Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner Review: Since When Are Mechs This Stylish?

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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Rune Factory 3 Special Review: Pulling The Wool Over Everyone's Eyes

"Special" is a port and minimalist remaster of the original handheld title. Rune Factory 3 was the game to introduce many of the series staple gameplay systems and is when the Rune Factory series "finally got good" according to most fans. That said, the remaster retains some of the rough edges from those early days. The controls are slippery and finicky, causing Micah (protagonist) to hit the wrong field tiles. Other times if you aren't standing in the exact spot the game wants you to be in it will be impossible to collect resources from ore and stumps, even though visually, it looks like you should be able to.

Of the three games I have played (RF3, RF4, and RF5), this entry in the series has my favorite player home.

The colorful cast of characters are considered to be the most eccentric of any Rune Factory game and I love it. There is just something about Rune Factory's brand of 'quirky character' that suits their world. Sofia and Sherman for example, always say the opposite of what they mean. I thought for sure this 'quirk' would grate on my nerves after a while, but to the contrary I adapted surprisingly fast and began looking forward to every comical conversation their unusual speech patterns produced. The dungeons and story are shorter than Rune Factory 4, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It still has a respectable length full of worthwhile content, which I prefer over longer games that waste my time with filler. The shorter length also makes it a good entry point for people looking to get into the franchise because it establishes the core mechanics used in Rune Factory 4 and 5 without demanding a large time commitment.

Fulfilling requests from NPCs is one way to increase your bond with them but many requests lack clarity, such as Zaid's "Come See Me" request, in which I accidentally went down the wrong path because there was a fork in the road and I had no way of knowing which path to take. I then had to defeat all the enemies within a designated area without touching the portals used to cross a river or the area would reset. This requires using either a lily pad seed or specially made boots - which the request gave no indication I would need. Zaid also has to stay alive and there is no way to revive him with items. Other times the requests have you doing things like catching birds that look as if they are part of the background scenery. To catch them you will also need to use controls that are never used anywhere else and you likley won't know exist. It wastes a lot of real-world time on backtracking, looking up guides, and restarting quests which could've been avoided with some additional text.

RF3's main gimmick is the protagonist's ability to turn into a sheep, which I assumed would lead to some fun interactions, especially when the main obstacle to be overcome in the narrative is a divide between two races: univir and humans. The univir were banished from the human town of Sharance for reasons nobody remembers, and the leaders of both villages hate each other because that is just how it has always been. The player is never told what transpired to cause this whole debacle, but the townspeople are all for getting back together and do just that by throwing a party.

I know this is a game aimed at a younger audience, but I was kinda expecting there to be a little more substance to the conflict. Some kind of cultural misunderstanding, past trauma or incident that Micah would act as a mediator for. Instead there isn't any real tension or issue to resolve. The conflict is wholly artificial and easily mended. Micah being a half-race isn't even really incorporated into the story at all. It is made out to be a big secret that he has to keep, but then no one ever rejects him when they find out. To the contrary, he is always met with immediate acceptance and cuddles. One of the town's residents is actually a mermaid and another is a half-race like Micah, so it makes sense that a shapeshifting sheep wouldn't bother these people. I just hate that it's another artificial non-issue and a fun mechanic with wasted potential.

How someone can be a half-monster is never explained; I certainly hope a human didn't sleep with a sheep, or a bird in Raven's case. Marian mentions that shapeshifting is a thing powerful magic users can do. Could it be related to RF4's Guardian transformations or RF5's were-people?

Conclusion:

Rune Factory 3 is a good entry point into the series because it is of a reasonable length and establishes the core gameplay systems that appear in future Rune Factory titles. Like most games in the series it is wholesome and inoffensive. The story and characters aren't ground breaking but they are interesting and entertaining enough to make the time you spend with them feel worthwhile.

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• Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
• Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town
• Rune Factory 4 Special
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The Forgotten City Review: Worth Its Weight In Gold

Review based on patch 1.3.0

Story:

After being saved from drowning by a mysterious woman named Karen (Charon or Kherty), the player character is asked to search for her friend who went missing in the nearby ruins. While exploring the ruins, the player stumbles into a restored version of the city during the time of the Roman Empire. The handful of residents living there - which include ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans - all follow a "Golden Rule", where if any of them were to commit a sin, everyone would be turned to gold as punishment by the gods. No one is sure what counts as a punishable sin, but the magistrate asks the player to use their status as the 'newcomer' to discover who is most likley to sin.

Gameplay:

The area you are dropped into is so small that you can run from one end of the map to the other in a few seconds. The actual gameplay is a bit unorthodox in that it relies almost entirely on walking and talking, but the Forgotten City excels within these constraints. Every character, conversation, quest, and puzzle is important because none of them exists in isolation. They all feedback into and reinforce one another; like the threads in a tapestry, if you pull on one it will effect everything else around it. A single conversation can change your current course of action, unintentionally solve another quest, or reveal the significance of an item you acquired hours earlier. The player also has the ability to loop time - repeating the same day while retaining both physical objects and information obtained from the previous loop.

