Love Ya, Stupid.

[rionaleonhart]

Watching a Let's Play of Zanki Zero, I was astounded that it kept getting more and more tailored to my interests. A group of strangers are thrown together and forced to bond by shared adversity! Haruto and Mamoru discuss the nature of love and Haruto concludes, blushing furiously, 'I think... I love everyone here,' in an outright invitation for me to write the character/everyone fic I write in every fandom! Tentacles! Who the hell filled this game with things I love and then gave it gameplay I hate? I'm so frustrated!

I thought at first that Mamoru would be my favourite character, but I think my top three are actually Ryo, Minamo and Haruto. I'm fond of everyone in this cast of traumatised bisexual clones, though (even Zen, who I initially wasn't expecting to care about at all). I ship everyone in a big poly mess, and I feel the game supports me enthusiastically in this.

Ryo sort of reminds me of Prompto from Final Fantasy XV: passionate and friendly and fun, bit of a cowardly streak, enjoys photography, wears his heart on his sleeve, slightly in love with everyone. (If Prompto were in the same situation, he would definitely also be taking imaginary photographs with his inoperable camera.) Both Ryo and Prompto took me by surprise; I wasn't expecting them to be my respective favourite characters in their games, but they're great. Plus Ryo easily has the best hilariously sparkly pin-up CG of the Zanki Zero cast. (NB: the image linked to, although it's not graphic, is not very safe for work. Also, I promise there's a good reason he has a D-pad on his stomach.)

I can't explain my fondness for Haruto. My weakness for bland Spike Chunsoft protagonists strikes again! But characters like Haruto and the various Danganronpa protagonists do have just enough character to distinguish them and make me feel they're not just a blank slate. Haruto's pretty reserved; he cares, but he gets embarrassed if things get too intimate or sincere. He's interested in the world; he wants to understand everything he encounters; he likes to listen to people talking about things they're knowledgeable or passionate about. They're not very flashy traits, but they're enough to make me feel there's a person to get to know there.

In this fucked-up situation - one of the last eight survivors of humanity, short on food, trapped in a cycle of endlessly dying - I think Haruto is happier and more at ease than he ever was in his regular life, and that sort of breaks my heart.

Zanki Zero is flawed, even if you disregard the gameplay. It's very backstory-heavy, but a lot of the backstory bits don't really feel like they have much impact on the plot, making the story feel a bit unfocused. But I really just wanted a bunch of characters suffering and struggling and coming to love each other, and it more than delivered on that. I hope it gets a fandom.

The biggest way this game let me down: I can't believe one of the characters of Zanki Zero is a bondage artist who can manifest tentacles and yet never ties anyone up with his tentacles. This is an outrage.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Assassin’s Creed 3 Thoughts:

So I’ve heard bad things about Assassin’s Creed 3, but not so much specifics. More along like the lines of, “Eh, skip that one.” But I’m rather enjoying it so far! I’m enjoying running around as Haytham. I’ll be sad when we protag switch. I’ll try and not hold it against you, incoming Connor.

So I read an interview with the director or creator or somebody along those lines for this particular instalment re: the remaster. He said that if he could change anything about the game, it’d be getting rid of the 6 hour prologue and dispersing it throughout the game instead. I’m glad they didn’t do that, as I think it makes far more sense getting it out of the way at the beginning. Having it all together builds a sense of character and cohesion to the narrative, and spreading out the tutorial makes it feel less hand-holdy which is nice. I’ve just come to this from Revelations, and I felt that the interplay of main section – Sophia mission – Altair mission just messed with the flow of the game – whenever you got to an interesting part, you’d switch to another plotline and it didn’t help matters. I get it’s probably as the gameplay, particularly in Sophia and Altair segments, could be repetitive so it’d be awkward doing it all in a row, but it didn’t really work for me. So I’m glad they didn’t repeat that with the intro section.

There was a section near the beginning of the game where I was really distracted as someone was clearly voiced by the guy who plays Balthier. I guess he’s the guy to go to for posh British voices?

Assassin’s Creed 3 has a rep for being glitchy. But have they solved this for the remaster?! The answer is possibly no, since my game has already hung once and I had to forcibly close the game app down. Haytham had just took down about twenty guards so I lost about two hundred quid. Clearly the game could not handle his awesome skills.

What the hell is with the random QTE fights? How am I supposed to keep my health above 50% if you throw me into a QTE fight with no warning and make one attack take off over 50% of health? I hope they’re not too frequent, though at least I know to expect them now. I’d have had more patience with that sequence had I not been running around that green zone trying to find Ziio for about twenty minutes. I SWEAR, IF YOU RESET ME TO BEFORE I FOUND HER, I WILL HURT SOMEONE.

The game is making it so I have to counter more. Probably good from a gameplay perspective to change my “attack is the best defense, mash square forever!” strategies, but it also makes it harder, which kinda sucks. Still, easy enough to get used to.

I HATE the lockpicking and it had better not pop up in too many more mandatory sections. That tutorial lockpicking session at the opera took me 15 minutes. First bit – use left stick and hold it in position when found – is okay, but then also having to use the right stick makes my left hand slip and so the process has to start again from the beginning as it makes the lockpicking stop. Rotate left stick, hold in position, while doing that rotate right stick, hold in position, press R2 – TOO COMPLICATED FOR MY LACK OF COORDINATION.

