Released at the height of the modern military era of FPS games, Ace Team's debut game brought something unique to the table. Not a groundbreaking genre-defining game, but a damn good job for a first title.

With a massive display of creativity, Zeno Clash is a short but satisfying first-person brawler experience, one of many key indie games that proved the movement's worth. A unique trip through a bizarre world.

[Full review at https://bluedemonarchive.blogspot.com/2021/07/zeno-clash.html ]

These indie games just keep getting better and better and more like full budget titles. Zeno Clash is no exception with an original wonderful art style, fun game play mechanics, and a very intriguing story. ZC puts you in the mind of Ghat a runaway man who is hunting his “Father-Mother” and to release his/her secret.


During your meet, a few interesting characters and you play through flashbacks occasionally. The game is an FPS/melee game with some pretty deep combat mechanics. You use your fists by using the left mouse button and right mouse button (for strong attacks) you can lock on by using E and use space as block. While you’re blocking you can dodge attacks by hitting D or A, and if you time it right you’ll get a slow-mo queue to punch. You can create combos and then when the enemy is stunned you can knee bash them or throw them around. I found the best tactic was to charge your strong attack while your back stepping and then let it go. This is a bit repetitive (just like the whole game), but it’s effective and works when you are up against four plus enemies. All enemies have a health gauge and so do you; thus having to eat orange flowers will give you health.


Sometimes you’ll get weapons to use and these are neat little things that can be used to shoot the enemies creating massive damage. Most guns have no more than a few shots in them (this game has a tribal theme to it) so you’ll have to aim very well since reloading can take longer than you want (sorry this isn’t Call of Duty). While most of the game consists of this pattern: Run, fight a batch of enemies, cutscene, rinse and repeat, but thanks to the short length (about 5-6 hours) you won’t get too bored. One level, however, is a lot different from the rest: You are running through a foggy plain (the fog will kill you since it bites!) and you have a crystal torch and you must keep it lit with candles littered throughout the level and use it to shoot fireballs as shadows that come after you.

Zeno Clash has a wonderful premise to all of its gameplay, but ultimately it’s all the same and can actually be really frustrating towards the end. If there are too many enemies you can get boxed in and beaten to death, and I found the most frustrating part about the game is that if you get hit while you have a weapon in your hand you drop it. This usually happens during a reload and can piss you off a lot. There aren’t too many weapons, but you have a single shot rifle, a dual shot crossbow, a sledgehammer, a bone bat, a grenade launcher, but these are tribal looking weapons so everything is made from what you see around you which is pretty slick.


The game uses the Source engine (the updated one not the old one) and the graphics are just bizarre and way out there. The creatures are something straight out of nightmares and some of the speech is pretty odd too. Nonetheless, it makes the game even better and the visual splendor is probably what saves this game. If you think there’s something to come back to (there isn’t) you can play challenges and there are a bunch of Steam achievements to unlock. I highly recommend Zeno Clash to any FPS or indie game fan.

Combat isn't perfect but the source engine provides good weight and physics. At least has unique ideas to keep it enjoyable and the setpieces extract about all they can from the gameplay.
The real star of the show however is the extremely vibrant and inspired setting. One of the most otherworldly fictional universes outside of Japan and you're left craving more while simultaneously feeling like you've seen a good amount of it over the short runtime.
Story pacing is a bit crap but has an interesting writing style with some cool-looking cryptic characters. There is beauty in how deliberately ugly everyone looks.
A must-play for everyone at least once.
Daedra is an underrated video game lady.

alright.. so what the fuck even is zeno clash? the campaign itself is about 3 hours long in total with a bit less than 20 levels overall, with each level either having a boss, a standard mob humanoid fight, or creature ganks on a set path. but thats not what really draws someone to the game.. its that art design. that sweet, sweet, weird art design. appendages will be drawn out, features will be exaggerated, and every character design becomes unique, yet cemented in its world. the settings range from legitimately boring (many of the forest areas which, there are a few) to psychedelic and otherworldly (the best examples of this are metamoq's tutorial areas and the desert area). but none of this really matters if the gameplay doesnt hold up, and it really doesnt. dodging is clunky and i never truly got the hang of it - having blocking and dodging on the same button makes kiting needlessly difficult. and trust me, kiting is definitely something you'll want to do here, because the other main gameplay feature zeno clash boasts is its gunplay, which definitely feels better, but could honestly be construed as very much overpowered. there were multiple levels where i could easily kite every enemy out with ranged weapons. it didnt work always because the enemies can become surprisingly fast, but its much more reliable than hand-to-hand combat. it felt like whenever i used hand-to-hand successfully i was exploiting the system rather than using is well, like kicking enemies you knock down with a strong punch 5-6 times or getting large enemies to repeat attacks so you can finish them off without any trouble. it just doesnt offer enough depth in its combat nor its enemy types to warrant its extremely short campaign which, because it shows off the world and art design, is the better part of the game. there are challenge modes to my knowledge but i had a decently rotten time with the combat so i dont really know why i should check it out... its a unique game to be sure. definitely get it when it's super cheap because there are a few things that are legitimately super creative. but unfortunately, its simply not very good

What i liked :

- what a bealtiful world, lively and full of creativity, even the guns are designed to be this scraped things.

- my guy ghat sounds like he didn't ask for this, as in, he sounds veeeery similar to adam from deus ex.

- i like how short it is, sure it took me 8 hours but thats because i replayed it about 3 times, its a small indie game.

- the story was entertaining, not the next best and most immersive thing ever, but it was interesting and fun to watch, makes me intrigued to know more about this world

- please support the devs, there are very few people in the industry these days putting such creative titles, Support ACE Studio.

what i didn't like :

combat might sound chunky but its very clunky, some attacks with certain weapons follow the kingdom hearts rule that you can only combo if it hits the enemy.

𝟕,𝟓/𝟏𝟎
A short 3-hour art-house adventure, consisting of several arenas, it turns out that the Source engine is very "fit" in the fighting game genre, although according to the moveset it is more like a bit`em up, one hit button and dodging is enough to complete it, but firearms scattered around the map adds some action, it has good designs and impact, which you need to have time to reload in the heat of a dynamic massacre. The final fight with the boss spoils the impression a little, it is very simple, it seems unnecessary, it repeats the fight with the same character half an hour ago.
But the game will definitely be on my list of diamonds of the game industry, deprived of mass attention.

😊Subscribe on my Steam`s Curator`s page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550/
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Коротенькое 3-часовое арт-хаусное приключение, состоящее из нескольких арен, оказывается, что движку Сурс очень "к лицу" и жанр файтинга, хотя по мувсету это, скорее, битемап, тыканья одной кнопки и уворота достаточно, но добавляют движухи, раскиданные по карте огнестрельные оружия с хорошими дизайнами и импактом, которые надо успевать перезаряжать в пылу динамичного мордобоя. Немножко ещё смазывает впечатления финальный файт с боссом, он очень простой, кажется уже вымученным, сильно повторяет бой с тем же персонажем пол часа хронометража назад.
Но игра явно войдёт в копилку моих, обделённых массовым вниманием, бриллиантов индустрии.

I remember this being more solid but it turns out that was because I played the 360 port with the improvements.

It's very funny that the main aspect of the game is so jank. Melee combat at the forefront and it feels a bit like trying to fight in water. You could understand the guns being the dodgy part, but they feel equally just as loose as throwing hands.

The setting and mad character designs do the heavy lifting. It's an interesting world, and it certainly helps that the big "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET" voiced motherfucker do be cubin'.