Zeno Clash II Review

Note: All screenshots are from the PC version of Zeno Clash II, but this review is for the PS3 port.

At first glance the original Zeno Clash seemed to be just a shallow brawler set in an equally shallow world that relied on shock value and self-aware weirdness to sell itself, but if one was to look deeper, one would find a wealth of depth both in the gameplay and the setting.

The simple, several button combat system was made complex by a need to dodge, block and time one’s attacks, though the powerful nature of heavy attacks meant that if one was not besieged by multiple armed enemies at once, then one could simply spam that one move to great effect. It was an imperfect system, but a satisfying one that did not rely on the gimmick of being a hand to hand fighting game in a first person perspective but embraced it with a sense of brutal intimacy. That might seem like a contradiction, but the crunch of an enemy’s body was immediately engaging as one saw the blows at such a close range; and it was intimate too for the very same reason it was brutal, which was particularly pertinent to the tone given that the targets of your brutality were most often your brothers and sisters.

Once one was used to it, the world of Zenozoik was little weirder than an island with eight hundred and eighty seven monolithic statues; though a little more barren and sandy. It wasn’t just a weird setting full of Mad Max hair styles and Star Wars desert flora and fauna, but one rich with cultural influence from its country of origin. And more importantly, the story was a mature consideration of paternity and familial relationships that, if not particularly emotionally powerful, was told with respect, sincerity and without much in the way of moral judgement.

Well, until the ending when an all powerful golem passed judgement upon the simple people of Zenozoik, and teased what might come in what was nothing short of an obtuse cliffhanger. For that reason alone Zeno Clash II should be celebrated simply for existing.

But celebrating existence can be a hollow experience, albeit an almost universal, annual one. And Ace Team were not willing to simply celebrate the original Zeno Clash; instead they have taken another step forwards towards their ultimate vision of an open world, Zenozoik RPG. But for each step that Ace Team has taken forwards, they have taken one backwards as well.

The combat system, while still relying on but a few buttons, has been completely rejigged. As well as the light and heavy attacks of the original, there are several button press combos that completely alter the flow and pace of battle. One cannot rely on spamming heavy or even light attacks, but must string them together; integrating kicks, double fisted punches, and juggling into one’s arsenal to be able to damage the enemies most effectively—or at least that’s the idea.

In reality, a simple three hit combo can work its way through almost any enemy relatively quickly even on hard, but pulling off even just a three hit combo requires a certain degree of preciseness, which means that even without the need to pull off the more complicated combos and special attacks, it is mechanically still a vastly more complex system than in the original and, although it’s less brutal, it is one that is more immediate and intuitive as you unleash several swift blows to a pair of blocking hands, then another to the jaw that is finally followed by a heavy punch to the nostrils (not all enemies have noses in Zenozoik, though all probably do have anuses; some of which are proudly on display) with your other hand. And one can’t just spam combos and special attacks as one pleases; depleting stamina must also be taken into account as well a power gauge that must be full before one can unleash some special attacks.

But the more expansive structure means that enemies must generally be weaker than they were in the original, so a few brief combos can fell an enemy in an instant. But this weakness extends even to the tougher enemies that you come across only in relation to the story, and not just simply by exploring. This means that there is a reliance on large mobs of enemies for the tougher battles, which is problematic for two reasons.

The first is that in the original when taking on a mob of enemies, generally one or two were armed, and the same is true here; but in Zeno Clash II, if you knock a weapon from an enemy’s grasp, they don’t then try to pick it back up, and weapons feel even more powerful than in the original and are far more accurate with the lock on system meaning you’re actually likely to hit your adversary now. In the original, due to the inefficiency of the weapons, it was often beneficial to avoid using them at all, but in the heat of a battle with multiple enemies sometimes you were forced to just to keep the enemies from using them against you! Here you’re free to let the weapon lie lonely on the ground, ignored by those who were once loyal to it.

The second is that Zeno Clash II can barely handle several enemies on screen at once (add in fog effects and dynamic land, and it becomes a slideshow even without any enemies around!) so can become unplayable when you are confronted with a whole mob. The only viable battle strategy as the enemies charge at you in a deadly slideshow is to be cheap and spam grenades, ranged weapons or special attacks. And after you’ve just mowed your way through an army of easy enemies in small groups or by themselves, it’s a little disheartening when the challenge you’d been longing for is taken from you by a greedy, unplayable frame rate.

Special weapons are yet another way that the combat system has been mechanically improved. One has access to a chain that can be used to hit multiple enemies at once for a minimal amount of damage, but knocks them back reasonably far (a great fallback weapon when low on health; or when the frame rate dips). Later on in the game one gains access to a weapon that can link enemies together; attack one and both linked enemies get damaged. It makes up for a little of the strategy that is lacking due to the weaker and dumber enemies.

And yet, despite the unplayable frame rate, much visual detail has been cut from Zeno Clash II, and the cuts result in many areas losing their sense of identity. The desert is devoid of the flora that grew vibrantly in it on the PC version. This flora gave the desert a distinctive personality: it wasn’t just a barren void full of gigantic dinosaurs and suspicious shellfish that may or may not have eyes in their testicles, but a place where plucky flowers dared to grow; flavouring the air with their pollen.

Most areas suffer from this de-detailing, but not all suffer quite so badly. The chunky, crisp geometry of the rocks in some areas mean that little of the atmosphere is lost, but the inconsistency is jarring. However, some of the inconsistency is not due just to the port’s poor optimisation, but the structure of the world.

