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mokasuiSpoilers through both the first Zone of the Enders and its sequel (speaking of which, the version included in the HD Collection apparently has extra/changed content from some special edition that America never saw, so there's that to consider too).
11/06/2012.
I don't remember much about ZOE1 aside from awesome title screen music, Leo being a loser, bosses being fun and the rest of the game being pretty easy. Bombs part was annoying, though. I also tried going through again to get those A-rank related achievements I missed before, and oh my cod what is this nonsense.
The rescue missions, man! The second one! The boss you fight in the town before you even have access to the rescue mission ugh. If you don't skip the cutscene where he shows up, he blows up half the place AND IT ACTUALLY COUNTS. Wow. Also he made me give up, because I can't seem to beat him hard enough to be able to get anything less than 19% buildings destroyed for the rescue mission. I even tried on Easy (and I believe I beat him without killing any buildings) but then the rescue mission itself was impossible for some reason. The Raptors kept throwing junk when engaged with me when they were waaay too far away to hit me with anything. Kind of ridiculous.
But yeah, I beat that and that was fun. ZOE2 is a completely different story, but it's not all positive. I LOVE how everything's so much faster and more intense, but like... mostly I'm just hating on how much features of the game are getting in the way of things. Like the lock-on works terribly and HATES locking on to Cellars even if they're right in front of you. That's a problem. AND WHY CAN I LOCK ON TO ALLIES WTF EVEN LASERS LOCK ON TO THEM. So gross.
Enemies being as fast as they are also means that enemies like to go so far away that you can't lock on to them anymore, which caused me a great deal of disorientation and damage when fighting Vic Viper (WHICH WAS OTHERWISE A REALLY FUN FIGHT).
And then there was that awful one with the Viola AI. Where she spins around this huge circular area and ugh. Just changes who you're locked onto every five seconds because she won't stop running off and then showing up again. That was really annoying.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. The entire train section was awful, with random boundaries that seemed, uh, random. And enemies just kind of you know getting left in the dust which is really just annoying when you were trying to kill it and still have other enemies around. And for all I knew they were going to catch up eventually.
By far the worst part was the one I finished last night, where there are mech-squishing pillars wiggling around while there are billions of enemies in your face and flying every direction. What this means is: you are completely disoriented all the time and the camera causes you to suicide into the pillars. I did it twice, ugh. It's just infuriating when that happens. This game shouldn't be allowed to have sequences like that. Not with such a stylish camera, and not when your movement is based on your target's position. SORRY BUT THIS SURE WAS A LOT OF ANNOYING EVERYWHERE
Also the last few boss fights I did weren't even fun like Vic Viper. :( One was Anubis, which is always FLAIL AROUND UNTIL THE GAME DECIDES IT'S TIME FOR THE STORY TO ADVANCE. The other was just... there were moving pillars around everywhere, and there was no way I was going to be able to fight coherently in that kind of place. So I mostly just mashed and beat the boss without much difficulty. Fighting the same boss in the dark was even easier and even more mashy.
At least ZOE2 has the most incredibly awkward dialogue I've ever dealt with in a game. "DON'T BE SO SUPRISED ALL THE TIME" "WHY NOT" and like. "I'll get rid of it while you're doing your homework at home." Who says these things? This is like the best thing about the game I'll never recover from how amazing it is.
11/18/2012.
So I totally completed ZOE1. Getting A ranks on all the rescue missions was kind of tough. Kind of really tough. Kind of tougher than anything ZOE2 has thrown at me (Extreme mode will probably change this). The second one especially.
It took me ages until I got through the Tempest fight without any building-related casualties. ... this also required me to grind to level 6 (I didn't have the patience for anything higher) and realize that instead of using burst attacks since I keep getting interrupted by fire when things are going well, I should just be mashing lasers. If I remember right, my final buildings destroyed percentage was only 6.2% when I finally got the A! And all of that was from the enemies in the actual rescue mission, not Tempest.
But yeah, did everything with that. Fun game etc. NOW ZOE2 JUNK
• The ridiculousness of the name Dingo Egret. An animal that was probably endangered or thought to be extinct or something back when this game was made, and then one of the more awkward birds. Legs that long will never not look silly.
• THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF DINGO'S MOUTH BEING A TRAPEZOID WHEN HE'S DYING
• I BEAT IT AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY AWESOME. See, after all the cellars and the train and the mech-squishing part the developers realized that annoying things will always be annoying. So instead they did only the awesome things.
• I beat Aumaan Anubis in like the most ghetto way possible. I couldn't figure out a good way to damage him so I started trying random things. What succeeded: Zero Shift to him and mash dashslash until he zoops away, then mash Zero Shift and mashdashslash more. Repeat eternally. Sometimes it got me hit by a burst attack, but hey no big deal, it wasn't often enough to matter and would have been NO PROBLEM AT ALL if I had realized Naked Jehuty had infinite subgauge because I could have just used Mummy forever to heal myself.
• ALSO DINGO'S VOICE ACTOR IS STUPID. No he's fine but they should have rerecorded one of his lines near the end. It sounds distorted, like he was being too loud and the microphone couldn't it. Come onnn guys. Don't leave stuff like that in your games!
