Recommended by BeachEpisode as part of this list.
"Until I feel new dawn bloom on the silent sea/Sing for me your song... "
Within the woefully cut-short multimedia duology known as the Zone of the Enders franchise, the first entry is regarded as a black sheep: Even with the prestiguous name of Hideo Kojima attatched to it, its most known for its original PS2 release being coupled with a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2, and even Konami seems fit to forget about it, since the only game of the duology to get the snazzy 4K VR rerelease was its sequel. Zone of the Enders, for all intents and purposes, has forgettable written all over it, and it's easy to see why on a surface level: It's in many regards, a mediocre early-PS2 game that suffers from poor gameplay, massive amounts of padding and ambitions far larger than its woefully-small britches. But despite being cognizant of these flaws, Zone of the Enders manages to be a gripping experience, stuffed to the brim with a sense of comfortable familiarity.
Zone of the Enders is a story familiar to many mecha connoisseurs, a tale of a boy thrust into the horrors of war from the cockpit of his cool robot that's at the center of a scheme far grander than he can comprehend, coupled with an early 2000s English dub that while at first laughable, manages to elevate the basic story into a surprisingly gripping and emotional 4 hour ride. The combat is incredibly simple, but its self-expression and showmanship are what lifts the entire thing up, letting the player do some incredible anime bullshit like flash-stepping, clashing giant mecha swords, shooting big fuck-off laser beams and throwing your opponents around like ragdolls into one another to cause massive explosions. Even when I was faced with the same combat encounter I've been dealing with for the past 2 hours, dashing behind an opponent and chucking the enemy into a building and watching the fireworks fly never gets old. All of this is complimented by its incredibly sleek post-Y2K aesthetic and short runtime, which means that just before everything can start grating your nerves too hard, its over. Even though its been forgotten by publisher and fanbase alike, there's a clear passion evident in every facet of ZoE, from its visual language to its mecha design, and even if it can fall quite flat at times, its got oodles of heart overflowing from every pore, and that alone makes it worth a shot if you have even the slightest interest in giant robot action games.
"Until my rumbled hands lead to the end of night/Find me in your eyes... "
"Until I feel new dawn bloom on the silent sea/Sing for me your song... "
Within the woefully cut-short multimedia duology known as the Zone of the Enders franchise, the first entry is regarded as a black sheep: Even with the prestiguous name of Hideo Kojima attatched to it, its most known for its original PS2 release being coupled with a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2, and even Konami seems fit to forget about it, since the only game of the duology to get the snazzy 4K VR rerelease was its sequel. Zone of the Enders, for all intents and purposes, has forgettable written all over it, and it's easy to see why on a surface level: It's in many regards, a mediocre early-PS2 game that suffers from poor gameplay, massive amounts of padding and ambitions far larger than its woefully-small britches. But despite being cognizant of these flaws, Zone of the Enders manages to be a gripping experience, stuffed to the brim with a sense of comfortable familiarity.
Zone of the Enders is a story familiar to many mecha connoisseurs, a tale of a boy thrust into the horrors of war from the cockpit of his cool robot that's at the center of a scheme far grander than he can comprehend, coupled with an early 2000s English dub that while at first laughable, manages to elevate the basic story into a surprisingly gripping and emotional 4 hour ride. The combat is incredibly simple, but its self-expression and showmanship are what lifts the entire thing up, letting the player do some incredible anime bullshit like flash-stepping, clashing giant mecha swords, shooting big fuck-off laser beams and throwing your opponents around like ragdolls into one another to cause massive explosions. Even when I was faced with the same combat encounter I've been dealing with for the past 2 hours, dashing behind an opponent and chucking the enemy into a building and watching the fireworks fly never gets old. All of this is complimented by its incredibly sleek post-Y2K aesthetic and short runtime, which means that just before everything can start grating your nerves too hard, its over. Even though its been forgotten by publisher and fanbase alike, there's a clear passion evident in every facet of ZoE, from its visual language to its mecha design, and even if it can fall quite flat at times, its got oodles of heart overflowing from every pore, and that alone makes it worth a shot if you have even the slightest interest in giant robot action games.
"Until my rumbled hands lead to the end of night/Find me in your eyes... "
4 Comments
Maybe I became extremely jaded thanks to AC and Gundam
@Mur96 That's totally fair! I'm not very well-versed in in the mecha genre, so you can feel free to take my opinion on the plot with a grain of salt. For me personally, I've always found the bad English dubs from that late 90s-early 00s era to be very charming, so I felt that it added to sense of familiarity that made ZoE so enjoyable in my eyes. Thank you as always for reading, as always.
Oh don't get me wrong! I do love my cheesiness but it always has to be weighted (for me) by a substantial message or artistic layer I can relate. Or, in less pretentious words, to not get into whiny levels of overreaction. ZoE didn't do that for me, but it's not a bad title. And don't worry, even in disagreement I take joy from your writing.
Mur96
2 years ago