Zenozoik is almost open world this time around. Some areas are inaccessible until later on in the game when the required equipment to progress becomes available to the player, but mostly one can go where one pleases; even progressing through the story in a nonlinear fashion—picking and choosing which objectives to achieve first; if to even achieve some of them at all! But not all areas are designed with an open world structure in mind. Some do feel like small snippets of an open setting, with multiple pathways leading through them, but others have the same puppet theatre feel of the player being lead along a single linear pathway with the background painted in beyond it that dominated the original game. Nevertheless, the open world structure gives Zenozoik more tangibility than it had in the original through repetition and freedom, and thus a stronger veneer of realism; even if that veneer is full of holes.

Unfortunately, navigation through this newly liberated Zenozoik can be confusing. Sometimes all one has to go on is a triangular waypoint that is visible on the screen, but not on the map. And with multiple entrances and exits and the strange angles of the connections between areas, it means that finding your way to said waypoint can be an inconsistent challenge: sometimes the waypoint settles on the loading point to the next area on the way; other times it just hovers above it in the vague direction of your destination. Birds also hover above loading points; tethered to the ground to serve as cruel flags: a twisted but charming illustration of the tone in Zeno Clash II, and one of the poetical similarities to a recently released blockbuster title...

And the obtuseness of the ending of the original? By the end of Zeno Clash II it will make sense. The story still toys with themes of paternity, but in a cruder manner than the original did due to the overbearing role that Ghat’s (our painted-on-moustache-protagonist's) new companion (his human sister, Rimat) plays in Zeno Clash II. Rimat was the obnoxious one that was rearing at the bit to get a piece of Ghat after he attacked Father-Mother in the original, and she’s no more mellow here. Indeed, she spends most of the game complaining in a Zenozoikian rendition of are we there yet?

She has none of the nuance of Deadra who played the convention of naive-companion-who-is-awed-by-the-world-around-them almost to perfection, and avoided becoming just an analogue for the player’s own feelings thanks to her cynicism and fear. Though Rimat’s abrasiveness is noble, it further makes Zeno Clash II feel far more impersonal than the original, with Ghat often arguing with her as only brother and sister can; which makes the impersonalness feel all the stranger.

But it’s hardly surprising when the ally system (you can pickup allies if your leadership level is high enough; levels are raised by collecting skill points from totems hidden around Zenozoik) means that those accompanying you are not physically depicted in the world: they explode in and out of major battles with a puff of smoke, leaving one to wander around alone; sometimes exchanging a word or two with disembodied voices. Though the allies don’t dish out a great deal of damage, they are highly useful at distracting enemies while one picks their brethren off, and add another minor layer of strategy to combat; different allies have different strengths.

The voice acting and script add to the impersonal feel, both of which are even worse than in the original due to the larger structure and broader story requiring far more exposition and more lines delivered. Team Ace barely managed quality by itself in the original, so when quantity is added to the mix the quality suffers too, with less Zenozoikian slang, more genuine swearing, nonsensical English, and actors struggling with poorly constructed sentences, overbearing characterisation, and their own melodramatic delivery.

But for what it lacks in characterisation and subtlety, it makes up for in its themes and scope. The world beyond Zenozoik (if such a place exists) is tantalisingly teased, adding a little mystery to a world that is lacking just that if one has already visited it before. Familial, primitive law is contrasted against civilised, advanced law in just as mature a light as paternity and familial relationships were handled in the original. There’s an obvious bias towards the primitive, but with how the argument is presented, it’s hard to disagree: and it is exactly this conviction which makes it a successful and reasonably complex political treatise.

But all of this is not quite enough to fill in what is a much larger game world. One must also confront a variety of observational puzzles, most of which consist of linking orbs together or looking for the sun and the moon. These puzzles successfully dampen the pace in between battles, lowering the tempo enough that once one comes across a battle that is more epic in scope than it is challenging, it still feels like an up-kick in tempo.

The music is one of the few elements that has not been negatively affected by the inferior power of the PS3 (or rather, Ace Team’s inability to properly optimise their port); it’s an eerie mixture of tribal percussion that gets the heart beat thumping during combat, and ambient synth noises that compliment the ethereal landscapes. But it is only unaffected by the port because of the other element that has not changed in the transition from PC to PS3: the glitches.

Not only does the sound sometimes cut out, but one can find oneself permanently stuck in the slow motion battle effect, meaning that a thirty second battle might take several minutes, and that it’s possible—God forbid—to experience a slideshow battle in slow motion!  One can also find oneself unable to run and attack. The only option is to soldier on for several unbearable minutes of boredom, or restart to the last check point. And if you were lucky enough to get into an epic fight with a fine frame rate, it’s a heavy kick to the guts to have it ruined for you because of a glitch.

It’s a crying shame too, because although Zeno Clash II could hardly be described as an improvement upon the original, it is certainly more ambitious, and is every bit as good. There’s even an online co-op mode; the prospect of bashing up lobstermen through the single player campaign with friends is exciting, but sadly all my friends suck and aren’t interested in Zeno Clash II, and no one else was playing it when I tried to give it a go. While the characters might still be complete with their funky hair and primitive dispositions on the PS3, the world itself is only a shell of its true self. And any moments of intensity from the PC version that weren’t taken from you by a glitch, are taken from you here by the unreliable and at times unplayable frame rate. The glitches can be patched, but the poor optimisation?

Still, the fact of the matter is that you can hit a historically inaccurate crab in its weak point (the head is a universal weak point and punching it works on any animal, whether mammalian or arthropodian) for massive damage. Just don’t do it with a grenade or a chain; unless you enjoy slideshows.