Zone of the Enders, AKA The free game that came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo

Zone of the Enders,

AKA The free game that came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo

If you’ve ever wondered what a game based on Neon Genesis Evangelion would be like, look no further than Zone of the Enders, the story of a teenager from Space Japan who needed therapy years ago and suffers a mental breakdown thanks to the horrors of war. Also, there are giant robots and they fight each other. Sadly, Zone of the Enders is unable to reach the lofty heights of its inspiration storywise, which is all the more disappointing as the producer was Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear, which is renowned for its plot and characters. Speaking of Metal Gear, this game is infamous for selling very well, but the vast majority of players buying it solely for the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, only to trade this game in en masse once the full version was released.

In the distant future, Jupiter is under attack from the evil despot Nohman and his army of mechs. 14 year old Leo barely manages to escape a robot attack that kills his friends when he stumbles across Jehuty, a mech intended for battling Nohman’s forces. Now it’s up to Leo to transport Jehuty to the military so it can be handed over to a trained pilot, after a quick stop to pick up his love interest Celvice, of course.

The big issue with the plot is the character of Leo. The protagonist of Neon Genesis Evanelion, Shinji, is notorious for being whiny, irrational, incompetent and generally a bag of neuroses, and Zone of the Enders mimics this for Leo. Unfortunately, it goes a step further and throws grating voice acting and poorly justified angst on top. Leo’s big issue is that he suffers from survivor’s guilt after he chose to save himself instead of helping his friends, and because of this he refuses to fight the enemy forces because he doesn’t want to be responsible for the death of anyone else. So far so good, except the rank and file enemy mechs are unmanned drones and by refusing to fight them, he’s only getting more people killed through his inaction. He continues to complain even after a level which involves hacking into one of the enemy mechs and piloting it through an energy field that’s fatal to organic life forms. He should have remembered this and taken solace from it, but he doesn’t, seemingly forgetting it for the sake of the plot. Only the boss robots have pilots, and all but one eject safely after their machines are defeated. The one exception is Viola, the main antagonist, who is fought three times over the course of the game, and chooses to die after the final battle, as she’s fatally injured and her mech is falling apart. To be fair, her death scene is surprisingly well done, possibly the one time the plot achieves the dramatic tone it’s going for. It helps that Leo shuts up for a bit while Viola waxes lyrical about destiny, choice and her own impending death.

The gameplay involves Jehuty flying across a map of Jupiter and touching down in marked areas to clear them of enemy mechs. There are several patrols in each area, with each patrol consisting of two or three enemies, and when enemies start to battle you, other nearby patrols can join in if they’re close. To battle an enemy, you must lock on to them before attacking, and your distance from the enemy will determine your attack. Getting up close will make Jehuty bash the enemy with its sword arm, while distant foes can be shot at with a short laser burst. Jehuty is surprisingly agile for its size, and nippy too thanks to its booster engines. The properties of its attacks can be changed by attacking while moving to activate a sword lunge or homing laser. Holding down the attack button will charge up an energy ball or spin attack, two powerful attacks with the drawback of leaving you vulnerable while you charge them up. All these abilities are tied to one button, so it’s quite impressive that the controls remain simple and intuitive to grasp, with sausage-fingered confusion leading to death being an unlikely occurrence. These tools will cover almost everything you’ll need to do in combat, with the rest being covered by your subweapon. By default, you can press O to grab an enemy or object and throw it away from you, but your other options include a decoy that draws enemy fire away from you (Essential for avoiding a particular boss’s one hit kill attack), mines and a healing shield. The combat doesn’t get dull despite the limited moveset because, although it’s not particularly fancy, every move has a purpose. There is no ability that you’ll never use, so it pays to battle often so that you can get practice using each of your skills.

The combat forms the bulk of the gameplay, but that’s not all you’ll be doing. There are some occasions during which you’ll have to save cities under attack from enemy robots by destroying them before they trash the place and kill civilians. This is easier said than done, as trying to fight carefully isn’t easy when you’re piloting a giant robot, meaning that you pose just as much of a risk to the city as the enemies do. While you keep a patrol occupied, others will continue to attack unmolested, meaning that you’ll have to either defeat enemies quickly or employ a hit and run strategy, dashing around the entire area to distract numerous enemies. In addition, any damage dealt to the cities is permanent, which can be annoying when you are required to save an area you visited earlier in the game. In particular, the first rescue mission takes place in the area where you fight the first boss, a robot so big it almost covers the screen and belches fire everywhere, meaning that it’s almost impossible to do well when the rescue mechanic is introduced, as the entire city’s most likely been burned to ashes long before the objective even comes up. There are also a few occasions where it’s unclear where you need to go next and end up wandering the map aimlessly through trial and error until you stumble across your next objective.

Despite these annoyances, the central gameplay is enjoyable enough that the game doesn’t suffer too much for it. It’s pretty short too, and while this might normally be a bad thing, in this case it’s a positive as the game doesn’t wear out its welcome too much, and ends up being the perfect length for what it is. If it were much longer than it is, the flaws would have likely mounted up and tarnished the rest of the experience to a greater extent.

Graphics: 6   The cutscenes haven’t aged well, but fortunately the in-game graphics hold up better.

Sound: 4     The bad old days of PSOne / early PS2 voice acting, cheesy but not quotable. Shudder.

Gameplay: 7      The combat may be basic, but it is fun despite that.

Lifespan: 5    The story lasts 5 hours with little replay value. On the plus side, there is a secret 2-player mode.

Overall:        The story and characters may not be very good, which is disappointing considering the pedigree behind it, but the gameplay is fun enough to overcome this issue. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy giant robots fighting?          6/10