[neva-01]

I picked up the HD remake from gamestop last week. I hadn't played ZOE since it came out, and I never played the sequel before.

I think ZOE1 is better than 2. 1 is more mysterious. It's got that great haunting intro song. There's a fluid, balletic quality to Jehuty in the first game that I don't really see in 2nd Runner. I'm probably just imagining it, but 2nd Runner feels choppy after playing ZOE. I think ZOE also has a better visual presentation in general, especially with the HD remaster. 2 looks great in its own way, but it's too comic book. It loses gravity with the switch to cel-shaded graphics. Also they added all these dumb swarming enemies. I hate swarming enemies. They're just there to look impressive when you blow them up with the homing laser.

I didn't play very much of 2nd Runner, but it seemed to be a typical cutscene driven game. ZOE has this great looking world map, which I'm sure was just a ploy to make the game seem longer and let them reuse assets, but I still like it. I also like how you get to think about which enemies you want to fight in each level. The bosses are all laid back dudes who say weird things like "I don't know" when Leo asks them why they're hurting people.

When it first came out, ZOE was supposed to be kind of a revolutionary title, but strictly speaking, it's short and insubstantial, with limited enemy types and environments. Still, there's a darkness there. An emptiness. We all have a select few games that possess this mysterious quality. Easy examples for me would be Tokyo Extreme Racer 2 on the Dreamcast and Bushido Blade.

2nd Runner has its dick all hard to impress you that it's the white knuckled cinematic action game ride of your life, and it's always in your face with these abrasive cutscenes (including an atrocious 10 minute long intro movie.) In ZOE, you could grab/throw enemies, but in 2nd Runner you can spin them around and whap people with them, and pull beams off the wall and clobber everyone.

Jehuty seemed so angelic in the first game, which also mirrored the innocence of the boy protagonist. I think under slightly more ambitious direction, we might have been speaking of Zone of Enders in the same artistic terms as Shadow of the Colossus or Ico.
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[neva-01]

the enders
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[sarsamis]

I agree with pretty much all of that, but being able to zero shift in 2 was fun at least. Also the cool remix of Gradius' Aircraft Carrier theme.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was a kid when 2 came out, though I still recognized 1 as the better game.

I think Viola was my first weird video game crush.

[allensmithee]

I agree completely. I have talked about this before and I am really glad to find someone who feels the same.

I played Zone of the Enders when I was 11 years old. It was the first game I played through by myself and completed. It is profoundly influential. I got the best ending by not hurting civilians my first time playing because at the time I was not so far removed from the actions and morality in a video game as I am today that I just would not allow myself to destroy a single building or have one be destroyed. Honestly, having watched my brothers play video games for so long and most often being a spectator, I had little confidence in my ability to play a game. I almost felt like I didnt have the right to do it. It isnt my place. I shared Leos fear and hesitation. The odds were against me. I had the virtue of this powerful machine with the potential to do what I needed to do but was I capable of it? I had to be. I had nightmares the first night I played the game for the deaths Leo witnessed at the start of the game. I was so emotionally driven and personally challenged to do this by myself that I had to complete the game. There was something to prove. I never had long turns when we passed the controllers around because I wasnt good at games. I usually wasnt allowed to play. I actually was not allowed to play this game for the rating and arbitrary rules of ownership between siblings. It was clandestine and it was appropriate and Zone of the Enders helped me grow.

The parallels between between myself and Leo helped me gain confidence as a kid. Its super important to me.

They got Zone of the Enders for the MGS2 demo. I was granted the reason I play games at all.
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[Adilegian]

Weird. My experiences were much opposite. I found the controls for ZOE sluggish and unrefined, its story somewhat petulant, and the overall experience unsatisfying. ("Haha," says the final boss. "You beat me according to the terms of the game but UH OH HERE COMES THE PLOT to take your victory awaaaaaaaay.") Probably the only regard in which I thought it better than ZOE2 was that it took place in some more interesting environments.

ZOE2 was action anime videogame, which I preferred over ZOE's more heartfelt attempt at representing a human emotion. Obviously this hasn't been the case for others, but I felt that ZOE2 succeeded better at what it wanted to be (action anime robot game) than ZOE (coming of age robot anime).

That I had already come of age, I'm sure, took away some generosity toward its execution that I might otherwise have had, had it represented anything I identified with.

ZOE2's controls were tighter, and the overall arc of both story and skill progression felt more confidently executed and balanced. Also the VR Missions were great fun.

