Review for Zanki Zero: Last Beginning. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 31/12/2018
Released last year in the motherland on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita (non-localized version; on the other hand, a port for Steam has been created), Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a candidate of arrogance among the strangest games of the year. The work of Spike Chunsoft (software house known for the Danganronpa series) and Lancarse (former authors of the curious Lost Dimension), which calls itself "Non-stop survival RPG", is a dungeon crawler in first person enriched by puzzle, elements survival it's a full-bodied narrative sector, which brings him closer to visual novels.
With the visual novels, the game shares the nature of a low budget product, as immediately emerges from the vision of the trailer below as well as the screenshots, which highlight a primitive graphic sector that seems to have come out of the 128-bit era.
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is set in a ruined world, where they are left alone eight people. This composite group has been mysteriously assembled on an island and receives instructions via TV Extend, a disturbing television show in which a sheep and his young assistant explain from time to time what to do to progress, survive and… clone! The plot is mostly told by this show, which, in addition to illustrating the bizarre dynamics of this ruined world, reveals the background of the party members to the player.
The cast is one of the fundamental elements of the game, a bit like in Lost Dimension (albeit for different reasons). The characters are very heterogeneous, even if they share the age (except for one), and the game dedicates a chapter to each of them, going to reveal all the horrible skeletons nestled in the closets. From this point of view, the rawness of the issues, which brings Zanki Zero: Last Beginning closer to the Danganronpa series.
Without further ado (also because we would not want to spoil anything) on the narrative sector, We can evaluate it positively, in that the particular premises are developed in an equally peculiar way and entice the player to continue to uncover the mysteries that lie behind Extend TV; however, the development is weighed down by the structural choice mentioned above (one character per chapter), which considerably “dilutes” the main vein with grim stories that are a bit end in themselves.
On a playful level, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning becomes even more controversial. At first, superficial glance, the game looks like a post-apocalyptic version of Etrian Odyssey (series of which Lancarse has some experience), but this is only true in relation to the playful structure, on which many other elements borrowed from the survival genre are grafted, with a splash of puzzles. Furthermore, the battles happen in real time, according to a disappointing combat system which boils down to physical attack and flight (while waiting for the cooldown time for a new attack).
The party consists of four members, which can be exchanged at any time with the other four in reserve. Each character can be equipped and carry a certain amount of items, respecting the number of slots (the same for all) and the maximum transportable weight (which changes from character to character), but you will need to be careful about health, stamina, bladder (!) and stress. As you can understand, the management of all these parameters will not be easy at first, but the developers have well thought of preparing numerous levels of difficulty (interchangeable during the game, moreover), the first of which - lowered ad hoc for Western users - really allows everyone to enjoy the game by focusing solely on the plot and on the puzzles, certainly not prohibitive (often even just and simply to find the button that opens a door).
Those illustrated so far are just some of the main mechanics, to which many others are added, related to character progression, cooking, crafting, etc. Among these, the cloning, already mentioned above. Characters continually face death, not only from enemies and assorted threats, but from their own premature aging, which causes the entire life cycle to condense into thirteen days, during which the statistics will change precisely based on the actual biological age. Cloning allows you to give new life (starting from childhood) to a character, who not only maintains his conscience, but also - as far as we are concerned on a purely playful level - level and ability, saving the desire to redistribute the Skill Points , which costs a lot of points; Moreover, by spending additional points, he can acquire certain bonuses deriving from the modalities of his death.
This mechanic arouses interest for its particularity and for the high flexibility it guarantees to the gameplay, but negatively affects the smoothness, since it is possible to make cloning only from the base and to explore the dungeons (more specifically, move from floor to floor) leads to the passing of days, then to the aging and eventually to the death of the characters.
Before reaching any conclusions, let's spend a few words on the localized version of the game. Zanki Zero: Last Beginning introduces itself to Western audiences with the dual audio, the DLC dedicated to swimwear, an ultra-easy mode (as we have already mentioned) and some small improvements in terms of interfaces and balancing, which make the overall experience easier and more enjoyable, regardless of the selected difficulty level. In return, the game was censored in order to avoid any possible controversy and not to exceed the PEGI 16: they were all at the expense scenes with childish versions of the characters that could be somewhat mischievous.
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a truly bizarre game, full of flaws and imperfections but not without merits: its mysterious plot and raw themes will not fail to fascinate a part (a niche, of course) of the audience, as well as the strange mixture of genres that goes to make up the gameplay.
► Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is an Action-type game developed and published by Spike Chunsoft for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 31/12/2018
