a breif gloat, he sends out Wroll.exe to halt their progress. They beat it quickly, and the monitor retreats, along with a ruined bot.

Soon enough Romero and Dico reach State City after clearing Tomato Trail, and see Yorkman coming to greet them. He says he tried ro reach them through their phone, but someone had cut off their connection - who Romero and Dico suspect as Lab Rat. He explains that he has "top notch information" on where Lab Rat fled, and the cutscene ends.

Episode II

Episode II opens back in Yorkman's shop, he says he saw Lab Rat with Doc Watt heading to Tarragoo - Kingdom of the Dragons. He offers them a 10 Pictoin deal for a deluxe train ride, when he really shoves them in the trailer car of nearby train. Romero and Dico arrive in Tarragoo where they quickly see Lab Rat heading off with Doc Watt's entire lab attached to a claw on his Mopod. Romero and Dico chase after him, and after cornering him, attack the Mopod. Lab Rat is defeated...but picks up Watt's Lab again, and as a sign to quit, blows up the Tarragoo palace.

The two enter the Taragoo palace to find Princess Rivera. Rivera asks Romero and Dico what the meaning of this is, and they explain Lab Rat's plan of Pandoritis. She agrees to help the two, and opens up the path to Jenga Jungle, and Romero and Dico continue on. Clearing it, they come across another one of Lab Rat's bots, and beat it. They come across Rivera again, who saw Lab Rat's Mopod trek in here, and after doing battle with him, he dropped a map on accident - before fleeing.

Romero and Dico take the map, which leads directions to Lab Rat's old "Ratnik" from their last adventure. With no rocket, they continue on anyways past Magma Maze, and find the launching place up to space. Just then, Yorkman wonders in, after Dico called him a while back for some assistance into space, he brings the patched up rocket from the a few adventures back. Rivera comes in claiming that it will never make the trip, and offers the S. S. Tarragoo, a ship owned by her father, that would take them there. After coming back with the ship, Romero and Dico hop in and take off...the Episode then ends.

Episode III

Episode III opens up on Romero and Dico going through Ultra Universe in the S. S. Tarragoo, but are soon shot down by the former Dynaship fleet, and they land on the Planet "Contrast". They quickly clear the planet, and after having another duel with the S.S. Rodent II, the two latch onto a lone ship retreating, and board the Ratnik - in as bad of shape as ever.

They enter the Ratnik Core, where they find a very beaten down Lab Rat. He says he won't let the two stop his plans, and pulls out his ultimate robot: Aluminum Armor. After knocking it down, Lab Rat is ejected from the machine in a very fragile state. When asking whats wrong, Lab Rat claims they should know already. Lab Rat was infected with the Pandoritis Virus, and kidnapped Doc Watt to force him to finish the cure for himself. When Romero and Dico started chasing him, he thought they planned to finish off their "nemesis" for good by taking Doc Watt, and leaving lab Rat to be infected. Romero and Dico say they though Lab Rat developed the virus, and sought to help Watt finish the cure.

Soon an explosion is heard, where Robor claims that he had developed the Pandoritis virus, and planned to enslave the world, and gave it to Lab Rat first, out of anger that his plans had failed - he had become self conscious. Lab Rat flees, while Romero and Dico have a final showdown with Robor. They finally destroy him, and Robor - defeated - lies on the floor.... Romero and Dico do a victory cheer, only to see that a self destruction sequence had enitiated, and the Ratnik Core explodes. They rescue Doc Watt and hop into the lone Dynaship fleet, escaping the explosion. Doc Watt thanks the two for saving his life, while Romero wonders where Lab Rat went off to.

Suddenly a large fortress comes into view. Lab Rat, out of a speakerphone, reveals that the strings where being pulled by him the entire time. After Romero and Dico look in shock, he goes to explain. After his last 3 defeats, Lab Rat knew he needed to think big...and thus created the Pandoritis virus to release it onto the world, and kidnapped Doc Watt to create an ultimate syrum to infect the world with Pandoritis, so that the people of DeDe (Romero and Dico's home planet) would bow down to his exellence. When he saw he was running out of time, forcing Watt to create the ultimate form of the virus, as Watt refused to do so - he threatened to kill the Princess of Tarragoon, who was revealed to be Watt's stepdaughter, and so he was forced to comply and work on it. When Romero and Dico started to come on board, he realized he needed something to distract them so Watt could finish the Ultimate Pandoritis Syrum. Thus, he programmed Robor to "claim" it was him who made the Pandoritis virus, and set him to self destruct after beating him.

Lab Rat admitted Romero and Dico where clever on escaping every one of his traps, but decides to get close enough to the Planet DeDe with the Ratnik II (the fortress he was in), so he can dispense the Pandoritis virus to the entire world. So it's a race to destroy the new and improved Ratnik II before it reaches DeDe, and they are succsesful. Romero and Dico destroy the Ratnik II, and restore Watt to his family in Taragoon, who completes the Pandoritis Cure, and every left person infected is cured. Afterwards, they return to Mallard to relax, and a picture of Lab Rat drifting in space, while his robots attempt to retrun him back to DeDe, ends the game.

Gameplay

Romero Z³ plays exactly like it's predecessors, a 3D platformer - things returning are: Dico, Romero, and Robor playable, Jump Gauge & Dash Gauge, and the Minigame Mode. The Minigame Mode plays like Romero Z2, in which a handful of short-timed minigames are able to be played. These include: Shippin', a game where you play a small amount of missions in the cockpit of the S.S. Tarragoo, Yorkman's Orders, where you try to match up a shabbily made items to sell at Yorkman's Shop, Down Undah, where you try to fall down a pit while avoiding things in your way. There's also Under-Gopher where you play as a Gopher digging holes, in search of the Bronze Carrot, Pistor, where you attempt to shoot Robottles, Rivera Defender, where you play as Rivera in the S.S. Tarragoo, defending of invaders, Mightron, where you attempt to build ammo to defend the city from the invading "Mightron", and finally Colosseum, where you fight a number of invading opponents until a final battle is commenced.

The special mode "Colosseum" is a bigger and better mode compared to the other Minigames, and unlike the others, you do not get at the start of the game, and unlock it by beating the story mode 100%. It's a combination of several different bosses throughout the Romero history, ending off with a new final boss - Alamar the Bounty Hunter.

Bosses & Levels

Episode I

1. Playper's revenge / Duch Plains
2. Wroll.exe / Wimper Woods
3. Munster Overgrown / Tomato Trail

Episode II

1. Mopod Claw / Tarragoon Plaza
2. Mechaman / Jenga Jungle
3. Lavala / Magma Maze

Episode III

1. Meteorizer / Ultra Universe
2. S.S. Rodent II / Planet Contrast
3. Final Boss: Aluminum Armor / Ratnik Core

True Final Boss: Robor

Grand Final Boss: Chase for Ratnik II

Colosseum Bosses:

1. Playper
2. Sludge Monster
3. Koko
4. Trung
5. Pokey
6. Manner
7. Leggy
8. Cannona
9. Lavala
10. Asteroidizer
11. S.S. Rodent II
12. Robor
13. Dynaman Prototype
14. Dynaman
15. Alamar