Zone of the Enders

"Z.O.E. Pure Mech Awesomeness."

First off I want to say thankyou to the game creators for making this great piece of work. I will try to retain unbias as possible during this review, but forgive me if Im not, because man its pretty good.

Story 7/10 - The story is about a boy who gets on a robot fighting enemies and learns aout life and death. Very overused Genre in the mech section. The story seems the resembles Gundam and Victory Gundam. Although throughout the game we are given lessons on how to view life and death, the end of the game features a very very intriguing concept which is not expressed that commonly in the present world and I find it to be a very orignal concept. This is the reason why the average score was given 2 extra points to compensate the message enclosed in the ending. However it seems that the story segments may not give enough time to player to know the characters, which makes the ending a bit sudden since we know little about all the characters till the end.

Graphics 10/10 - The Graphics can always improve, but the important matter is if it is suited for the game. And my answer is yes. The mechs in this game are absolutely great and oddly designed giving it a great uniqueness to it. There are few times when you can complain abot the graphics. Nough' said. The FMV scenes are decent, more focusing on the story rather than presentation itself. This in no way means it is poor, since the FMV scenes are ALOT better than what was shown on the Metal Gear 2 Trailer DVD.

Sound 8/10 - The music is good techno, nothing out of the ordinary. What is impressive is how the boss themes music will correspond to your actions. For example when using a barrier, you will hear a twinkling subtle sound going along witha beat in the background making the over all feeling of the music mystical. When charging a energy ball, the bass will dissapear which actually brings about tension and nervousness since you are vulnerable in these moments. The sound effects are interesting and acceptable. Nothing out of the ordinary as I said, in the sound department.

Controls 8/10 - like every other mech game, the controls are very difficult but as for me it takes no time to get used to. In fact I find this to be one of the best controls in a mech game since AC. The controls are super responsive and with the very generous training mode I was in no time a pro level Pilot doing very snazzy fast moves that will amaze anyone who does not know how the controls work. The game is simply fast and amazing. Sometimes it can be frusterating, such as aiming for small objects you cant lock onto, but that is why the ridh analog stick is used for aiming so this is a very minor issue.

Also the other reviewer has seemed to be confused about the sub-weapons, since you can use the D-PAD to CHANGE THE WEAPONS during battle. No 'pausing the game, go to menu and change' crap thank god.

Gameplay 8/10 - ??? Now this is a varying issue here depending on the point of view. From one view, this game will feature repetitive battles over and over with an excuse that you must complete other missions. From another view it will be a game full of eye candy and the power to destroy just about everything, with super fast yet not-difficult battles over and over again all over a Space Colony. SO this can differ from person to person. Personally I appreciated the monster good graphics, and the super battle engine very much so that the only thing I worried when playing this game was 'when is it going to end?!?!?!' because you dont want it to. Of course it does, which leaves you wanting a friend who is realy good at this game to challenge the Versus mode that is opened after beating the game (look in instruction booklet for more detail)

Criticism- a review will not be complete without looking at both sides of the story here.

When playing this game the first time through one may be amazed to see how the stages you are in may feel like a box which you are trapped in making the stages seem very lame to explore despite the super good graphics. This is espeically true since the backgrounds are so vast and the ceiling of the colony is 'way up there'. A stage possibly twice its current size would have been awesome. During Boss battles this does not even come to mind however (you are busy killing him).

The game may eb confusing to an average gamer, though there is the difficulty settings which should fix this problem.

There is only 3 main enemies you will fight throughout this whole game excluding the bosses. One would wonder wy such a awesome game would have only 3 enemiy unit designs. increasing the variety of enemies would have pumped more life into this game since with each different enemy you always use a different tactic to kill, and you only really need 3 since there are only basically 3 types.

Overall - 9/10 Although this game has its batch of flaws like every other game in existence, they are so minute that I can really care less. It is definetly not perfect but definetly deserves its high score. The game probably would have been alot more replayable if the missions or more secrets were available when beatig the game since the game itself is very fun. The versus mode is also very fun making it possible to fight super strong computers or even your best friend.

Rent or Buy? - If you like mechs, then no reason for you to hesitate. IF you like action and eyecandy with amazing graphics, no reason to hesisite to buy this. If you just want your best weekend ever but cant put down the retail price then a rent is reccomended since the game can be repetitive.Im glad I got mine, and the MGS2 demo is just as good making this purchase last you a good 12 hours. (6 hours each lol)

Thanks Konami. And lets await for Z.O.E. 2 (which I can assure you is most likely to happen)to let us see how they can miprove a monolitihic game like this one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/01, Updated 03/18/01