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.

So I hit a roadblock on PC. You can only select one input type at a time, KB/M or controller. I picked controller because combat feels better with a controller. I reached a point where I need to enter text. There is not text entry for controller. But you can’t access KB/M when in controller mode so I can’t just type text with my keyboard. I also can’t exit the text entry screen because the text is required, so that means I can’t reach the menu to access the input toggle. All of that means I can’t progress without force quitting the game. Pretty stupid design.

Dumb UX design like that is enough to potentially turn me away from something.

I love the juxtaposition of these two takes on Zenelss Zone Zero:

Zenless Zone Zero captures the perfect action game flow

The best character action games let me enter the combat flow state. I love zipping to my target, pummeling them with attacks, nimbly dodging, launching them into the air, and juggling their body until they eventually give out — or in the case of Zenless Zone Zero, explode into a kaleidoscope of neons evocative of a ’90s television set. Hoyoverse’s latest free-to-play offering excels at frenetic fighting that’s instantly gratifying.

Zenless Zone Zero Is a Rare Misstep for miHoYo

Zenless Zone Zero relies on an amalgamation of quirky ideas which, while good on paper, tend to clash with its overall aims. In effect, this leads to a rather ill-timed release that’s unlikely to keep even most long-term miHoYo fans engaged.

For the record, it's the first mihoYo game that I think is fun from moment to moment, and maybe that won't last, but I probably currently fall into the former camp rather than the latter.