Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

"What a rush!"

The game
First of all, you control an orbital frame. The orbital frames are developed by BAHRAM (which is in origin a splinter faction of people on Mars who oppose against earth) to gain a serious edge over the defenses of earth. The Orbital frames are constructed of the material “ Metatron” which is a material more powerful than anything before. He who posses the absolute power of Metatron can’t be stopped. Dingo stumbles upon Jehuty, the Orbital Frame of ZOE 1, during a routine investigation at his work. But as if the devil plays with him, just when Dingo finds Jehuty, a whole fleet of BAHRAM units reached the same location with two goals: “Take Jehuty with them” or the 2nd goal: “Destroy Jehuty”. During the development of Jehuty, there was another orbital frame constructed: “Anubis” So you can say that both Orbital frames are twins of each other. What they share, are the same capabilities but Anubis has one edge above Jehuty. Jehuty isn’t on it’s full powers yet. Dingo takes control of Jehuty and fights his way through large groups of BAHRAM units. Because Dingo was once a soldier for BAHRAM, he wants to explore who’s in charge of this mission. And so he finds out….. It’s .. Who, Stop! No, I’m not giving it away. Just play for yourself and find out. Let me get deeper in the play mechanics of this game.

Gameplay
Zone Of the Enders: the 2nd runner is by far the game with the most action on the Playstation 2 (or whatever other console). Man.. you WILL get an adrenaline rush ( and some sort of RSI if you’re not cautious ) from playing this game. Jehuty maneuvers with an incredible speed and has lots of abilities for you to use. Jehuty can lock on to enemies, he has boosters to gain speed and evade attacks, he can grab enemies and use them as a shield or throwing device, he can shoot, use melee attacks, use energy attacks…. The list goes on and on. Agility is crucial in this game and the speed of the game doesn’t disappoint in giving you one hell of a kick.

Due to the hordes of enemies at once (sometimes, over 100 enemy units on the screen) Jehuty can now lock onto multiple enemies using his (or her, because the board computer is named “ADA” and has a female voice) homing lasers. While moving to a certain direction, you can hold R2 to thrust and then hold the square button to lock onto the enemies. When the square button is released, watch many rays of lasers hit the enemies. While standing still and by pressing R2 first + the Square button, Jehuty generates a large energy bolt (burst shot) which is very powerful and useful against the larger enemies (mostly Raptors). Beware though, using the homing lasers and the burst shots, Jehuty consumes power from your sub-energy meter. But hey, the advantage is that when you destroy an enemy, the meter will regain power. When Jehuty is far away from his enemy and you simply press the square button, you will fire short bursts of lasers.

But in my point of view, what really steals the show are the formidable melee attacks! When you’re in close range of the enemy unit, your targeting reticule will turn red which means you can use your blades. They are far more destructive than the (homing) lasers and with the blades, you can launch some very impressive combo’s. If you press (timed well) 3 times the square button, and the fourth button you press is triangle, you send your enemy flying up the sky. If the last button you pressed is the X button, you send your enemy right to the ground. So what’s the advantage? Well… Almost every level has a bottom and a roof. If you manage to hit your enemy in one of these surfaces, they will suffer far more damage.
Another great innovation is the ability to grab items / enemies. Jep, you can use large pillars as a baseball bat or you can throw them at your enemies for devastating damage. Grabbing enemies is what you do when you’re close by and press the circle button. After that, you can use the grabbed enemy as a shield, you can smash around with it or you can throw the enemy into another unit. It’s the best thing to do when you tend to get surrounded by enemy units. But beware, if you hold the enemy for a long time, it breaks loose. These new features are a worthy addition to the series, but above all, they make the gameplay experience deeper.
Another addition to the fighting engine is the use of sub-weapons. You’ll get them by destroying level bosses or during special occasions. Some sub-weapons are crucial for your mission objective, some sub-weapons are necessary for destroying end of level bosses. They are very fun to use, but during your first play, you will never use all of them because you get the sub-weapons short after each other. One sub-weapon which is vey effective is called “Gauntlet” which sends a physical attack to your enemy. If the enemy gets smacked to a hard surface during this Geiser attack, he will suffer twice the damage. This will come in handy.

The levels in the game are very varied. One moment, you’re following a train which is transporting an Orbital Frame (this level is exclusive to the European version and man, it rocks!), on another occasion you’re fighting your way through hordes of enemies on a large battlefield defending friendly units. The variety of levels is great and the gamer maintains the large pressure of just continue playing. Also, many levels have a level boss which you have to defeat. Without spoiling to much, those battles are some of the greatest in videogame history. You really need to outsmart your enemy and think of ways how to defeat them.

Graphics and sound
Welcome to a next generation Playstation 2 title ( another generation.. the fourth generation or what? ;-) ). Well.. whether it’s another “next generation” in terms of graphics or not, remains to be seen but they are certainly in a league of their own. The surroundings are very detailed with great use of lightning and color. Textures are sharp and sometimes, you will be amazed by the scale of the surroundings. But what’s best in the graphics department are the orbital Frames and BAHRAM units. First of all, they look really cool! And man, what detail got into these units. Just look at Jehuty. Every single screw can be seen. The “veins” of Jehuty are strings of light passing through it’s whole body and gives a great effect. The game uses an odd technology which shows a bit of resemblances to Cell Shading. Many of the effects and the units use this graphical aspect and make the game look like nothing before it. Just look at some of the high – res screenshots and you’ll see what I mean. The Frame Rate is very fast (which is essential for bringing the action to life in this game) but sometimes, when there are literally hundreds of units on screen), drops a bit. Luckily, this won’t affect the gameplay.

The music is an odd mix of Japanese pop and some sort of classical theme. It sounds great and really fits to the anime atmosphere of the game (just watch those great cut scenes which are hand painted !). Sound effects in the game are beautiful too. The “clang” of blades versus metal is great and the laser effects sound good too. There’s just so much to see and hear in the game. The graphics and sound give a great contribution in the fun-factor of the game.

In the end…
So where does this leave us. To buy or not buy? Well, the game is very short. I managed to play through the game on easy mode (shame on me) in 4 hours and 25 minutes. After playing through the game once, you will receive a 2-player option (barely any fun) and an “extra mission” mode (very fun!) In this extra mission mode you can set parameters for a level. Survival, boss battle, play through finished missions, et cetera. Also, you can unlock different Jehuty types and more difficulty settings. The Replay Factor of the game is high and the extra mission mode never gets boring. I just want more… please Konami… develop ZOE 3 for us.. I can hardly wait. Whoops.. a reminder. I forgot to answer the question… Buy it!!

+ Action, action, ACTION!
+ The speed of the game
+ Tight Controls
+ Great story with beautifully drawn movies
+ The new abilities

- Short game
- The sub weapons will likely be underused
- 2 player mode isn’t that much fun
- Sometimes, the camera has its moments

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/03