I quit Genshin Impact cold turkey several years ago, and stuck to my word that I would not play a second ofHonkai Star Railno matter how much it appealed to me. The gacha game has proven too alluring in the past, making me spend money I ultimately didn’t have in order to possess fictional anime girls and boys who ultimately meant nothing. So I decided to quit for good, and don’t regret a thing. If anyone wants to buy my account, please let me know.
But since then,Hoyoversehas grown into one of the biggest gaming companies in the world with several hugely successful games under its belt. Not a major stream or showcase will go by without a trailer for a massive update or upcoming title, but despite everything, I have not given into the hype. After all this time though,Zenless Zone Zerohas me finally preparing to go back. It looks incredibly stylish, offering excellent character designs and a gameplay hook which helps it stand apart from everything that came before. It also isn’t going ham on gacha.
Zenless Zone Zero Isn’t Just Another Genshin Impact
Set to launch on July 4th, Zenless Zone Zero is a fairly substantial departure from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. It still features anime characters that are nice to look at, but I would compare its aesthetic to Jet Set Radio and Persona over anything else. That’s what immediately drew me to it; the fact that it was willing to keep Hoyoverse’s signature charm while still trying something exciting and new. It’s an action RPG that isn’t simply about doing the same tasks over and over again as the story advances at a glacial pace. If anything, it’s far more interested in throwing us headfirst into the whole affair.
Forgive me if my descriptions aren’t entirely accurate, but Zenless Zone Zero is once again a party-based experience where you’re able to switch between characters at any time, but now each battle is fought within a tighter arena where moment-to-moment combat is more like a stylish character action game instead of an open world RPG.
Each character has a distinct roster of skills they can use on cooldowns or synergise with fellow party members to pull off combos. I love the look of it, although some enemies do appear to be real health sponges, where you’ll want to have upgraded skills to avoid having them feel like a slog. But there’s some definite skill to it, and hopefully that will encourage you to experiment with new characters or loadouts in the full game, because the designs themselves are absolutely killer.
When you aren’t beating up anime cops, giant robots, and evil monsters, you’ll be exploring a modern hub world which feels like an excessive version of Tokyo. You can walk right past students in coffee shops and cafes chatting away on their phones, or visit a load of different food vendors and store owners that not only sell items you can use, while also offering daily quests and rewards similar to the ones you’d see in Genshin or Honkai. From the outside, a lot of this can seem quite similar to Hoyoverse’s other works, so how exactly has it made me so tempted to jump back in despite my misgivings with its infamous approach to Gacha?
How Zenless Zone Zero Isn’t Your Average Gacha Game
For one, it is doing away with many of my prior frustrations. In previous betas, as noted byKotakuandEurogamer, a stamina system that once dictated how many story missions we could tackle in a single day has now been removed, meaning we aren’t gated by annoying barriers that don’t really need to exist. Better yet, said missions will also outfit you with set party members at high enough levels to get through them, meaning you won’t need to be focused on grinding every single one of your characters to stand a chance. In theory, this should make getting through the narrative much easier, more fun, and less frustrating.
Genshin would ask you to repeat the same tiresome daily tasks to level up your characters enough to even unlock story quests, let alone play through them. This would result in going to the same places to do the same things over and over, with one of the rewards being rolling for a character you’d have a slim chance of obtaining anyway.
It’s difficult to forgive this ecosystem or put up with it for several years, which is why I walked away to begin with, but if Zenless Zone Zero can eschew much of this, maybe I should give Hoyoverse a chance. It seems the developer is counting on the inherent intricacy of combat when it comes to dealing with its more simplistic approach to gacha and progression, but such a thing will be hard to judge until the full game is in our hands later this week.
Right now though, I’m ready for the stylish anime fighter to become a big part of my gaming life. I just hope Hoyoverse learns from the past and isn’t so sinister about holding my attention. The second it turns into an anime girl slot machine, I’m out.
Zenless Zone Zero
WHERE TO PLAY
Zenless Zone Zero is the next game from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail creator Hoyoverse. An action RPG game with hack-and-slash mechanics, you play as a Proxy - battling to protect the city of New Eridu from the dimension-hopping Ethereal.
