There's been a thematic subgenre in video games that's been coming into prominence the last couple of years. It's inspired by high octane action games like MGR and DMC and both an understanding that needlessly dark presentation is kinda cheesy, but a willingness to accept the positive elements of said presentation to a limited point. Followers of this aesthetic would wince in pain if you called them edgy. They long to be in on the joke, while still wanting to appear "cool" to their peers. These are the Sol Badguy players of the world, mechanically "proficient" at their pursuits, but still willing to look at these (mostly, there are notable exceptions) masculine protagonists and shout "that's literally me" at the screen, with the hope that others will them them in the same light. Slave Zero X is a game I'm glad I've played, because it both manages to encapsulate the appeal of this thematic current, along with how bankrupt it is in a lot of ways.
Before I rip into the game, the music's good, the sprite work is mostly really solid, I didn't have any issues understanding what was happening on the screen most of the time, and the voice acting, within the limitations of the story, was solid. This was clearly an indie title on a budget. Good on you for getting Jamieson Price, I'm eternally grateful he seems to be willing to voice whatever as long as you buy him Dennys first. Effort went into making this game look really cool.
Mechanically, this game is creatively bankrupt. The developers really liked Arcsys fighters without understanding why specific systems were put into place. In Guilty Gear, there's an ability every character has access to called psych burst. It's full at the beginning of the round, and you can use it at almost any time during the match to push the opponent away from you, even while you're being attacked. It is a solution to two major issues:
1) The lax combo rules of the game allow for unintended game states that might otherwise hurt the competitive integrity, including infinite combos.
2) Even during intended game states, Gear combos can be long and it feels bad for the other player to watch one player do ray charles shit on their stick for 30 seconds while they sit there not playing a video game. Burst gives them a change to interact with longer combos.
These aren't issues Slave Zero X should have at all. There are times where the player gets wailed on by enemies, but it feels less like the encounters are thought out and will combo you in a cohesive manner (outside of a few late game fights) and more that you're going to get chaingrabbed by a recolor of the same enemy you've been fighting since stage 2. It even behaves the same way it does in Guilty Gear, where if you use it in a neutral state and the shockwave of this burst hits an opponent, you gain full meter. There doesn't seem to be any retooling of this game mechanic to fit a sidescrolling brawler, they just slapped it in there because it's in Gear.
Meter is also inspired by Guilty Gear in a very superficial way. In Gear, you gain meter through aggressive actions, and this meter is spent on a variety of actions ranging from combo extensions to critical defensive options that make the game a chore to play without. There's a lot of right ways to spend meter, but lacking it at a critical time could cost you a round, making management important. Most importantly, you can spend your meter doing cool and flashy shit that doesn't take deep mechanical understanding of the game to care about. Slave Zero X's meter is boring as sin. You mostly regain it through gibbing enemies that have already been dealt enough damage to be considered defeated (this is a major issue, because enemy variety is low and they already come off as a bit damage spongy). You spend that meter not on meter exclusive moves, but on:
- paying a slight amount of meter to backdash cancel attacks (I almost never had to do this)
- canceling the startup of weak attacks into "EX moves", which are just heavy attacks with tweaks to frame data/damage/properties (like the ability to hit an opponent off the ground with an enhanced air attack as opposed to a normal version). They're not fundamentally different attacks, nor do they change your decision making, they just allow for longer combo extensions.
- A "Devil Trigger" enhanced state that allows you use unlimited EX moves, and heals you for all damage dealt.
If I made this sound interesting, I apologize, none of it is. Meter problems go away with just a few shop upgrades (there are no new weapons or moves to buy), and enemy fodder is so omnipresent that after the first 1/4th of the game, in combination with using burst to get meter back, I spent a large chunk of this game in this enhanced state. There aren't a ton of visual differences between having this state and not having this state. You don't get exclusive moves. The healing doesn't even really matter that much, as you'll be able to either juggle 90 percent of the game with the same stale kit of moves, or have to deal with bosses with such a limited period of vulnerability that you'll get three swings off before the meter's drained. It's so fucking lame, and it pretends like what you're doing is the next coming of Bayonetta. This game pretends like it's this tough as nails, very technical brawler for people who want a break practicing sidewinder loops, but most of it can be handled by light attack - stuff - launcher - juggle until they blow up, and if not, fights take 3 min and mostly consist of learning when to parry (because of course this game has a parry) or where to fuck off until the game decides that it's your turn to play. I didn't feel like I got better after playing this game. I sure as hell didn't feel the need to enter the game's training mode, and thank god because even though they advertised it being there, it's a more barebones mode than games from over twenty years ago.
