Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

"Best story ever!"

What is a strategy game anyway? Games like Advance Wars and Starcraft are strategy games. Games where you have to think about what units to deploy, how to prevent your base from being taken, etc. But this is more of an RPG due to it's extremeley marvelous story. It beats any book I EVER read! But there are so many characters to keep track of though. Luckily the game comes with a built-in dictionary to tell you about every character of the story after you meet them. The only gripe i have about the story is that when someone dies, you have to ask yourself ''Are they REALLY dead?'', and ''When in the story can i expect to see them again?''.

The actual gameplay is pretty good. It's sorta like advance wars where you move around your units (you can only use the ones u get, you cant build more) and fire on the enemy. For each map (24 total), there are different objectives to fulfull before victory. One thing I like about the maps are that you usually finish all the objectives on the map (like defusing a bomb), and lo and behold! you're not done yet! (like the enemy who set the bomb pops out with an army 3 times the size of yours). The battles are pretty basic. You take turns firing at each other with different weapons. THe minigame that lets you target or avoid an attack is the main part of the battle, and can get pretty annoying. Luckily you can turn this off.

The graphics are BE-YOU-TIE-FUL! Facial expressions are excellent and in anime style (yay!), and the giant mechs look marvelous when they are attacking in psudo-3d. THe battlefield is nothing special, but isnt too bad either. THere are lots of actual scenes drawn into the game, so you can get a look at characters besides their faces. Some of the best graphics ive seen on GBA.

I love the music! Ive been humming one of the tunes from the game for a week now! THe music is great and the sound affects are pretty good too. No complaints here.

No multiplayer!? ''What'chu talkin' bout Konami?'' That's right. THere is no multiplayer at all here. It woulda been nice if players would have been able to set up battles to see who would win, but oh well. THis makes replay drop like a stone. After you beat it (which won't be too soon) you'll put it away for about 2 or 3 months, then play it again. Kinda like a book.

So in concluson, this is a game for RPG fans, anime fans, if you are waiting for tactics ogre for GBA, of if youre riding across the country soon. And one more thing- be a pal and let someone borrow it after you're done.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/02, Updated 04/06/02