Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

"Great plot/characters marred by an infantile battle system"

Z.O.E. The First of Mars

In February of 2002, Konami quietly released a strategy game based on their popular Mech action PS2 game, Zone of the Enders. Of course by this point Nintendo had already released the stellar RTS, Advance Wars, and the high water mark for strategy games was hastily erected. And while ZOE doesn’t hold up against Advance Wars in terms of gameplay, it kicks its butt (and most other GBA games on the market) in terms of story.

Story 9/10– Since the story is such an integral part of the gameplay experience, I’ll be brief. In the future, the earth has proven to be to small to cope with it’s sprawling population. With the help of huge humanoid robots called orbital frames, people have started to colonize other planets, such as Mars. These people are viewed as rednecks by earthlings and given the derogatory name “enders.” This is the story about a young ender who gets thrown into the mix with a bunch of mars rebels after experiencing an encounter with a mysterious black frame……

Gameplay 4/10 - The game follows the suit of most other strategy games on the market. Battles are chapter based and take place on a grid. You have command of a select number of units all with varying strengths and weaknesses, and an assortment of attacks for whatever situation may arise. You gain money and experience from defeated foes, and between stages you can tool around with your mechs in the garage. Standard stuff really. However, ZOE does have some unique aspects that help it to stand out. First there is the story. It is immense and well written. You’ll really want to keep playing. The characters act very realistically, and the dialogue is very well penned. Second is the AIS battle system. Instead of calculating damage based purely on stats, whenever a battle occurs, you will be trying to center the enemy between your crosshair, or avoiding theirs. A lot like another Konami game (Ring of Red) actually. While the AIS system is unique, it also (unfortunately) creates issues with the balance of the game. Basically it allows for every attack made on your party to be avoided, thus deleting any challenge the game might have had. Though the tasks you’ll need to perform are nice and varied (beating more enemies than a rival group, sneaking past enemy guard, etc.) no skill is ever required to accomplish them. Just run up to the enemy and balst away.

Graphics 7/10 – While the battlefields look nice and detailed, the actual mech sprites that you manipulate look pitiful and give you no indication of what the unit actually looks like. The cut scenes, and profile sections have some well done artwork though. Also, the AIS targeting segments use a quasi 3D engines to give the target some weight. These look pretty cool.

Sound 9/10 – The sound in this game is fantastic! I can’t quite place it under any specific genre, but it’s all very well composed, and makes good use of the midi format (as much as one can of course). The sound effects are also well done. Almost to the point of being memorable, which is quite an accomplishment for a GBA game I think.

Replay Value 6/10 – Well, first of all, ZOE is a very loooooong game. There’s about 20 or so missions here. The battles take a while, and so does scrolling through the story. On the other hand, once you’ve played through this game once, there’s really no reason to ever play it again. There’s a sound test, and a character profile section to monkey around with, but overall, once you’re done with the game, you’re done with it for good. All in all, I’d say I’d pay……mmmm…….. Maybe $25 or so for it. No more than that.

I can’t imagine who the target audience for Zone of The Enders could be. With it’s bulbous amounts of text, it couldn’t have been made for fans of the first game’s fast paced action combat. And with it’s simplified AIS targeting systems, it couldn’t have been made for strategy buffs. So who then? People who want a laid back gaming experience. People who don’t have the time to learn any complex gaming systems. People who perhaps feel like reading a good novel, but don’t have any good ones available (or are simply too cool to).

Overall 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/26/02, Updated 08/26/02