Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

"Somewhat alike from the PS2 version, somewhat different..."

When I first saw this game, I was expecting something that was going to blow me apart as I played it; my standards were somewhat reached, some parts of the game going beyond what I expected and some going lower...

The game goes on with the PS2 version of Zone of the Enders, while the heroes, heroines, LEV's and OF's (I'll explain this later) are different, as expected. The storyline is quite unique, and the plot twists are sometimes quite shocking. The storyline takes place when you play as Cage, a boy working on the Bonaparte III spaceship. Suddenly, a mysterious object strikes the ship and the massive aircraft begins going down... Cage then finds a room and discovers a mysterious girl who pushes him onto a nearby L.E.V. The two are attacked by a mysterious O.F., and are landed onto Mars, where things begin to unfold... As the player progresses through the game, they will find several plot twists as Cage finds it harder to trust others and the stakes get higher. (To explain, L.E.V.'s and O.F.'s are robots in the Z.O.E saga, L.E.V.'s being weaker against O.F.'s due to a substance in the O.F.'s called metatron.)

The gameplay of Z.O.E: The Fist of Mars is a strategic type game; players move their L.E.V.'s and O.F.'s on a grid board with graphics behind the grid and engage enemies in combat or use items. While the gameplay can be called somewhat 'simplistic', the challenge itself exists; there are battles that indeed call upon the necessity of a thinking mind, like in chess. There will be battles in which the players will be placed against almost two dozen units while the players themselves have only half a dozen. Fear not, however; over the battle maps are 'servers' that Cage can download weapons and attacks from, allowing other members of the party to power up, so that players do not have to level-up as often with more powerful attacks.

The battle system of Z.O.E: The Fist of Mars is quite unique; although you do engage your enemy in combat, Critical Hits do not occur randomly anymore; when a player chooses an attack and decides to strike an enemy, the screen switches over to a 'lock-on' screen where the player is pitted to lock onto the enemy target. If the player is skilled and managed to land a smaller circle onto a weak point, the player scores a Critical Hit. However, this game proves that even ultimate strength is not as powerful; enemies indeed have HP well over 9999!

The graphics of this game are different; like in some strategy games, you do not see the graphics of the people you control; you get only a background and face portraits plastered on the center, and text below. This game is heavily based on this concept; there will be times when the player is bored of his/her wits staring at text and trying to digest a huge amount of information. Also, the backgrounds can sometimes be repetitive; there are instances were you will see the background twice and accidentally conceive it to be the same place, when you read at the top-right to discover you are indeed somewhere else! However, the battle graphics when you are attacking are truly beautiful; just watching Cage's L.E.V attack something is truly remarkable and quite beautiful.

The storyline, as mentioned before, is quite deep; as you get deeper, Cage will join an organization to fight against Earth units who wish to dominate and technically rule Mars. Cage is mixed up in crossfire as he finds out that some friends are foes while some foes were tricked into being so. The characters themselves have detailed background stories if you check under their preferences in the options sections between battles/scenes. However, there are times when the player can feel that the characters are not thoroughly enough described or welcomed, seemingly to just hop in without much background information.

And finally, the music; the score of this game is quite low in my opinion, as there are only a few tunes in this game. Many times the same tune is used for cutscenes or for battles; there are instances where the player will just turn off the music and listen to his own! Although there are times where the music is relaxing and quite easy to listen to (like when you are talking to your friends, or for example, when in Xenosaga Shion has dinner with the crew and decides to bring curry to the commander.) and the scenes add music to make you feel in tune that the scene is trying to show.

In general, Z.O.E: The Fist of Mars is above the basic strategy game and is a good game to pick up if one wants another Xenosaga or Star Ocean story to gobble up. The challenge is quite hard, and there are actually times where a player must choose options to determine the outcome of a game!

STORYLINE: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
MUSIC: 5.5/10
GRAPHICS: 9/10

OVERALL: (Not averaged) 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/03