Zone of the Enders Review

 

Released for:

PS2 (2001) /PS3 (2012) /360 (2012)

Zone of the Enders is Hedio Kojima's second major series that began on the PS2 and has recently been released as part of a collection for the PS3 and X-Box 360. It's a fast pace mecha game that takes place in the 22nd centruy. You play as Leo, a young boy who sadly watched his friends die right in front of him when BAHRAM launched their attack on the space station Antilia. He ran into a hanger that contained the Orbital Frame Jehuty, a powerful war machine that BAHRAM is looking for. He sets out to try to save his home and to protect the civilians that haven't made it out yet.

While controlling Jehuty, you have various ways to deal with BAHRAM's forces. From up-close sword attacks, to firing  a number of lasers at once, to grabbing them and throwing them into each other. There are several sub-weapons that you can pick up along the way that range from a sniper rifle, to a powerful beam, a Javelin, and even firing an enemy seeking energy ball. However you mostly run into the same three enemy types over and over and it becomes repetitive fighting the same mechas over and over again. There are optional missions that pop up from time to time where you have to not only destroy the enemies but protect the buildings that have people in them. The boss battles have you fighting against giant Orbital Frames and provides a nice change of pace between slaying the same enemies over and over again.

The graphics, while dated by today's standards, looked good for its time. The cut scenes are mostly talking between Leo, his friend Celvice, ADA, the AI for Jehuty, a few other people that wants to keep Jehuty out of BAHRAM's hands, and every now and then a short introductions of the bosses.

While I do find Zone of the Enders to be a pretty good game, I was annoyed with the amount of back tracking and repetitive nature of it. I felt that the back tracking was done to hide how short the game actually is. While playing the game I did suffer some slow downs during the boss fights that I don't recall being in the PS2 version. Also most of the sub weapons you get are kinda useless so you'll be sticking with Jehuty's primary attacks most of the time.

Summary:

Good:

-Quick and responsive controls

-good graphics for its time

-different weapons

-fun combat system

moderate:

-story

-reused enemies

bad:

-different weapons are mostly useless

-short

-side missions are difficult to get a perfect rank in

-lots of back tracking

-moderate lag in some fights

Graphics: 3/5

Game play: 4/5

Story: 3/5

Sound: 5/5

Overall: 4/5

Check back early next week for my next review.