• That scene in the ending where Jehuty hugs fakeAnubis! I expected fanart or porn or something of this, but it does not appear to exist in the places I know of.
• EXTRA MISSIONS. They have completion percentages so I'm doomed to slaving over them until they reach 100%. Some are awful though, like the no lock-on ones.
• Zoradius is also awful. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BASED OFF OF IKARUGA INSTEAD. JUST IMAGINE HOW AMAZING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN. Also that stupid train is ridiculous. It's hard to actually kill it in time and you don't win unless you kill it.
• Who cares about Naked Jehuty ignoring energy shields and having infinite subgauge and killing most things in one or two hits? Jehuty Ver.2 can keep Nephtis stunlocked eternally, and can almost do it to Ardjet too. Floaties will always be the best.
• FIGHTING NAKED JEHUTY TO UNLOCK IT FOR VS MODE. That was silly. I died twice because, though my expert strategy I used on Aumaan Anubis mostly worked here, I was the one who had to retreat and I was pretty bad at that and you can pretty much only make one mistake. Third time? I was sick of refighting Leopardos and stuff so I just bashed Naked Jehuty into a wall repeatedly with Gauntlet or whatever. Instant victory.
• I did get all the achievements for both ZOE1 and ZOE2, which feels good. To get all of those I did, of course, do more than one playthrough. IT WAS WORTHWHILE, FOR THE QUOTES. Everything else is quotes.
• "You can't deceive me with beautiful words like freedom and independence anymore!"
• "Don't be so surprised all the time!" "Why not?"
• "Get out of my way!" "Find another way!"
• "Damn! This must finish!"
• "It's approaching your way!"
• "If anything happened to my pals on Callisto, you'll pay." "IIII didn't kill them."
• "Half year ago, BAHRAM..." that's all you need to know about this quote. Half year ago.
• "Who is that stranger?"
• "I will get rid of it while you're doing your homework at home."
• The billions of times Ken says anything and Dingo tells her to shut up. Especially before the fight where the Viola AI takes over Ardjet. Yep.
• "You use weird things..."
• "Use power for the right things. At least the things that you believe in."
• "Project Aumaan's purpose is not domination." "What?" "Destruction." Maybe he didn't hear you and that's why he was saying what, you jerk. He definitely didn't say "What is it?" though so YOU WERE WRONG.
• "This is an unexpected quarry." "You're the quarry, jerk."
Also:
[14:50:01] AHH: USE POWER FOR THE WEIRD THINGS
[14:52:19] Akane: AT LEAST FOR THE THINGS YOU BELIEVE ARE WEIRD
My life has been completed.
11/06/2012.
I don't remember much about ZOE1 aside from awesome title screen music, Leo being a loser, bosses being fun and the rest of the game being pretty easy. Bombs part was annoying, though. I also tried going through again to get those A-rank related achievements I missed before, and oh my cod what is this nonsense.
The rescue missions, man! The second one! The boss you fight in the town before you even have access to the rescue mission ugh. If you don't skip the cutscene where he shows up, he blows up half the place AND IT ACTUALLY COUNTS. Wow. Also he made me give up, because I can't seem to beat him hard enough to be able to get anything less than 19% buildings destroyed for the rescue mission. I even tried on Easy (and I believe I beat him without killing any buildings) but then the rescue mission itself was impossible for some reason. The Raptors kept throwing junk when engaged with me when they were waaay too far away to hit me with anything. Kind of ridiculous.
But yeah, I beat that and that was fun. ZOE2 is a completely different story, but it's not all positive. I LOVE how everything's so much faster and more intense, but like... mostly I'm just hating on how much features of the game are getting in the way of things. Like the lock-on works terribly and HATES locking on to Cellars even if they're right in front of you. That's a problem. AND WHY CAN I LOCK ON TO ALLIES WTF EVEN LASERS LOCK ON TO THEM. So gross.
Enemies being as fast as they are also means that enemies like to go so far away that you can't lock on to them anymore, which caused me a great deal of disorientation and damage when fighting Vic Viper (WHICH WAS OTHERWISE A REALLY FUN FIGHT).
And then there was that awful one with the Viola AI. Where she spins around this huge circular area and ugh. Just changes who you're locked onto every five seconds because she won't stop running off and then showing up again. That was really annoying.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. The entire train section was awful, with random boundaries that seemed, uh, random. And enemies just kind of you know getting left in the dust which is really just annoying when you were trying to kill it and still have other enemies around. And for all I knew they were going to catch up eventually.
By far the worst part was the one I finished last night, where there are mech-squishing pillars wiggling around while there are billions of enemies in your face and flying every direction. What this means is: you are completely disoriented all the time and the camera causes you to suicide into the pillars. I did it twice, ugh. It's just infuriating when that happens. This game shouldn't be allowed to have sequences like that. Not with such a stylish camera, and not when your movement is based on your target's position. SORRY BUT THIS SURE WAS A LOT OF ANNOYING EVERYWHERE
Also the last few boss fights I did weren't even fun like Vic Viper. :( One was Anubis, which is always FLAIL AROUND UNTIL THE GAME DECIDES IT'S TIME FOR THE STORY TO ADVANCE. The other was just... there were moving pillars around everywhere, and there was no way I was going to be able to fight coherently in that kind of place. So I mostly just mashed and beat the boss without much difficulty. Fighting the same boss in the dark was even easier and even more mashy.
