There's something that's been lost in the transition between Zero 1 to Zero 3. An aspect of this series that's been downplayed after the first entry, that you're finally fighting against the regime that Zero so harmfully helped protect during the days of the X games. It's a real touch and go battle of guerilla tactics, one where all ground gained feels incredibly minuscule or is invalidated extremely quickly. These ideas spoke to me a lot in the first game, even if I think Final Fantasy II achieved them in much more nuanced and interesting ways.

In Zero 2 and 3, we learn that the harmful systems that we previously assumed to have naturally come about due to the consequences of creating a slave race were actually all orchestrated by a man named Dr. Weil. This decision undercuts a lot of what the first Zero managed to achieve - it was a real rebellion, one against real systems that had no single actor as their origin point. In this game, though, it's become much more fantastical, one where an energy crisis is solved by one person and a mustache-twirling villain is behind the events of the story. It's totally lost me. Gone is a natural conclusion of the horrific nature of humanity, and in its place a shifting of blame. These systems have not failed - no, it was a big bad evil guy.

Zero's musings on his insecurities about identity make little sense to me when he's never shown them to be a part of his character before. It just feels like it comes out of nowhere. Never before has he been particularly fixated on this idea, but suddenly Weil uses this insecurity against him toward the end and it just becomes a plot point. It's resolved fairly quickly, but still - I know the game is largely concerned with Zero's age as a reploid and how he's been "obsoleted", but his identity is not much of an important factor to him. It's just odd to me.

It's a fine narrative, but it's lost so much of the punch that original Zero game had, and that's just disappointing.