I’ve made the error of underestimating HoYoverse video games earlier than. When Honkai: Star Rail launched final 12 months, I approached it very a lot with the idea that Genshin Affect had been lightning in a bottle — a one-off banger that I used to be joyful to make the only exception to the rule that I had little interest in F2P RPGs geared toward a mobile-first market — and that I would cowl HSR for a couple of weeks round launch after which quietly drop off as soon as the preliminary surge of curiosity died down. Extra idiot me, then, when it ended up changing into considered one of my favorite video games of 2023, with round 200 hours on my account thus far.
I ought to’ve gone into Zenless Zone Zero with my expectations set fairly excessive. However, I would additionally heard rumblings that ZZZ wasn’t as much as par with HoYo’s different current output. Because of this, my expectations entering into have been… difficult: I used to be prepared to be satisfied, however not anticipating the world.
Even in the event you’re acquainted to HoYoverse video games, Zenless Zone Zero has a couple of surprises up its sleeve for you. Dropped into the preview construct with no prior hands-on expertise, I discovered that untold hours spent taking part in each Genshin Affect and Honkai: Star Rail hadn’t ready me to hit the bottom working in Zenless Zone Zero fairly as effortlessly as I would assumed. Information of HoYo’s different video games got here in helpful when navigating menus and calculating gacha change charges, for example, however truly interacting with its world is sort of a special expertise.
This is not a nasty factor: lots of the components about ZZZ that have been essentially the most complicated to me at first ended up being essentially the most charming components of the entire bundle ultimately. For instance: perhaps it is simply me being bizarre, however one facet of gacha video games that is all the time bugging me is the truth that you possibly can find yourself seeing little or no of your canonical participant character. As soon as you’ve got stacked your roster with some extra highly effective models, you may probably be seeing much more of somebody who made a five-minute cameo within the story than the protagonist whose journey you are meant to be compelled to comply with.
However as I felt my manner round ZZZ, it started to daybreak on me that the in-story justification for who you’re and the place and when is way stronger on this recreation than in others of its sort. While you first start, you possibly can select to play as both Belle or Smart: the basic HoYo sibling protagonist duo who function a gender choice possibility for gamers. However right here, whoever you do not select will nonetheless be a serious presence in your recreation, serving as your co-worker and go-to confidant in your house base, in addition to your actually indispensable sibling-in-arms.
Genshin Affect does a variant on this — the unchosen sibling turns into a big supporting determine within the protagonist’s story, albeit largely off-screen having their very own concurrent journey — however sometimes your poor gender-flipped self simply disappears into the ex-canonical void after making your alternative. So seeing Zenless Zone Zero’s two protagonists each get to be key on-screen presences is already a nice shock, and proper off the bat marks ZZZ as a recreation that is not overly beholden to the traditions set both by its style or its guardian studio.
Its gacha trappings are mainly an identical, certain, however standardised monetisation appears to be an govt mandate inside HoYo; conversely, on the artistic aspect, it seems that the devs are being given a shocking quantity of freedom, on condition that the studio may mainly print cash with its tried-and-tested formulation at this level.
In Zenless Zone Zero’s overworld, you play as your alternative of Belle or Smart. That is it. When exploring the retrofuturistic dystopian cityscape of New Eridu, Belle is my sole avatar in that world, with no possibility to modify out her look to that of a random acquaintance on the push of a button. This lets you encounter and work together with each different character on the roster as they go about their day, allowing a way more pure move from world exploration into companion quests and aspect actions.
Zenless Zone Zero’s fight feels frantic. The speedy tempo is each by cautious design and never meant as a barrier to entry for much less dexterous gamers: it is meant to make the sport extra enjoyable. And it does! A few of ZZZ’s most satisfying moments occur once you pull off a combo good, and for a couple of seconds it is virtually as if the sport’s taking part in itself as your characters flip out and in of the sector due to your astute strategic enter (or glorious job mashing buttons).
The distinction to Genshin Affect is particularly stark right here. Combating in Genshin, significantly within the open world, can really feel unresponsive at instances — significantly in the event you’re counting on an F2P roster with out the newest meta-optimised workforce comp — resulting in an expertise that is not as satisfying because it actually ought to be. In Zenless Zone Zero, fights are restricted to designated arenas, however what may really feel like a limitation as an alternative finally ends up making the combo of motion and technique far more thrilling.
On that word, I really feel obliged to admit that Zenless Zone Zero is probably the primary recreation I’ve ever encountered that made me actively get pleasure from dodge-parrying. As a infamous hater of dodge/parry/block mechanics in all their varied types who would a lot fairly simply tank the hit or else run away, ZZZ’s satisfying chime and subsequent drop right into a rewarding black-and-white bullet time invulnerability state after pulling off an ideal dodge has lastly received me over. It is a minor factor, perhaps, however any recreation that may flip me of all folks right into a starry-eyed convert on this matter deserves a particular nod.
