Story:
Set in the 2100's, humanity has branched out from Earth to colonize Mars and Jupiter's moons. Over time the relationship between the three degraded as Earth began to see itself as superior to the Martian people and exploited them for labor and resources. "Ender" became a derogatory term for anyone not born on Earth and growing tensions between the two eventually led to Mars forming their own military organization called "BAHRAM" (the ancient Persian name for Mars). Specially made mechanical suits called "Orbital Frames", piloted by people called "Runners", allowed Mars to hold their own against Earth's UNSF forces (United Nations Space Force). The cold war between BAHRAM and the UNSF blew up into full on war in the year 2172 when the UNSF took control of BAHRAM's production facility. BAHRAM managed to recapture one of their most powerful Orbital Frames called "Anubis", but a second frame called "Jehuty" went missing.
In the year 2174, two years after the events of the first Zone of the Enders, a new protagonist called Dingo Egret is working as a miner on Jupiter's moon Callisto when he discovers the Orbital Frame Jehuty hidden within an ice crevasse. Members from BAHRAM attempt to seize the frame, but Dingo pilots Jehuty in an attempt to protect his co-workers. The leader of BAHRAM, Ridley "Nohman" Hardiman, whom Dingo used to work for, demands that he return to the organization. Dingo refuses because Nohman gave an order that killed his entire squad six years ago. Nohman shoots Dingo in retaliation. A fellow frame runner and UNSF spy named Ken Marinaris, saves Dingo's life by connecting him directly into Jehuty to act as a life-support system. Unable to leave Jehuty without dying, Dingo is forced to help Marinaris stop Nohman and his Orbital Frame Anubis from conquering Mars.
Jehuty is named after Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of knowledge and judgement. Anubis is named in a similar manner for the god of funerary rites and guide to the underworld. The mechs being named after Egyptian deities and the protagonists being named after animals has no deeper meaning, even though it feels as if it should.
For a PlayStation 2 game, the graphics hold up remarkably well thanks to its stylized visual presentation and cell-shaded aesthetics. The mechs were designed with the hardware limitations of the time in mind and so look really good standing still or in motion. I just cannot express enough how remarkably clean and polished they appear on modern hardware. The usual video sequences with in-game models are used for the cutscenes, alongside a couple of hand-drawn animations for the major story events and character conversations. The results suit the game quite well, although the animations weren't remastered, leading to them looking muddy and low-resolution next to the crisp 3D models.
Dingo is the stereotypical jaded former-soldier who bought into the war propaganda.
The mech designs are sleek and feel like something that was built for military use, so long as you ignore the prominent phallus they all have, including on the feminine ones. This is actually pretty typical of Hideo Kojima's games, which are known for their homoerotic undertones. The Second Runner also suffers from a common pitfall of Kojima's games in that it uses a lot jargon and tells more than it shows. The names and history of people, places, factions, weaponry, and battles are all thrown at the player in rapid-fire fashion. It is hard to keep up with, especially when you have no context for the the things the characters are saying. Most of the backstory and world history isn't even explained in-game because the series was originally conceived as a multi-media franchise. That obviously didn't pan out, so unless you go hunting for it, most of the context for what is happening in Second Runner and who you are fighting and why isn't adequately explained.
I initially thought the mechs were tight-fitting suits with "rule of cool" designs that couldn't possibly accommodate a human being. To my surprise, the humans pilot from a literal "cockpit" and the game is just really bad at conveying scale.
Most of the English voice cast, with a few exceptions, did very little voice acting before and after Second Runner. The quality ranges from passable to bad, which is pretty typical of the era due to the small budgets of the time and the voice actors often being given bad or confusing voice directions from non-native speakers. The dialogue doesn't always make sense colloquially in English either or was worded strangely, possibly due to a poor translation. For example, there is a part where Nohman says "it will be fun from now on", which sounds really weird in English. "Things are about to get interesting", is more natural sounding and is probably what was intended. The flow of conversations in general were jarring to listen to and hard to follow at times. It was like the characters were talking at each other, and the two halves of their conversation weren't adding up.
Trust is a recurring theme throughout Second Runner. Ken needs Dingo to trust her, even though she has given him little reason to do so. The UNSF is wary of Dingo due to his Martian background and only trusts him after he earns the trust of Leo Stenbuck (the first game's protagonist). The music track that plays when the main villain appears for the first time is called "Not Trusting Peace" and upon his defeat in the final battle, "Trusting Peace" is what can be heard playing over the final scene. The very last line of dialogue uttered before the credits roll is "I trust you". It is said by Dingo, who is in a very vulnerable position, to Ken who has all the power in that moment, and it is the only time I felt any weight or emotion behind the theming. You knew that Ken was going to patch Dingo up properly this time and give him full autonomy; the bond and trust built up between those two felt earned. I appreciate that they tried to add some additional layers like this to the characters and the story, but most of the time it fell short. I never felt the same impact when it came to Dingo and Leo or the UNSF, nor the tensions between the rival nations and their tenuous alliances.
Gameplay:
The game is made up of linear, consecutive stages in which the player must defeat waves of enemies, among them robots, vehicles, and other Orbital Frame runners. The player has full omni-directional movement within the levels and can freely fly around or dash without having to worry about fuel. A weak long-range attack can be fired rapidly at distant targets or used to hit multiple 'locked' targets at once. Getting in close to an opponent will allow Jehuty to use a blade attack that can fling them away or into walls for extra damage. Standing still is risky, but allows Jehuty to build up a powerful 'blast' attack. Objects in the environment, or even enemies, can be grabbed and used as a weapon. The combat is fast, fluid, and flashy. You're constantly moving at high speeds, ducking out of enemy attack ranges, switching from long to short range attacks, and dodging incoming enemy missiles.
Each of the boss battles requires you to do something different; you can't just brute force your way through them. They force the player to switch up their techniques and engage with the gameplay mechanics in interesting ways. By defeating boss enemies, Jehuty will gain special "sub-weapons" that consume bars from a "Sub" guage. This guage is replenished through combat. Sub-weapons can target all enemies within a set range, blast through shields, and allow Jehuty to sneak up behind enemies. Only one sub-weapon can be equipped at a time, but you can swap them out freely. Jehuty levels up automatically by destroying enemies and when you die your experience carries over. There are no stats or special abilities tied to levels that the player needs to worry about managing. The player can fully repair Jehuty by collecting Metatron, and save their progress at the beginning of each stage.
Conclusion:
The Second Runner is easily one of the best mech games I have played. It is only 6 to 8 hours long, but it will never ask you to do the same thing for very long. You'll be chasing down a speeding train one minute and in the midst of a full on war the next. There is no padding, just a constant stream of new ideas and settings. You can play through it once and be done, or up the difficulty and replay for complete mastery. The camera and targeting system can be a bit fiddly at times and the controls can take a while to get used too, but despite its age Second Runner holds up remarkably well.
It's such a shame that Zone of the Enders was both born and killed during the PlayStation 2 era. It's everything that I expect a game about piloting a giant flying robot to be. Newer mech games, like Xenoblade Chronicles X, don't even come close to matching how good the controls and action in Second Runner feel. A third game, Zone of the Enders 3, was announced back in 2012 while still in the conceptual phase, but it got cancelled due to a lack of interest and disappointing sales numbers for the Zone of the Enders HD collection.
The physical "M∀RS" edition for the PlayStation 4 comes with holographic box art and an iron-on embroidered patch.
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