Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

"Let the Big Dog Eat!"

Advance Wars... Adshmance Wars!!! This game puts that pitiful strategy wannabe in its place. Z.O.E. The Fist of Mars is quite possibly THE most underrated game on the Game Boy Advance. Let's look at some Pro's and Con's of the game.

PROS:
-Good Storyline, and it's very realistic. The character's have personalities which are real. The people you could see in the situations they're in. Kids get treated like kids, and adults get treated like adults. What I mean is, this isn't one of those games where the ten-year old kid goes out on his ''Pokemon Journey'' and ends up taking over the world after 82 hours of gameplay. Nope, THIS is Role playing in a strategy environment.

-Graphics to make your jaw drop. This game, though the graphics aren't quite as you'd say, stunning, on a GBA, that is--Kick Arse. Yes, that's right. The 3D sequences, which involve either dodging an enemy's blasts, or trying to zero in on an enemy, are beautiful. The units are colorful, and they won't leave you wondering, ''Is this my guy... or one of the computers...?'' The character sprites are very radical, whereas many modern games design characters and they all about look the same. They're all unique, and the facial expressions show off how the character feels. Another definite plus is that every individual character, unit, and skill has its very own animation of attack. The animations are SWEET, and better than a lot of the older PSOne and Nintendo 64 cutscenes, IMO. ^_^

-Gameplay, Gameplay, Gameplay!!! It's fun. It's a new idea. And it's a pretty damned good one. To sum up... There's a 2D grid. The enemy soldiers are here and there, your soldiers are here and there. Guest fighters are here and there too. You move your units to the destination, generally near an enemy so you can use one of more than 50 skills, attacks, techniques, and weapons. Once you've chosen your enemy, you're given information to tell your hit percentage, how much damage you'll do, and you and your opponents current health gauges will be displayed. When you attack, it gets really good. You see your opponents Frame (Basically, Frame = Gundam Type Vehicle) and you have target them, and press the A button while they're in your target. It's awesome! To top it off, Critical hits are NOT random. YOUR skills decide. If the cockpit of the enemy is in your target when you hit them, they'll be hit, and BOOM--A critical hit. Sweet, Sweet, Sweet... The enemy, of course gets the same opportunity as you. And if the idea of dodging attacks and aiming strikes doesn't strike your fancy, then you can just turn it off to the point where the game will do it for you.

-Music kicks butt. Well, let's be honest here. The music's good, but not THAT good. In the game, I sat and listened to a few tracks here and there just cause they were good, but I don't remember them now. Hehe.

-More than one ending! Play it twice or three times through!

CONS:
-Towards the later parts of the game, the battle system becomes so easy to master that the ending battles of the game seem like they're a joke.

-Little Difficulty

-Short Game, only 20-something battles.

-Confusing Storyline to some people.

-Long, Drawn-Out Dialogue sequences before each battle and after each battle. Blegh.

-No Versus Mode Feature.

-No Leveling Up-outside of Battles. -_- Not that it's needed, but hey: I like my random battles! ^_^

OVERALL: Buy it, Rent it, Burn it, or Run My friend's copy over with his car... ?

-Rent or Buy. If you'll play through it once, Rent it. Play it all weekend, it'll take you five or six days to beat it--tops, if you play it a lot. If you'll invest more than one playthru in it, BUY IT, for all sakes and purposes... BUY IT.

It's a real shame that this game doesn't receive the credit it deserves--it really is the most underrated title on the GBA. People need to...

LET THE BIG DOG EAT!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/02, Updated 05/29/02