These can range from thrown javelins, homing missiles, giant laser beams or decoy systems to distract enemies, or even just eschewing sub weapons in order to grab and throw things around. You can move and dash in all directions extremely quickly, guarding is extremely responsive, and the reasonable selection of sub weapons gives you a lot of options to unleash in just the right situation. It’s probably good that the core gameplay can be boiled down so simply, as it gets incredibly fast paced. Some pattern memorization and extremely precise movement timing is needed to best some of the challenges the game will throw at you. Couple this with a very quick-to-activate guard button (not to mention the ability to parry melee attacks with your own) and you’ll find that combat is a much more nuanced affair than first perceived. All of these different modes of attack have very different results and effects, so learning what situations call for each is important. More subtleties are quickly discovered, however, when one figures out how the attacks interact with the dash button.īoth ranged and melee attacks will change when dashing, and a burst attack can be produced by standing still. The gameplay and moveset looks somewhat sparse at first, with a single primary attack button that shifts between melee and ranged depending on distance to target coupled with a secondary attack button that can be filled with all manner of optional weapons. In addition, the game is absolutely not afraid to assault you from all sides and have enemies surround you, so maneuvering through this space quickly becomes second nature. It’s almost easy to forget just how big your mecha actually is during the action sequences, so smooth is your movement. Gravity and inertia are total non-issues, and the gameplay feels more like your average action game that just so happens to take place in the air. Jehuty flies and floats through the three-dimensional levels at a rapid pace, darting from enemy to enemy and unleashing an onslaught of quick and deadly attacks to dispatch all comers. By contrast, one of the most striking aspects of the two primary ZoE games is their feeling of weightlessness. Typically, the giant robots in an average video game will feel giant they tower above the field and usually have a lot of weight and solidity to their movements and attacks. Nonetheless, the two games spawned something of a cult following along with their spin-off strategy/RPG ( Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars, GBA, 2001 - a very good game but one that I won’t touch on too much in this article) and a 26 episode anime series.
This was quite evident after the release of the sequel ( Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, PS2, 2003 ), which received much more favorable reception for its numerous improvements to the concept and mechanics, but failed to sell nearly as many copies. An action game through and through, ZoE saw players seated behind the controls of Jehuty, a flight capable Orbital Frame (the mecha of the franchise) that glided through the air and darted in and out of both ranged and melee combat more quickly than many mecha in games before - or since!ĭespite reasonably positive critical reviews, much of the game’s attention and sales came not from its own qualities, but because it was bundled with the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty demo. But few feel quite as striking to me as the games of the Zone of the Enders series, and after just replaying them, I felt like looking back and seeing what they did right and where they might have gone wrong.ĭeveloped by Konami and produced by Hideo Kojima, the original game ( Zone of the Enders, PS2, 2001 ) was released early in the Playstation 2’s lifespan. Suffice it to say there are quite a few interesting examples of solid mecha games out there. Other times, these mecha are simply included as a small element and aren’t necessarily the primary focus of their series, such as in Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Zone of the enders ken figure series#
Some of these are original concepts designed directly for games, such as Armored Core, while plenty are simply adaptations of existing series like the many Mobile Suit Gundam games. But what’s even better than watching giant robots fight? Controlling the robots that are fighting, of course.Īs such, video games are no exception to the presence of mecha, encompassing a vast array of titles spanning many genres over the years.
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