At least ZOE2 has the most incredibly awkward dialogue I've ever dealt with in a game. "DON'T BE SO SUPRISED ALL THE TIME" "WHY NOT" and like. "I'll get rid of it while you're doing your homework at home." Who says these things? This is like the best thing about the game I'll never recover from how amazing it is.
11/18/2012.
So I totally completed ZOE1. Getting A ranks on all the rescue missions was kind of tough. Kind of really tough. Kind of tougher than anything ZOE2 has thrown at me (Extreme mode will probably change this). The second one especially.
It took me ages until I got through the Tempest fight without any building-related casualties. ... this also required me to grind to level 6 (I didn't have the patience for anything higher) and realize that instead of using burst attacks since I keep getting interrupted by fire when things are going well, I should just be mashing lasers. If I remember right, my final buildings destroyed percentage was only 6.2% when I finally got the A! And all of that was from the enemies in the actual rescue mission, not Tempest.
But yeah, did everything with that. Fun game etc. NOW ZOE2 JUNK
• The ridiculousness of the name Dingo Egret. An animal that was probably endangered or thought to be extinct or something back when this game was made, and then one of the more awkward birds. Legs that long will never not look silly.
• THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF DINGO'S MOUTH BEING A TRAPEZOID WHEN HE'S DYING
• I BEAT IT AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY AWESOME. See, after all the cellars and the train and the mech-squishing part the developers realized that annoying things will always be annoying. So instead they did only the awesome things.
• I beat Aumaan Anubis in like the most ghetto way possible. I couldn't figure out a good way to damage him so I started trying random things. What succeeded: Zero Shift to him and mash dashslash until he zoops away, then mash Zero Shift and mashdashslash more. Repeat eternally. Sometimes it got me hit by a burst attack, but hey no big deal, it wasn't often enough to matter and would have been NO PROBLEM AT ALL if I had realized Naked Jehuty had infinite subgauge because I could have just used Mummy forever to heal myself.
• ALSO DINGO'S VOICE ACTOR IS STUPID. No he's fine but they should have rerecorded one of his lines near the end. It sounds distorted, like he was being too loud and the microphone couldn't it. Come onnn guys. Don't leave stuff like that in your games!
• That scene in the ending where Jehuty hugs fakeAnubis! I expected fanart or porn or something of this, but it does not appear to exist in the places I know of.
• EXTRA MISSIONS. They have completion percentages so I'm doomed to slaving over them until they reach 100%. Some are awful though, like the no lock-on ones.
• Zoradius is also awful. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BASED OFF OF IKARUGA INSTEAD. JUST IMAGINE HOW AMAZING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN. Also that stupid train is ridiculous. It's hard to actually kill it in time and you don't win unless you kill it.
• Who cares about Naked Jehuty ignoring energy shields and having infinite subgauge and killing most things in one or two hits? Jehuty Ver.2 can keep Nephtis stunlocked eternally, and can almost do it to Ardjet too. Floaties will always be the best.
• FIGHTING NAKED JEHUTY TO UNLOCK IT FOR VS MODE. That was silly. I died twice because, though my expert strategy I used on Aumaan Anubis mostly worked here, I was the one who had to retreat and I was pretty bad at that and you can pretty much only make one mistake. Third time? I was sick of refighting Leopardos and stuff so I just bashed Naked Jehuty into a wall repeatedly with Gauntlet or whatever. Instant victory.
• I did get all the achievements for both ZOE1 and ZOE2, which feels good. To get all of those I did, of course, do more than one playthrough. IT WAS WORTHWHILE, FOR THE QUOTES. Everything else is quotes.
• "You can't deceive me with beautiful words like freedom and independence anymore!"
• "Don't be so surprised all the time!" "Why not?"
• "Get out of my way!" "Find another way!"
• "Damn! This must finish!"
• "It's approaching your way!"
• "If anything happened to my pals on Callisto, you'll pay." "IIII didn't kill them."
• "Half year ago, BAHRAM..." that's all you need to know about this quote. Half year ago.
• "Who is that stranger?"
• "I will get rid of it while you're doing your homework at home."
• The billions of times Ken says anything and Dingo tells her to shut up. Especially before the fight where the Viola AI takes over Ardjet. Yep.
• "You use weird things..."
• "Use power for the right things. At least the things that you believe in."
• "Project Aumaan's purpose is not domination." "What?" "Destruction." Maybe he didn't hear you and that's why he was saying what, you jerk. He definitely didn't say "What is it?" though so YOU WERE WRONG.
• "This is an unexpected quarry." "You're the quarry, jerk."
Also:
[14:50:01] AHH: USE POWER FOR THE WEIRD THINGS
[14:52:19] Akane: AT LEAST FOR THE THINGS YOU BELIEVE ARE WEIRD
My life has been completed.
