Zone of the Enders
Feel free to listen to this while reading:
Zone of the Enders and The Bouncer are brothers. They want to impress so much. In many ways, I am impressed. But they are not whole.
Zone of the Enders is presented as if it were a side project of Kojima’s. His name is largest title card in the credits. This is in spite of his rather small role in producing a game that shares much of its staff with Metal Gear Solid 2. Instead of lengthy, discursive dialogue, we get a straightforward, rather typical mech plotline. In a moment of horror, a boy is forced to pilot an experimental robot in order to save himself, and eventually everyone else. The script is so stilted and jarring that it’s a little entertaining. I was simply floored by one moment:
The boy pilot is mad at his superiors and says something like “You guys don’t care who dies. You didn’t care about the previous pilot who was supposed to fly this and you don’t care about me.” There’s a short break. Then the man responds “You idiot. That pilot was my best friend and the other commander’s boyfriend. We care more than anybody else.” Now that’s storytelling.
I’m charmed by the game’s ambition. The camera actually does a fair job of staying focused on the action even as you whizz around space hitting enemies with Dynasty Warriors-esque triple slash combos. I love how almost everything is coated in a phosphorescent blue. I love how your needle-pointed feet spark when they graze metallic floors. I’m even in love with how every battle you engage in permanently damages the space colony’s infrastructure, sometimes killing the few remaining civilians who are left. I don’t like being graded on it though. Grades are bad enough in school, please leave them out of my games.