Zenless Zone Zero (2024)

Playtime: 3h17m

Intro

This is a fighting game with a ton of nonsense stacked on top.

The Good

• Fights look really cool.
• It's free.
• 10% less child porn than Genshin Impact

The Bad

• I unlocked 4 characters and half of them made me uncomfortable.
• Time isn't free.
• Boring story.
• Uninteresting characters.
• Combat is actually pretty basic.

The Ugly

• Logging in takes over a minute and you have to click twice with ~10 seconds in between.
• Exiting the game without using Alt+F4 takes 4 clicks and waiting for a slow menu to load. Lol.
• Super predatory monetisation.
• Most of the twenty different menu's consist of icons.
• There are at least three different daily reward structures plus other F2P nonsense.
• You have to walk around a small map, sit through menus and dialogue, move around on a 2D map and do the hokey-pokey before you're actually allowed to fight like two whole fights and the entire sequence repeats.
• Seriously, between all the rewards, walking, talking, et cetera the actual fighting gameplay is like 25% of the game.

The Japanese

• One of the characters looks like a kid and makes porn sounds.

Conclusion

Cool combat visuals, awful everything else.

This is whisky. If you know your limits, have rules and enjoy responsabily then you'll have fun. It's does a few things and it does them well: character design, art and style.

If you are an alcoholic, avoid it at all costs. But note, there is the chance that this games turns you into an alcoholic - a small one.

This game's style is so fun, the world is magical. But i can't imagine playing the game for longer than 5 hours. That's because unlike starrail there is no new areas to explore. So you end up feeling like you are stuck in a really nice box. (release impression)

*A year later the game is in a much better spot. A lot more characters, double banners so more choice, and a bit less stingy. Getting to endgame content is a bit annoying, but once you are there the game feels really nice and the systems click toghther.

Going through the story will have you play with most of the characters. So you'll have a good idea if the game is worth your time.

I have a massive issue with how slow the dialogue is to progress. I read fast. I would rather there is no skip option and I can speed through. But at least there is a skip option. The static conversations are just far to mediocre and tendious.

I think that this game would have benefited from a 'less is more' approach to the story telling and only have the AA and AAA tier cutscenes. The A tier stuff is just... pointless.

There is something uncanny and unsettling about the way that the characters move during cut scenes. It's as if they are missing in-betweens and that the animation rushes movement from keyframe to keyframe. The result is exaggerated swift movements that feel like a Disney character on speed. It also seems to be largely a choice for the female presenting characters than the male ones, an example of which being that the two siblings are animated differently even when in the same scene together.

It's a stylistic choice, so I can't fault them for doing anything wrong, I just don't think I love the choice.

@Sir_Laguna, what is the smartest way to spend currency on banners? Given I pulled all the featured characters on the exclusive banner, should I bank my polychrome and encrypted tapes for the next exclusive banner, or should I just keep pulling? Also should I bank regular tapes or spend them given there’s nothing special about the stable banner?

Curious what you’d do given you get away with playing Genshin Impact for free.

I can’t with the character design of this game. I really like the combat but the game is high in fan service and all of it is so uninspired and one-dimensional, and even really creepy. These games feel like they are full of this repressed kind of horniness that manifests itself in weird off-putting ways. It’s like the worst tropes of mass produced anime pumped out to exploit a specific audience.

Why does it have to have such enjoyable gameplay mechanics but so aesthetically shallow?