I had fun with this game still. While the game lacks the memorable set-pieces of the games it was inspired by, and very much wore out its welcome after the 3rd of it's 5 hour playtime, this wasn't an aggravating experience (outside of the dreadful platforming sections, an overwhelming majority of my deaths were to a train environmental hazard early on). But for the most part, when playing this game, I just thought "wow, Hakumen from Blazblue sure is a cool character". Hakumen has airdashes, this power fantasy arcsys inspired brawler doesn't have airdashes. Haukmen's counters are really cool, and he has a variety of them. X's parries don't lead to anything other than "cool, you can keep mashing attack, unless the enemy pressed the super armor button again. Hakumen's "I get to use all of my stuff for free" enhanced state, Mugen, is sick as hell because it allows a normally limited character to ignore the rules of the game for six seconds, and potentially one shot the opponent. X's enhanced state puts me to sleep. The fact they both happen to be robotic, eyeless, long white haired, katana wielding nerds is besides the point.
There's also a story. "Rip and tear until its done" turns into a slightly deeper emotional connection between the main protagonist and the sentient and fucked up bio-mechanical suit. There's little here with any emotional sincerity, and the setting doesn't even come off as interesting as the 25 year old game the devs took the setting from. There is some homo-eroticism between Shou (X) and Not Zero, game respect game it's about the most bold decision the Slave Zero X staff took, intentionally or not.
Is it totally fair to compare Slave Zero X's failures to its inspirations? Probably not, but the game constantly invites the comparisons and doesn't do enough original to deflect away from them. It's a game that wants you to think it's the next best thing since high-frequency katana sliced bread, but lacks any convictions of its own and comes off as a very reserved, scared project because of it. The game arrogantly sets itself up for a sequel, and I hope they throw everything in the game part of the game out, and start from the drawing board. Slave Zero X is a game that promises a combat canvas, and hands you a 4 pack of crayola crayons instead.
Before I rip into the game, the music's good, the sprite work is mostly really solid, I didn't have any issues understanding what was happening on the screen most of the time, and the voice acting, within the limitations of the story, was solid. This was clearly an indie title on a budget. Good on you for getting Jamieson Price, I'm eternally grateful he seems to be willing to voice whatever as long as you buy him Dennys first. Effort went into making this game look really cool.
Mechanically, this game is creatively bankrupt. The developers really liked Arcsys fighters without understanding why specific systems were put into place. In Guilty Gear, there's an ability every character has access to called psych burst. It's full at the beginning of the round, and you can use it at almost any time during the match to push the opponent away from you, even while you're being attacked. It is a solution to two major issues:
1) The lax combo rules of the game allow for unintended game states that might otherwise hurt the competitive integrity, including infinite combos.
2) Even during intended game states, Gear combos can be long and it feels bad for the other player to watch one player do ray charles shit on their stick for 30 seconds while they sit there not playing a video game. Burst gives them a change to interact with longer combos.
These aren't issues Slave Zero X should have at all. There are times where the player gets wailed on by enemies, but it feels less like the encounters are thought out and will combo you in a cohesive manner (outside of a few late game fights) and more that you're going to get chaingrabbed by a recolor of the same enemy you've been fighting since stage 2. It even behaves the same way it does in Guilty Gear, where if you use it in a neutral state and the shockwave of this burst hits an opponent, you gain full meter. There doesn't seem to be any retooling of this game mechanic to fit a sidescrolling brawler, they just slapped it in there because it's in Gear.
Meter is also inspired by Guilty Gear in a very superficial way. In Gear, you gain meter through aggressive actions, and this meter is spent on a variety of actions ranging from combo extensions to critical defensive options that make the game a chore to play without. There's a lot of right ways to spend meter, but lacking it at a critical time could cost you a round, making management important. Most importantly, you can spend your meter doing cool and flashy shit that doesn't take deep mechanical understanding of the game to care about. Slave Zero X's meter is boring as sin. You mostly regain it through gibbing enemies that have already been dealt enough damage to be considered defeated (this is a major issue, because enemy variety is low and they already come off as a bit damage spongy). You spend that meter not on meter exclusive moves, but on:
- paying a slight amount of meter to backdash cancel attacks (I almost never had to do this)
- canceling the startup of weak attacks into "EX moves", which are just heavy attacks with tweaks to frame data/damage/properties (like the ability to hit an opponent off the ground with an enhanced air attack as opposed to a normal version). They're not fundamentally different attacks, nor do they change your decision making, they just allow for longer combo extensions.
- A "Devil Trigger" enhanced state that allows you use unlimited EX moves, and heals you for all damage dealt.
