Archview #51: Zone of the Enders HD Collection

 One of the most epic games ever made, now in HD!

 Zone of the Enders HD Collection collects the two PS2 games that made up the series. While the basic gameplay on both games is pretty similar, the execution, and quality, is quite different.
 Firstly, Zone of the Enders 1 pits you as Leo Stenbuck, your typical Gundam-styled kid that finds himself inside a top of the line mech(Orbital Frame) called Jehuty during a raid by BAHRAM, and is soon thrust into battle. The story is pretty simple and feels like a Gundam homage, but a bit simpler, sadly, the dialogue is not up to snuff, which kinda cripples the already simple story. As for ZoE 2, you now play as Dingo Egrett,, but he pilots the Jehuty too, and takes place after a couple of years since the first entry. The story this time is a bit more invovled, with more twists, but basically, Dingo used to work for the big bad, but after being fatally wounded and then revived, he is coerced into fighting BAHRAM.
 As for the gameplay, in both games you play as Jehuty, and he plays mostly the same. Jehuty can freely move around the enviroments, flying around at will. Movement is very fluid and easy to grasp, you'll be dashing up, down, left and right in no time. As for attacking, Jehuty uses one button for melee and ranged, what determines what type of moves he uses depends on the distance towards the enemy. There are three kinds of attacks: Basic, Dash and Burst. Burst attacks are slower, either a giant energy ball or an heavy spin attack, they break guards, but are really slow than the other two. Jehuty can also grab and throw his enemies, and in ZoE 2 you can actually carry enemies around and use them as weapons or shields. In both games, Jehuty can use a variety of different subweapons, around 8(all of them return, plus a couple of new ones in the sequel). While in ZoE 2, at least on Normal and upper dificulties, sub-weapons are a must, they feel quite useless in ZoE 1. The main difference is that while ZoE 1 uses different ammo for each sub weapon, they share a Sub Weapon gauge in the Sequel. As a whole, it's a very fun system, and surprisingly, it feels even tighter and more polished on ZoE 2, surprising because ZoE 1 already nails it so well!.

 In ZoE 1, Leo has to traverse around the space colony, which acts as a kind of stage select, while completing certain objectives. Said objectives will usually have you backtracking to older areas. You usually need to retrieve passwords in order to open up certain packages, and the game lets you know which enemy carries the password, but killing the other enemies, which come in squads, will give you ammo and XP, so it's usually worth it to kill every enemy every time you enter a zone. To be fair, backtracking can become quite a drag, specially since you don't always know where the enemy that holds the password is, so you might have to go to many zones. Every now and then, Rescue missions pop up, in which you must beat every enemy while avoiding causing damage to the buildings, they are a nice break of pace, and actually kinda tough to ace. Regardless, ZoE 1 is one the easy side.
 ZoE 2 is much more linear, and much better. There is no backtracking, at all, and every stage is different from the next, so you don't mind being led from place to place, and there are no searches for passwords. Most stages usually consist on killing everything that moves, save a few exceptions. Still, the ways of doing so are always different. On a moment you are on the skies, taking down a fleet of enemy spaceships, and then you are on the ground blowing up reactors in order to open up a door. There's also a stage filled with pillars that try to crush you down. And the massive war on the dessert in which you must take care of the enemies while backing up your allies? How about the scene where you have to chase and destroy a armored train? This game NEVER lets up, having some of the most epic set pieces I have ever played, and it holds true to this day. And it never gets old, unlike it's prequel. Interestingly, on the default difficulty, this game is way harder than ZoE 1.

 

 Graphically, ZoE 1 is very simple. The cut-scenes are made in FMV, with some horribly dated animations, luckily, in-game it's very smooth. Stages do feel very simple and samey though. There's also not a whole lot of enemy types. Voice acting is really bad, the bad voice acting doesn't help. As for the music, it's not bad, it's just forgettable. Then there is ZoE 2 which looks amazing. It has loads of special effects like smoke, and smoke that trails after Jehuty walks through it!. The Orbital Frames look way more detailed, and the stages themselves have more detail and objects than ZoE 1. The cut-scenes that involve humans, and the cut ins, are now done in anime style, and they look really good. Voice acting ,while not great, is at least passable. And the music? It's really good and fits the game.
 Both games are about 5-6 hours long, however, ZoE 1 has a lot of backtracking and searching for stuff, while ZoE 2 has no padding at all, every single minute is a different, awesome, moment. There's also unlockable versus modes that work about the same on both games, and while it will never have a place at evo, it's a nice diversion. ZoE 2 also lets you unlock EX missions and New Game+, both that let you take all forms of Jehuty(Oh yeah, Jehuty gets upgraded!). There's few complains to be had about these games, perhaps the Frame Rate issues? Luckily I played the patched version, so while ZoE 1 did have a few issues on a couple of bosses, it was nothing game breaking, and ZoE 2 was almost flawless.
 ZoE 1 : 5
 ZoE 2: 10
 ZoE: HD Collection : 10 out of 10. ZoE 2 makes the package worth it, to this day, is one of the most epic games ever created, and I'm not using that word lightly. Not here.