And Zero shift was awesome. The localization also features two of Kojima Productions' idiosyncratic adoptions of English words, specifically Zero and Naked, which appeared later with similar semantic import in MGS3.
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[Felix]

I can appreciate that ZOE felt significant (in ways that have already been discussed in this thread) and ZOE2 did not (owing to its not-quite-so-bad-it's-good English script and the fact that the game seemed to be paced as though it was concerned it would get boring at any moment, which was actually a fairly successful decision other than on the grandiosity scale), but like Adi, I think ZOE2 is way more successful at being an Anime Game Which Is Very Well-Realized Particularly In Terms Of Its Mechanics By The Standards Of Then-Current Tech.

the former game is almost early-aughts-important (e.g. Ico, MGS2) but falls down due to being mechanically lame and narratively derivative of somewhat obviously superior source material -- basically, Nier. the second game is more like Revengeance a decade prior. neither is ultimately great but both are pretty close for different reasons. there's also still nothing else that really feels the same way as playing either of them does, even if you aren't a big Gundam or Evangelion fan, and even though it's pretty clear that they pushed the enemy and level design as far as it could go over the course of both games and still didn't get quite far enough, the core controls are really well-realized.

[Adilegian]

To piggyback off that last sentiment, this is one of the reasons why I liked the VR Missions in ZOE2. There could have been more -- I always wished that the VR Missions went as deep as MGS2's did -- but there were these perfect little pockets to flex how well you've come to understand the game's controls.
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[allensmithee]

Make no mistake: I am aware your criticisms are true. It is a matter of time and place for me.
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[Adilegian]

[MattCD42]

Interesting to hear you guys sound off. I played these games when they came out, then recently went through the HD, and the experiences were polar opposites. I think no matter what they're fun games worth playing through, and offer something you won't find in other games but it doesn't hold up well as my nostalgia would of believed.

The first did have more focus on the setting, using the idea that it's your home, and you're protecting the various colonies, I think that's strong, but it's annoying when in order to do so you have to start pinging enimies and never unload because if you do, you'll take out a building. It's compelling, but without much of a tool set that won't destroy everything around you it becomes somewhat annoying. I remember this being a strong use of themes, and using the game to tell the story in a great way back on the ps2, but come the remake I just found it repetitive because you get cut off from your tool set for most of the game.

I think the movement between the games is a huge tipping point, the camera is way too close on the first one which has you swing your camera around, whereas in the second you tended to hone in on where the action was via the level design. That's a big part of what separates those two though. The first is the open world thing where you go and come back, and really becomes grating on a replay, as the first play through already has you replaying stuff. The second one presses forward and keeps throwing little variations at you it doesn't want you to become bored with just doing the same thing. It just feels unfocused, the first time I thought it was really exciting but it was tedious on my replay.

Also that mine navigation mission, might be the single worst level in videogames.

Then neva, I hope you finished the second runner by now as the final boss feel s like a dance, you'll know your steps, and you have to keep pace. It's one of those boss fights where your fingers will probably hurt afterwards, hurt so good.
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Steam: Godamn_Milkman

[Adilegian]

That's a good write up, MattCD42. I enjoyed reading that. Thanks.

Incidentally, did anyone play the ZOE game that came out on the GBA?
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[allensmithee]

I own it. It is really shit. Of comparable quality to the GBA Onimusha tactics game. Though, the presentation is leagues above that game.
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[Hojulas]

[boojiboy7]

[allensmithee]

Maybe I was a bit unfair. It still aint no good and thats what Im trying to say.
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[MattCD42]

It's shit, but it's a shit I love. It is literally the easiest game. So the way you play is an SRJPG grid layout where when you start a battle you have a crosshair and the other guy has a crosshair, whoever is attacking needs to place theirs on top. But the computer was clearly only programmed to handle people moving in straight lines. So if you circle you can dodge literally every attack in the game. Hell the final boss's crosshair is the size of the entire screen, and that could be dodged... somehow. God I loved that game.

For browny points who saw the anime other than me?

I remember the weird guy that had a thing about whales, and the whole bizarre family plot riding with literally the pinkest mech ever.
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Steam: Godamn_Milkman

[jodeaux]

[MattCD42]

I still love the opening to ZOE2 more than any other game opening. If nothing else because Beyond the Bounds is so my jam. [/img]
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Steam: Godamn_Milkman

[Adilegian]

[MattCD42]

MGO rest in peace....
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Steam: Godamn_Milkman