If I made this sound interesting, I apologize, none of it is. Meter problems go away with just a few shop upgrades (there are no new weapons or moves to buy), and enemy fodder is so omnipresent that after the first 1/4th of the game, in combination with using burst to get meter back, I spent a large chunk of this game in this enhanced state. There aren't a ton of visual differences between having this state and not having this state. You don't get exclusive moves. The healing doesn't even really matter that much, as you'll be able to either juggle 90 percent of the game with the same stale kit of moves, or have to deal with bosses with such a limited period of vulnerability that you'll get three swings off before the meter's drained. It's so fucking lame, and it pretends like what you're doing is the next coming of Bayonetta. This game pretends like it's this tough as nails, very technical brawler for people who want a break practicing sidewinder loops, but most of it can be handled by light attack - stuff - launcher - juggle until they blow up, and if not, fights take 3 min and mostly consist of learning when to parry (because of course this game has a parry) or where to fuck off until the game decides that it's your turn to play. I didn't feel like I got better after playing this game. I sure as hell didn't feel the need to enter the game's training mode, and thank god because even though they advertised it being there, it's a more barebones mode than games from over twenty years ago.
I had fun with this game still. While the game lacks the memorable set-pieces of the games it was inspired by, and very much wore out its welcome after the 3rd of it's 5 hour playtime, this wasn't an aggravating experience (outside of the dreadful platforming sections, an overwhelming majority of my deaths were to a train environmental hazard early on). But for the most part, when playing this game, I just thought "wow, Hakumen from Blazblue sure is a cool character". Hakumen has airdashes, this power fantasy arcsys inspired brawler doesn't have airdashes. Haukmen's counters are really cool, and he has a variety of them. X's parries don't lead to anything other than "cool, you can keep mashing attack, unless the enemy pressed the super armor button again. Hakumen's "I get to use all of my stuff for free" enhanced state, Mugen, is sick as hell because it allows a normally limited character to ignore the rules of the game for six seconds, and potentially one shot the opponent. X's enhanced state puts me to sleep. The fact they both happen to be robotic, eyeless, long white haired, katana wielding nerds is besides the point.
There's also a story. "Rip and tear until its done" turns into a slightly deeper emotional connection between the main protagonist and the sentient and fucked up bio-mechanical suit. There's little here with any emotional sincerity, and the setting doesn't even come off as interesting as the 25 year old game the devs took the setting from. There is some homo-eroticism between Shou (X) and Not Zero, game respect game it's about the most bold decision the Slave Zero X staff took, intentionally or not.
Is it totally fair to compare Slave Zero X's failures to its inspirations? Probably not, but the game constantly invites the comparisons and doesn't do enough original to deflect away from them. It's a game that wants you to think it's the next best thing since high-frequency katana sliced bread, but lacks any convictions of its own and comes off as a very reserved, scared project because of it. The game arrogantly sets itself up for a sequel, and I hope they throw everything in the game part of the game out, and start from the drawing board. Slave Zero X is a game that promises a combat canvas, and hands you a 4 pack of crayola crayons instead.
3 Comments
@chandler if you pirate the game/grab it on sale, I didn't feel like I wasted my time with the game and the way it tries to incorporate fighting game elements into a brawler is cool to see. I fully get not wanting to expand upon the player's skillset for more of an arcade-like feeling to game progression. I just wish that they built game mechanics that would have worked for the game from the ground up instead of copying them wholesale, and digging around for comments made by the dev staff I think they've at least seen some of that critique.
And as for the edginess topic, either be sincere or have it mean something. Like, your avatar is a perfect example of something very dark, but not gratuitous and uses its theming to augment the point of the story. Or like, just embrace the fucked up lil guys. Kefka/Luca Blight are two examples of like, comically evil characters with zero pathos, but they're fantastic antagonists because of how the game quadruples down on them being assholes. That's fun!
And as for the edginess topic, either be sincere or have it mean something. Like, your avatar is a perfect example of something very dark, but not gratuitous and uses its theming to augment the point of the story. Or like, just embrace the fucked up lil guys. Kefka/Luca Blight are two examples of like, comically evil characters with zero pathos, but they're fantastic antagonists because of how the game quadruples down on them being assholes. That's fun!
fucked up how the mall goths won
chandler
2 months ago
still can't help but have an interest in this because i like the original slave zero and it getting any kind of reboot is thoroughly fucking bizarre, so i'll play it on my own terms either way. but this is a sentiment i've felt ever since doom 2016 reminded people that edginess was cool, but yknow, only if it's super cleaned up and not actually edgy at all. feels so halfhearted