It’s nice to have horses again, though I did desync on a mission as I got stuck trying to work out how to get down a cliff on my horse and my horse got all disoriented.

The initial eavesdrop mission was okay, but my stealth is awful, so the other one went… interestingly. (“BUT WHY, GEORGE?” will forever me molded into my brain).

Saw someone whining about the game having a 7 hour tutorial. My response to this is: only 7 hours?! You clearly have not been playing as many Morris games as me. MY PERSISTENCE PAID OFF. I HAVE NOW ACTUALLY WON A GAME OF NINE MAN MORRIS. I love the strategy element and I do well in the first bit, but then it tends to fall to pieces in the moving phase as I either get boxed in or let him get into a state where he just keeps moving a piece between two mills, lol.

Shaun is suddenly getting more characterisation than in any of the previous games and it’s mildly disconcerting. Also, I like to assume that the totally random animus changes that Rebecca says are her doing were caused by her going, “Look, Desmond clearly needs therapy, and we’re pushing him too hard, so the only solution is GIVING THE ANIMUS PET PATTING POWERS.”

The game won’t give me enough Bleeding Effect, so I’m going to assume the display bug I just saw was deliberate. Rebecca and Desmond were having a conversation, when William started to join in (clearly him from the voice actor). All of William’s lines were subtitled as DESMOND, as well as Desmond’s own, so clearly Desmond has started talking to himself and also impersonating his father. Er, that’s probably not a good thing, Desmond.

There’s been a lot of enforced stealth sequences so far. Hope that’s not a pattern. It’s just not Assassin’s Creed if you assassinate like a sensible person instead of diving off a roof, killing someone, running into about four walls and bouncing off them, then jumping from a tall building into the sea to hide from guards. LOOK, I’M NOTORIOUS, CLEARLY STEALTH IS UNNCESSARY.

I’m far more interested in the story than I have been in Assassin’s Creed for a while. The animus story, I mean. Not much going on so far in the Desmond sections.

-

Another friend asked me about Zanki Zero. Maybe I will look at the demo after AC3. I do like the sound of the concept. Your sum-up rather reminds me of The Bunker Diary, although that’s a bit less one of the last eight survivors of humanity, short on food, trapped in a cycle of endlessly dying and more six people, short on food, trapped in an old bunker and slowly going insane from hunger and subtle psychological torture. The other more obvious comparison is I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Actually, there’s a point and click adventure game of that, I wonder how it compares thematically?

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

Shaun is suddenly getting more characterisation than in any of the previous games and it’s mildly disconcerting.

I remember hugely enjoying Shaun's database entries in this game. All my knowledge of the American Revolution comes from Hamilton and Shaun Hastings.

The game won’t give me enough Bleeding Effect

Why would you come up with such an interesting concept and then underuse it so badly? It's outrageous.

It’s just not Assassin’s Creed if you assassinate like a sensible person instead of diving off a roof, killing someone, running into about four walls and bouncing off them, then jumping from a tall building into the sea to hide from guards.

This absolutely delighted me. It's so true!

I’m far more interested in the story than I have been in Assassin’s Creed for a while.

This was exactly my response to Assassin's Creed III as well! I'd been enjoying the gameplay and scenery in the previous games, and largely disregarding the story. I wasn't as into the gameplay and scenery in III, but the game made up for it by having the first Assassin's Creed plot that actually engaged me. Haytham and Connor have a really interesting dynamic.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the Zanki Zero demo, if you do give it a try! It does seem potentially up your street, by which I mean it's up my street and we seem to have similar taste in screwed-up games with visual novel elements.

[keltena]

Wow, that does sound incredibly enjoyable. (I hadn't heard the full details of the cycle-through-your-own-clones premise until I looked it up in response to your description just now, and dang.) I have way too much backlog to check out either game or LP any time soon, but I'm increasingly tempted to add it on to the end of the list now...

Either way, I hope it does get a fandom! The whole thing sounds like candy for fanfic writers and readers.

The biggest way this game let me down: I can't believe one of the characters of Zanki Zero is a bondage artist who can manifest tentacles and yet never ties anyone up with his tentacles.

WHAT. How, though?? Isn't that, like, the entire point of giving both those traits to one character??

[rionaleonhart]

The cycling-through-clones premise is so interesting! It's been a while since a game's concept last made me go 'huh, never seen that before.'

WHAT. How, though??

EXACTLY. Don't wave the prospect of tentacle bondage in front of me and then snatch it away; that's not fair! Part of the reason I'm hoping for a fandom is the fact that someone needs to address this.

[masu_trout]

The biggest way this game let me down: I can't believe one of the characters of Zanki Zero is a bondage artist who can manifest tentacles and yet never ties anyone up with his tentacles. This is an outrage.

What a tragedy. Somebody let this poor man use his tentacles for the purpose they were clearly created for.

[rionaleonhart]

Why give a bondage artist tentacles and only let him use them to attack enemies? It's cruel.

(Well, the tentacles can also be used to heal allies, and the game doesn't go into the exact mechanics of the healing. Hmm.)