It happens to me, although, that this sharp divide between fight characters and exploration characters may probably have an unintended influence on the banner gross sales that these video games depend on to make their financial institution. Character builders will presumably keep on as ordinary, however will character collectors be as invested in the event that they by no means see their faves exterior of fight arenas — or else encounter them commonly on this planet no matter whether or not they’ve pulled for them or not?
As somebody who falls extra into the collector camp and solely tends to correctly construct a choose handful of models, I’ve discovered myself questioning if I am going to hassle with ZZZ’s gacha as a lot as I do in Genshin and Star Rail. Though, to be truthful, I am additionally already fairly invested in gathering everybody from the golden age horror-themed Victoria Housekeeping faction, so perhaps I am fretting over nothing on HoYo’s behalf right here (and, sure, I can be maining Rina the ghostly French maid, and no, I cannot be taking additional questions presently.)
Zenless Zone Zero looks like extra of a budding crowd-pleaser due to its additional time within the oven. The query for me now’s much less whether or not ZZZ is an effective recreation or not, and extra about who this decidedly enjoyable recreation is supposed to be for. In any case, HoYoverse already have a broad providing set out with their present 4 stay service titles: Honkai Affect third for old-school waifu collectors who’re properly into Nier; Genshin Affect for followers of bold open worlds and excessive fantasy, à la an much more countless Zelda; Honkai: Star Rail for many who choose turn-based JRPGs and/or house opera storytelling; Tears of Themis for the numerous positive people who want Ace Legal professional was a courting sim.
We’re reaching vital mass on the purpose the place it is even doable to maintain updated with all of those video games, not to mention pleasant to take action. Zenless Zone Zero feels prefer it’ll be the one to tip loads of gamers over the sting into having to select and select which HoYo titles actually attraction to them. Who, precisely, does ZZZ communicate to who is not already being well-served by these identical builders?
The reply, I believe, is the nostalgia crowd. Zenless Zone Zero is quietly aiming at what appears to be a barely older common viewers than the remainder of HoYo’s output. The sport was even initially deliberate to have a mature age score, though a number of the extra kid-unfriendly themes have been pared again — resulting in accusations of censorship from some quarters, because the jiggle physics are one factor that is been toned down (though significantly, having seen the newest construct I am unable to think about what they have been like earlier than — can the complainers solely get off if a lady’s t*ts hit her within the face when she turns round too rapidly?). Nonetheless, the attraction to the youngsters of the late ’90s and early ’00s stays obvious in virtually each facet.
Lead producer Zhenyu Li is an unabashed fan of Digimon, Road Fighter, and DJMax — franchises that, regardless of persevering with into the trendy day, have a particular whiff of millennial nostalgia for many who have been there. The city fantasy setting additionally displays the distinctively early-2000s-era cartoony romanticisation of inner-city life (this millennial, for what it is value, instantly began having flashbacks to Urbz: Sims within the Metropolis and MySims Brokers whereas wandering round New Eridu).
The protagonists of Zenless Zone Zero work in a video rental retailer; stat-enhancing equippables are stylised as discs inserted into private CD gamers. I can keep in mind when retrofuturism regarded just like the house aged goals of the Sixties, however it appears the early 2000s’ sanitised tackle cyberpunk (“high-tech lowlives”, besides the tech is not a lot greater than in actuality and the respectably-employed lives definitely aren’t too low) are the place it is at nowadays.
You do not have to know ZZZ’s retro attraction to understand it, after all. I’ve heard the manufacturing workforce gently appropriate a couple of people who mistakenly attributed the majority of the inspiration to Persona 5. Regardless of its dystopian lore, moment-to-moment ZZZ is possessed of a distinctively vibrant turn-of-the-millennium hopefulness, reflecting a virtually teleological perception that though issues nonetheless suck a bit proper now they’ll certainly solely get higher — an assumption in regards to the world that is in all probability fairly alien to anybody whose childhood prolonged a lot previous the 2008 monetary crash and all the things that got here after.
To me, that is the place ZZZ’s deeper retro attraction actually lies; however with Western millennials usually hesitant to interact with gacha video games, this intelligent undercurrent may properly go unnoticed by the Gen Z viewers, for whom the distinction between the visually cheery metropolis and the narrative’s declare that its denizens are oppressed and depressing would possibly simply find yourself baffling. I believe you perhaps needed to be there, man.
Regardless of being marketed as an ARPG, exploring New Eridu seems like the principle exercise in ZZZ, with fight as a secondary concern that is largely tucked out of the way in which and due to this fact ignorable till you are prepared to interact with it. Not like in Genshin or HSR, you may by no means end up dragged right into a fight encounter with out explicitly looking for it out, and even the main target of every day log-in actions is extra on simulating metropolis life, fairly than racking up harm towards enemies.
Should you’re inclined to get a bit wistful over reminiscences (actual or imagined) of the flip of the millennium, however have accepted present traits like always-online and live-service video games as the trendy face of the business — and, after all, are comfy managing your spending limits when confronted with a gacha — then my expertise suggests that there is a lot in what Zenless Zone Zero’s providing to intrigue you.
