Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (2003)

I will repeat the thing every single person who had played both Zone of the Enders games has stated: The 2nd Runner is better than the first one in every possible way and this is what the first game should have been more like. Mission flow feels more natural as they're not split into zones this time around. While story is unfortunately mediocre (not insultingly stupid anymore though), its presentation with all kinds of action scenes and anime pieces is fantastic. Oh, and the gameplay! In the sequel it is absolutely perfect - a non-stop lightning fast action. Graphics look great, I'd even dare say this HD collection is one of the best examples of what a good video game remaster is, and the sequel benefits from it the most as the environmental designs seem to be more varied and detailed in this game. Music is pretty good too (a couple of techno tracks and an ending song do stand out in my memory). Overall the game just feels like it's constantly on the move and you have no time to chill, it just takes your breath away with the high tempo of the gameplay, story presentation and soundtrack.

One more thing I'd like to mention is the game's difficulty. I started it on normal, but very soon wisely chose to switch to easy as I had too hard of a time and it just wasn't fun to me. On the other hand, easy almost seemed too easy sometimes, but then the final boss arrived and thank god I didn't reach him on normal. Anyway, if you ask me, easy is the perfect way to play this game as it gives you the godlike feeling you'd expect to have while controlling a huge robot fighting other huge robots.

It is unfortunate that the HD collection didn't sell well enough for Konami to greenlight the making of the third game. As for these two we have here, I'd say the sequel is more than worth checking out and while the original is not a bad game, it's not essential. Whichever you choose, the HD remasters are without any doubt the definitive way to play these games nowadays (keep in mind there's also a PC version of The 2nd Runner, which I'm sure is even better).

P.S. Almost forgot to mention that Hideo Kojima has been involved in some way in the making of this series. This is what got me interested in playing it in the first place.

Having just re-played Zone of the Enders and finding that it did not stand up to the expectations of my nostalgia (I didn't hate it, but found it lost a star in my esteem since I originally played it), I was excited to dive into the sequel and see if it improved on the things that I now found disappointing about the original.

Sadly, while it took a step forward in terms of graphic quality and combat mechanics, it took a huge leap backwards on narrative quality.
Either the writing was terrible to begin with, or the translation/localization was awful (or both I suppose). This was the case in the first game and it got WORSE in this one.
The cutscenes, which were anime-style, looked much better than the low-polygon animations of the first game, but the dialogue was extremely repetitive and at times nonsensical, and never clever, exciting, or in any way evocative.
The voice actors don't seem to have been given any direction or context; most of the time they are just yelling their lines without any emotional nuance (maybe this is meant to trigger nostalgia for badly-localized '90s anime?). The plot, like most Kojima plots, is juvenile at the best of times, and completely irrational most of the time.

Now, mechanically, the game was better than its prequel. Enemy complexity (both in terms of the types of enemies, the number and variety of moves available to those enemies, and the complexity of their behavior) was dramatically improved, making for much more interesting combat encounters. There was a whiplash moment in the very first combat encounter, so different and so much more challenging it was than the previous game. Boss battles were varied and interesting. Lots of the available subweapons, unfortunately, had very little useful applications. The last two three boss battles - which really could be viewed as three broad stages of one mega-boss-battle - were a bit frustrating in how far they deviated from the tactics the game had trained the player to use up til that point.

All in all, the improvements in the gameplay mechanics and graphics from the prequel were really overshadowed by how awful the plot and dialogue were.

The 2nd Runner is a objectively a good game, however SUBJECTIVELY I don't think it's something that absolutely everybody has to play.

First things first, the story, it's not really something to write home about, the characters are one-dimensional, often annoying, and their voice actors are either mediocre, or flat out bad. Hideo Kojima had a hand in the development of this franchise however even though it might contain the flash action and cool moments he is known for, none of his influence hits the story, which I personally thought was very meh.

The gameplay is fun for the first couple of hours, you're essentially this super fast mech that does different attacks depending on the distance from your target. When you're far, the mech will automatically do long range attacks with projectiles, only bringing out the sword when you come into close quarters. There's a dash used to dodge attacks or hone in on your target and you can do some pretty powerful attacks with your ranged and melee weapons, breaking enemy guard.

At the same time you can also stand still and charge up attacks which will do massive damage, but makes you literally a sitting duck. The beauty of the gameplay comes from seeing which enemies are long range or melee targets, and try to take out these huge swarms of enemies all the while taking care of your surroundings and evading enemy attacks like the plague, because the game does get pretty challenging in terms of the enemy types it throws at you and how you're supposed to take care of these threats without dying. All of this happens at an incredible speed, so it really feels like an anime battle or something straight out of the most stylish shows/movies you can imagine. The camera, while being a little weird at times manages to frame the action perfectly, and it feels like you're playing through a high octane action movie, in the best possible way. However, this gameplay style is only cool for the first 3 or 4 hours for me, by the last hour and a half of the game I was rushing through waiting for the game to be over.

The visuals are incredible for a PS2 game, even with the remaster on PS4 it still looks great today, with the models for the mechs looking stunning and the art style of the environments holding up, the actual battle arenas are very empty and are essentially backdrops to the action, but it makes total sense.

Easily the best part about the game to me was the music, the score is so weird yet so fitting for this game I can't really imagine this music being in any other sort of video game. I will definitely come back and listen to the tracks alone while studying or even as white noise in the background.

I can see why people love this game, I really do, however I was expecting something more in the story department of things, especially if the game is being produced by Hideo Kojima himself. As the game went on, I lost interest because the main motivation for playing the game for me, the story and characters, were not enough to keep me hooked the entire time, which is unfortunate. There were also quite a few moments where the game frustrated me to no end, however I am willing to admit it's not the game's fault, it was my lack of skill playing through the game. It was a odd style of gameplay to pick up.

In terms of the length of the game, I spent about 6 and a half hours to beat it, and I did it in one session, which at the time of writing this review was about 4 or 5 hours ago.

With that said, The 2nd Runner is a very niche title, I can see why people love it, but at the end of the day, I don't see myself touching this game ever again.