The narrative and game mechanics all discourage violence, brute force and combat, and instead asks the player to talk, listen, and think. It delves heavily into moral philosophy, asking questions such as what counts as a sin? Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? Does cultural context matter? Rufius for example, has a condition that causes him extreme pain and makes him irritable, which he takes out on Vergil. With treatment Rufius becomes much more pleasant and takes steps to correct his previous bad actions. If Rufius couldn't control his behavior before treatment, then how responsible is he for his actions? Desius has the only medicine that can save a woman's life, but will only part with it for an exorbitant sum of money. Is the Golden Rule then to blame for creating an environment where anyone who can't afford treatment must die? The player can always steal the medicine and carry it over into the next loop, essentially duplicating the item, but is this moral? A life will be spared, but to obtain this item everyone will need to be turned to gold at least once. It is a loophole the player is exploiting, not unlike how Desius operates. The narrative also explores society's relationship with its laws, religion, history, and cultural appropriation. The Greek residents for example, think the Romans appropriated their religion and the Egyptians think the Greeks appropriated theirs, but are resistant to the idea that they did the same to the Sumerians.

"If there is one thing I have observed about rules, it is that virtuous people do not need them, and evil people will always find a way around them." -The Hermit

Conclusion:

The Forgotten City is such a good example of why not every game needs a combat system or violence as part of its gameplay. I don't want to give too much away because this is one of those games that is best experienced blind. It is roughly 6 hours long but very well written and thought provoking.

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The Procession to Calvary Review: A Bonafide Classic

Story:

The female warrior Bellona (painted by Rembrandt) is bummed-out because the holy war has come to an end and the new leader, Immortal John, has ruled that there should be no more killing - Bellona's favorite thing to do. However, the previous tyrant, Heavenly Peter, has escaped, giving Bellona one last chance to commit (legal) murder by claiming his head.

Every character, object, and background has been taken from real-life Renaissance paintings and given simple animations to create a very unique 'cut-out' visual presentation. These paintings often feature absurd imagery, such as lap-dog sized pet lions, two fully nude men 'wrestling' by the beach, or people holding freakishly oversized keys. The imagery is not only interesting, but blends well with the story's dry humor written in the comedy style of Monty Python. The music is all classical stuff as well, played on screen by musicians hidden in every background. Bellona can even sing along or applaud the artist's work.

They aren't afraid to poke fun at the individuals who donated the largest sums of money to fund the game's creation.

Gameplay:

The Procession to Calvary is a point-and-click adventure game where you must help (or hinder) NPCs by solving puzzles - often in absurd ways - to get within arms reach of Heavenly Peter. A lady needs a new wagon wheel? Why not just borrow one of the breaking wheels? The nobles won't let you take their trinkets? Gas them with a skunk. None of the puzzles are difficult to solve, although some of the more unorthodox ones required a bit of trial and error. Of course, there is nothing stopping you from skipping most of the puzzles by simply killing everyone who gets in your way. This will lock you into the "bad" ending, but I like that it was included at all as an option. Beside killing people, you can use your sword for non-lethal things, such as cutting rope used to tether a boat.

Most things have the options to interact, examine, or speak.

Conclusion:

This is a short game at roughly 3 hours long, but I love the unorthodox presentation and cartoonish absurdity of Renaissance paintings brought to life in the comedy style of Monty Python. It sets out to do something very specific, does it well, and doesn't overstay its welcome.

For collectors, a limited run of 1,500 to 2,800 (depending on the platform) copies were produced by Red Art Games; which have since sold out. As of this posting, sealed copies remain affordable with an average retail price of $50.

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Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Review: A Waste Of Time

Story:

The world is stuck in a perpetual loop of war, death, and suffering where colonies of child soldiers are ruled over by a Moebius monster with fealty to a "Queen". Sounds dark, right? Well... its not. The 'power of friendship' is emphasized heavily and everyone is obsessed with smiling. A certain villain (Shania) who commits genocide - twice - is forgiven because they have mommy issues. The story keeps telling you how bad things are but it doesn't look or feel that way. Characters talk in circles constantly, explaining and reexplaining the very obvious themes of the game like you're a 5 year old. Noah (the protagonist) is the most generic "good guy" and the Moebius villains are literal immortal children playing with their 'toys'. They all have the same wacky mannerisms and will throw a tantrum whenever things don't go their way, so they never come off as a serious threat.

Most of the story beats are broadcast too early and the big plot reveals are too obvious. Before the game was released for example, fans had already guessed that the letter of each Moebius' name corresponded to their full name, and that Noah and N were connected in some way. Then you have moments like where Eunie finds her old body, revealing a system of reincarnation similar to what was seen in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (except it is possible for people to retain the memories of their past lives in 3). A Moebius then reveals himself to be a childhood friend (Joran) of the main cast in Chapter 3, alerting the player to the fact that anyone going forward could be a Moebius. So, scarcely halfway into the story the stakes of death have been removed and the identity of every Moebius can now be ascertained by the letters of their names and the characters who match.

