Zone of the Enders (PS2)

As a fan of the Metal Gear series, I inevitably came across the title Zone of the Enders. While this 2001 mecha game did sell well enough to warrant a sequel, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, it’s best known for coming bundled with the demo for the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty in its initial release. As such, it developed a reputation as “the free game” that came with a full-priced demo, but still attracted a cult following of its own. I’ll admit that part of my attraction to this game was the fact that Hideo Kojima produced it, but a good amount of it was just to see what Zone of the Enders actually was. When I finally got my copy of the game, which, of course, came without the famous MGS2 demo disc, I played it at the first opportunity. I could definitely see the potential in the series, but this first game is definitely rough around the edges.

In the year 2172, mankind has colonized Earth’s, Mars’ and Jupiter’s moons. A military force, BAHRAM, attacks a Jupiter colony, Antilia, in search of an Orbital Frame. One of the few survivors of the attack, Leo Stenbuck, witnesses the death of his friends and flees to a hangar. There, he accidentally stumbles into the cause of the attack, an Orbital Frame named Jehuty. With the aid of Jehuty’s AI, ADA, Leo sets off to deliver the Orbital Frame to the Space Force on the other side of the colony, dealing with BAHRAM and saving his fellow colonists along the way.

Leo accidentally enters Jehuty.

Zone of the Enders does what it can to set up a unique world and attempts to tell a serious and emotional story. However, I didn’t think there was enough of it there. The story is written well enough and has the right amount of detail to function, but I wanted to know more about the background conflict, like why exactly BAHRAM needed Jehuty so badly. I’ll admit that this question got answered, but only within the last few seconds of the game and in such a way that implies there’s more of this story to tell in a sequel. Even so, Anubis felt genuinely threatening as a final enemy and helped stoke interest in playing said sequel. What didn’t help the experience for me personally was the quality of the voice acting. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever heard, but some of the more stilted line readings and awkward dialogue took away from some of the emotional impact of the story.

Considering the game only lasts about five hours, two or three if you skip cutscenes and know what you’re doing, I’m surprised by how much I have to talk about. It plays simply enough, piloting Jehuty while attacking other unmanned Orbital Frames with a sword or energy shots, but there’s some depth that separates it from other hack-and-slash games.

The first, and biggest, layer of depth is Jehuty’s distance-based attacks. Jehuty will engage in close-ranged (sword-based) or long-ranged (energy blasts) combat depending on how far away from the enemy it is. Distance also affects the behavior of Dash and Burst attacks, the former of which occurs when attacking while moving and the latter of which is first initiated with R2 while staying completely still. This style of combat is unusual, but feels more natural once you play long enough.

Jehuty's attacks are based on distance.

Another layer to the combat is the sub-weapons, which the player can select and then activate with Circle. When no sub-weapon is selected or when the enemy is in close range, this button is also used to grab and throw enemies when applicable. Even without this extra layer of context-sensitive action, the number of sub-weapons in this game, which all use separate ammunition, is honestly overwhelming. This does offer a lot of combat options, but you’re never really told how many of them work unless you open the menu and read the descriptions. I don’t know if playing on Normal had anything to do with this, but I didn’t really feel compelled to use very many of them. The only ones I had to use were Sniper, to clear a specific mission with vague instructions, and Decoy, to clear a specific boss with a targeting-based attack. Outside of those, the only one I felt like using was Mummy, which refills health and comes very much in handy during the late game.

Then there’s the movement controls and the camera. While these are responsive, they do take some getting used to. Using Triangle to ascend with Jehuty and Cross to descend feels natural after a while, but the camera is a little tricky. The left stick is used to move Jehuty and stopping will also lock the camera behind it. This is all well and good, but the right stick, which directly controls the camera, feels very slow by comparison. This does make it better suited for precision aiming, but looking for something out in the field often required using a clunky combination of both sticks.

As for the actual gameplay, you travel between areas of Antilia using an overworld system, so you have to manually fly Jehuty between areas. Once you’re in an area, you complete whatever task ADA gives you and can also see where every enemy and item is, both through moving around and using the map on the pause screen. Of course, not every objective can be completed right away, which brings me to a discussion on padding.

You can see where every enemy is and how far away they are.

To elaborate, the mission structure in Zone of the Enders leans pretty heavily on backtracking and fetch quests to where it feels more like padding. One of the biggest obstacles in the game, a field of microwave radiation, requires you to visit and re-visit several areas in the colony and find the right equipment just so you can destroy two generators and then the satellite dishes they belong to. The backtracking wouldn’t be so bad if the game gave you any hint on where to go, as it expects you to just know your next location, go through trial and error until you hit the right one or remember some small detail from earlier in the game (like seeing a downed Orbital Frame in the establishing shot for one specific area). The fetch quest part comes from finding Passcodes and then the correct Local Server to get certain sub-weapons.

At some points during the game, you may see an orange S.O.S. signal from an area in the overworld, indicating an optional Rescue Mission. In these missions, your performance is explicitly graded based on how well you can avoid damaging buildings or killing innocent civilians. While this does fit in with the themes of war and the preservation of life, it’s actually quite difficult to get a high grade, either because you accidentally cause collateral damage with your attacks or you can’t get to enemy squads fast enough and they end up causing destruction anyway. As such, I mostly got a “C” rating during my playthrough and was surprised that these scores came back at the end, when you’re graded for your overall performance in the game.

Grading after Rescue Missions.

Then there’s the bosses. These manned Orbital Frames all have their own unique appearances and strategies to keep you on your toes and I generally liked their design. However, it can be hard to figure out the exact right strategy to beat them without dying a couple times first (that is, if ADA doesn’t tell you outright), like learning you have to stun one of them by firing a Burst Shot at just the right time before you can deal damage. I also had a specific issue where the Tempest Orbital Frame wouldn’t die right away, even when I completely depleted his health bar. I still had to deal further damage to him before he would go down for good, resulting in at least a couple unnecessary deaths on my part.

One minor thing to note is that the game has a leveling system where Jehuty gains EXP from defeating enemies until it levels up. However, I was unable to determine the exact purpose of this or even if it affected anything significant. Also, non-boss enemies don't have traditional health bars, rather the indicator of their own level will turn from green to red to indicate damage.

There’s also a Versus Mode, unlocked by beating the game, but it feels superfluous. I mean, it is cool to play as Orbital Frames other than Jehuty and try to engage in one-on-one combat with the computer or another player, but the mode lacks the depth it needs to make it worthwhile. It’s just kind of there, wasting its own potential.

The Versus Mode is just kind of there.

I will say, in contrast, that the in-game graphics held up pretty well after all these years. Everything is still visually clear for the player and the environments have enough detail to sell that it’s a Jupiter colony. The character designs are more anime-influenced and look good enough for the time, though it does age the FMVs more than everything else. My favorite aspect is the striking mechanical designs by Yoji Shinkawa, best known as the character and mechanical designer of the Metal Gear series. As an interesting observation, the menu designs and style of subtitles seem reminiscent of Metal Gear, likely a result of Hideo Kojima’s role as a producer.

Yoji Shinkawa's art is visually striking, even in the concept stage.

Zone of the Enders is an interesting game, but the slow and clunky nature of it holds it back from reaching its true potential. Less of a reliance on padding would’ve improved the experience greatly, but I’m guessing they didn’t have enough story otherwise. I feel like this story would’ve died if it weren’t for the MGS2 demo, but we’re fortunate to live in a world where The 2nd Runner exists, which gives us an opportunity to see if this concept was salvaged. In the meantime, this game offers a unique mecha experience, but only a serviceable one at that.