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Opinion: Zenless Zone Zero's Appeal Is Not That It's A Character Action Game, But That It Rewards A Love For The Genre
All week I’ve seen a lot of opinions about Zenless Zone Zero. Now, I’ll take some partial responsibility for a bit of the communication error: a lot of detractors of HoYoverse’s newest live service gacha game comes down to the belief that the game is a full-on character action. The problem lies in perspective- if [...]
All week I've seen a lot of opinions about Zenless Zone Zero. Now, I'll take some partial responsibility for a bit of the communication error: a lot of detractors of HoYoverse's newest live service gacha game comes down to the belief that the game is a full-on character action.
The problem lies in perspective- if you're a fan of console character action games, chances are you're coming from games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta or even newer pedigrees like Astral Chain. These are games for the obsessed and mechanically dexterous- it's not enough to hit credits and cry at a cutscene, you are meant to be replaying these levels ad nauseam, looking at the way these games can come apart and give way to beautiful combos.
This is where a lot of criticism towards Zenless Zone Zero from this crowd because it's simply too many gears down-shifted: While Devil May Cry is a complex array of systems you can link to each other, Zenless Zone Zero is more of a mini-keyboard, without even a full set of keys.
The lack of jump button is the most noticeable critique- air combos are a staple of action games, and the difference between "You can knock someone out of the air" and "You can leave someone in a prison wherein they're unable to tell up from down, looking only forward and hoping that death is on the horizon" is the difference between what pulls fans of the genre in or not.
In HoYoverse's defense, they're working under some extra constraints here. Like Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact before it these games are meant to be played on mobile phones, and a lot of Zenless Zone Zero's watered down action combat is a direct result of that.
The Fun Mechanical Quirks Are The Point
And yet, seeing the Zenless Zone Zero community prowl through the game for sauce reminds me what this game is actually for. Sure, characters don't have 3-page movelists but they draw at the heart of both action and fighting games- a desire to take things apart and figure out how they work.
If you're coming from these genres, you're probably used to canceling animations. Pragmatic reasons aside, the act of animation canceling in itself is fun. I play Guilty Gear, a game whose most iconic mechanic involves canceling any attack animation either as an early feint or as God's own whiteout to save me from Loser's Bracket because my DP got blocked.
While it couldn't be as mechanically intense, Zenless Zone Zero has quite a bit of fun in simple details like that- in literally the game's first mission, you can, with some practice do Devil May Cry-esque bullet juggles by canceling Anby's special attack on the first hit into Billy's normal shots. I do wish it floated a little more, but just having that work feels like a treat in itself.
To me, the joy of Zenless Zone Zero is in that switching- it's not just about swapping characters as part of your rotation, but rather your party of 3 acting as one cohesive moveset. Lucy's charged EX is a slow projectile, which means you can swap out as soon as she launches it while you combo with another character. Anby and Lycaon are characters with launcher properties, while Rina has a variety of lingering hitbox moves.
While games like Genshin Impact are more about swapping to build stacks and procs, switching characters in Zenless Zone Zero is more akin to Devil May Cry's style switching. Trickster isn't a DPS style, it's just the moveset you want to use when you feel like you want to prioritize movement, while Royal Guard is what you switch into when you want to flex how hard you've downloaded a boss' moveset.
The Agents in Zenless Zone Zero are much the same way- while I imagine later content will require you to think about things like Anomaly Build-Ups, the brunt of the game's grunt fights let you simply design fights around your movesets to do what you think is cool. Need to throw someone in the air? There are agents for that. Want to fill the screen with objects then swap out? Your choices are an onee-san maid and a himedere biker girl. Want to just style? Consider the characters with just-inputs or installs.
Even though you're not doing as much, the fact each character does have their own mechanical quirks really drives home the point that it's the doing, not the presentation that matters. After all, people are literally discovering secret inputs on characters and making guides to get the Exceed timing on Soldier 11's sword strikes.
While you could argue about how much of this is divergent gameplay at work, there's some great points to consider: for one, Zenless Zone Zero has a training room, complete with customizable settings for your dummy. If the game wasn't designed to have these properties it would hardly give you a space to lab them out.
For another, it's not like the game has much else to be about if not the combat. Honkai Impact's sprawling dungeons are now smaller room-to-room setups, and even the rock-paper-scissors elements system is gone. Instead all effects come after the combo- just do enough damage with your specials and watch as it builds up to a status proc.
Remember, Action Fans Juggle Children
At the end of the day, it feels like HoYoverse career is one about stepping away from a lot of the accusations of shallowness plaguing gacha games. From Honkai Impact 3rd up to Zenless Zone Zero it's really interesting seeing just how much they can cram into a game before they need to dial it back because its primary target is mobile users.
The fact Zenless Zone Zero in particular is going from "this game is shallow" to "this game has the sauce" is also another hilarious point- gacha fans scream before they stub their toes, so it's probably best to wait for a game to find its audience before you go all-in on the dead game accusations. Considering action game fans found ways to juggle children in Lego Star Wars of all things, you can probably trust these people to not be blinded by partisan loyalty when breaking down a game's action controls.
That's not to say Zenless Zone Zero doesn't have its flaws- I don't think anyone whose opinion matters would be mad if the game suddenly got a jump button and air combos. It just feels like the next set of keys on the game's proverbial piano that it feels frustrating that they're not there.
But as it is, I think the game is an amazing send up to action game fans. With Zenless Zone Zero I doubt the design was ever meant to actually compete with the likes of a console level action game. Instead, it has just enough in it that fans of those games might recognize and have fun with- not unlike a pianist on a children's keyboard.