For the first time ever in a Xenoblade game I found the exploration to be mundane. The world is intentionally washed out of color and five times larger than its predecessors (according to producer Koh Kojima), but doesn't add any meaningful content to fill that additional space. Remnants from the worlds of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are visibly present on the landscape, but seem to exist purely for the sake of nostalgia as they have no bearing in how the player navigates the world or engages with it mechanics. In fact, the biggest defining trait of Xenoblade Chronicles 3's world is that it is circular like a clock - a recurring element, but it isn't very noticeable and if you do notice it, it doesn't have the same impact as navigating a giant humanoid body.

I don't mind cameos and a little bit of fan service, but if you're going to try to connect things in a big way show me that you have something interesting to say about it. Like, why are Melia and Nia here? Since when is Nia royalty? How did they establish contact each other? Neither one is a person of science, so why are they at the helm of the "Origin" operation? Who actually made the blueprints and how did they figure out how to do it? The entire thing is poorly explained.

The game clearly wants to say something with its focus on existential philosophy, but the execution is sloppy and too drawn out. The constant revival of dead characters cheapened the message of making the most out of the limited time you have. And I get that the Moebius are a manifestation of peoples lack of ambition, resistance to change and their willingness to let the world persist as it is, while the heroes are concerned with moving forward, but where did it intend to go with all of this? The story just kinda ends and loops back to where it began. Everything that happened occurred in a sort of simulation, so the entire adventure technically wasn't real, and Rex (Xenoblade Chronicles 2 protagonist) has a harem now(?).

The mysterious black fog is made out to be a bigger deal than it is.

It struck me as odd that none of the colonies opposed destroying the flame clock, or questioned the necessity of the queens, especially after finding out that the previous ones were Moebius controlled fakes. On the whole Xenoblade chronicles 3 tells far more than it shows; important plot points, events, and characters are shown in flashback cutscenes instead of being experienced organically. So big emotional scenes with dramatic deaths for NPCs like Joran, Ethel, or Cammuravi - NPCs I know nothing about and have zero attachment to, end up falling flat.

Gameplay:

During combat the characters can move around freely and will automatically attack any enemy within range. There are three 'Classes' that determine a character's abilities: attacker, defender, and healer. These are self-explanatory. Only healers can restore party members during battle, while defenders draw the enemy's attention and tank hits. The attackers deal more damage than anyone else.

Each party member has six special abilities called "Arts"; three class specific arts are on the right-hand side of the screen, and three non-class specific arts called "Master Arts" are on the left-hand side. Arts inflict more damage than auto-attacks, as well as status effects and healing. These abilities take time to charge before they can be used and will need to recharge again after use. Some arts are more effective when attacking the enemy from the rear, or they can inflict special states such as toppling enemies that have become unstable. This makes the positioning of characters around the opponents important.

Each party member also comes with a "Talent Art" that is a super powerful move. These need to charge up like regular arts but don't do so passively over time. Instead, talent arts only charge when the character does something relevant to their class - an attacker effectively positioning themselves for maximum damage for example.

A "Chain Attack" gauge on the right-hand side of the screen fills up by using combos, toppling enemies, and so on. When triggered, the chain attack will prompt the player to pick one of three "Chain Orders" - essentially a bonus applied if the chain is successful. From a selection of characters at the bottom of the screen, the player chooses who will attack and what art they will use. This will accumulate "Tactical Points" (TP). If at any point the TP equals or exceeds 100%, a powerful "Chain Art" will be performed. If there's still charge in the gauge, or if certain other conditions are met, the chain attack will continue.

Each character also comes with an invincible "Ouroboros" form that can only be engaged when an "interlink" gauge is triggered. This gauge is charged through the use of "fusion arts" - essentially triggering two fully charged arts (one master, one not) at the same time. When the ouroboros mode is initiated, two characters will fuse into a monstrous form that has its own set of four arts that can deal significantly more damage than the human forms. This form lasts for a limited amount amount of time before entering a cool-down. Ouroboros also have a soul tree - skills - that are unlocked by spending "Skill Points" (SP) earned through exploration and story progression.

Conclusion:

It has its audience, but as much as I love the Xenoblade series this one just didn't click for me. The lore and world building were shifted too far away from what I enjoyed in the previouse two games. The writing was too repetative for my tastes and unbearably infantilized. These games have never been 'mature' content but this one in particular felt like it was aimed at a younger audience than usual. I didn't care about the main character, his girlfriend, or their weird counterparts. Some may say that I am 'emotionally insensitive' for that, but these just weren't the types of characters or stories that resonate with me.

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