Zone of the Enders

"It was the best mech game ever for 4 hours, then it ended."

I was at the mall yesterday when my mom decided to let me and my brothers get something for 10 bucks each. I couldn't decide between Zone of the Enders and Medal of Honor Frontlines. I picked Z.O.E. and I think I made the right choice.

Graphics: Wow. These are possibly the best graphics on the PS2 aside from God of War. The mechs are all totally sweet looking and the Jehuty (your mech) is totally sweet. There is a lot of detail put into the environment, and all of the buildings are destructible. The enemies all look totally cool, but you only fight 3 kinds of enemies throughout the whole game, though they do vary in strength as you progress. Outer space looks cool, and when you fly around on the “world map” you can see a lot. There are two major problems I have with the graphics. First, is that when you fly around areas you can't see too far ahead of you. The second problem is that invisible walls that turn red when you get too close surround the areas where your missions take place.
8/10

Sound: The voice acting in this game is superb. The music when your flying around or getting into fights is a very upbeat techno soundtrack reminiscent of Custom Robo. The music in cutscenes and serious moments is very dramatic and fits well. The opening and ending themes are Japanese anime style songs. There is only one serious problem with the sound. Your computer system, ADA, won't shut the heck up in the middle of battle! Half the actions you take will make her talk. 8/10

Length: Um… this is where things get ugly. This game took me exactly 4 hours and 17 minutes to beat, at least 30 minutes of that being cutscenes. This isn't all bad, though. There are 4 difficulty levels, easy, medium, hard, and very hard. I played through on easy, but it wouldn't take any more time on the other modes considering the way the game is played and the fact that I spent a bit of time wandering around confused. There are some unlockable things, but not enough that you'll want to play it for more than 25 hours. 6/10

Story: For such a short game, the story is pretty good. I'm not sure which came first, but I know that there is also a Zone of the Enders anime series. You see, it starts out with this kid, Leo, who is running away from a mech battle, while some punk ties three of his friends to a pole. The punk calls them Enders, but the term ender is never actually used again throughout the game. After this, Leo finds a mech (Jehuty) and decides to get in, finding that he is the perfect pilot. Someone contacts him and tells him that he needs to get Jehuty to them, and that's where things begin. There is a bit of a plot twist near the end, but the story is fairly predictable and slightly disappointing. 8/10

Game play: Zone of the Enders is a really fun game. I'll go through the important things first. ZOE requires you to use the control stick to move around. The controls are solid and work well. You use the triangle button to ascend and the X button to descend. You use the R2 button to boost around, which also works well. Standing still and pressing R2 will let you use burst, which I'll explain later. The square button controls all of your attacks. First you have your basic attacks. If you're at long distance, you fire a weak little gun, and at close range you slash away at the enemy. The slash is awesome because the camera makes sure it looks cool. When your using your boost, your long-range attack fires lasers, and your close range is a stab attack. When you use burst, you can fire a huge blast or do a hyper-slash. You lock onto enemies using the L2 button, block with R1, and dismiss your lock-on with L1. Also, as you play, you will pick up special items you can assign to the O button. All that sounds nice, but how does it work?

Well, first of all you fly around a world map. On the world map, you can see a bunch of areas below you that are marked by huge rectangles. You enter an area by flying near it and pressing O. Once you enter an area, you will see multiple groups of enemies floating around, probably destroying buildings. If you get close to them, or lock onto one of them, you will be locked in combat with the enemies until you kill the whole group, which usually consists of 3 or 4 enemies. Everything works really well, and the enemies never gang up on you. There are a few different kinds of missions. Some require you to destroy something; some make you find a pass code; and some make you rescue townspeople. The only major problem with all of this is that there are only 3 kinds of enemies. There are skinny guys with swords that are easy to kill, the fat guys with lasers who are hard to kill, and the medium guys with medium stats. This is all you really need to know. 8/10

Overall I give Zone of the Enders a 7.6 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/21/05