Hoyoverse has been on a roll for the past few years. Releasing Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, they have become the kings of the gatcha game. Zenless Zone Zero returns Hoyoverse to their roots of action combat seen in their first game, Honkai Impact 3rd. ZZZ sets itself apart from its other games with its unique setting while maintaining its signature style of great combat and characters.
Future Retro
Zenless Zone Zero takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. Enemies called Ethereals have destroyed most of humanity, forcing people to form cities to survive. You take on the roles of Proxies or support characters that help people explore areas called Hollows where Ethereals come from. You can choose between the male proxy Wise and the female proxy Belle, but both play an integral part in the story. While the world of ZZZ is a post-apocalyptic future, the blend of futuristic technology with retro technology melds together seamlessly. There is an area to place a VR arcade while supporting old-school arcades. The proxies base of operations is a video store with a throwback to the days of Blockbuster. It is a dreary future that is somehow fun to exist in.
As proxies, you encounter different factions with various goals in exploring the hollows. You assist the Cunning Hares in retrieving a briefcase containing a powerful item, which later becomes your AI assistant, Fairy. There is Belabog Corp, which needs assistance retrieving their work robots from the hollows. Many different factions and characters intertwine with the proxies, creating fun interactions with the various factions, with the signature charm expected from Hoyoverse’s characters.
Fight!
Exploring the hollows takes place in two parts. The first part is an exploration phase, which puts the players on a grid made of TVs. It’s up to the proxy to explore every bit of the grid to collect data, which results in a better score and better rewards. The main objective is usually to find something or someone. Proxies can also encounter puzzles, which reminded me of boulder puzzles in Pokemon games. There are story missions, puzzles, and combat-centered hollows for players to explore and get rewards.
When the proxies encounter enemies, you will enter 3D arenas to fight them. You bring teams of three with a bangaboo, which acts as a supporting character. Your characters have a normal attack, charge attack, skill, and ultimate ability. You also have an assist button, which lets you swap between your party members. The main goal in combat is to build up a combo meter. Building up your meter and attacking enemies enough to stun them lets you perform a chain attack. Chain attacks enable you to swap into another character that unleashes a powerful attack before swapping to a third character to finish the combo. Chain attacks are the bread and butter of this game, and being able to perform multiple chain attacks feels incredible. Building up 3000 points in your combo lets you perform your ultimate attack.
Life In New Eridu
What sets Zenless Zone Zero apart for me is team composition and combat optimization. Zenless Zone Zero behaves like a fighting game where figuring out the best ways to combo is critical. Figuring out which synergies I have and finding the best way to use my roster has been a lot of fun. The downside is that it felt like I was mashing one attack button at the beginning of the game, which didn’t feel great. That feeling isn’t helped by enemies feeling like damage sponges until the game lets you loose and you can upgrade your characters’ stats. However, once you get into the game’s flow, enemies die quickly, and it can feel amazing to perform multiple chain attacks into an ultimate.
Outside of hollow exploration, you will find plenty to do to keep you occupied in Zenless Zone Zero. The name of the Hoyoverse games is building up enough polychromes to roll on the characters you want. You have dailies that involve taking pictures of cats, eating ramen, and running the video store. There is a time-gated currency called battery charge, which can be spent by grinding combat trials to gain resources to level up characters. A cafe lets you buy coffee, which can double resource drops and restore battery charge. It is an interesting system that I hope is brought to their other games. There is also a roguelike mode similar to Simulated Universe in Honkai: Star Rail.
Gatcha!
If you are familiar with a Hoyoverse game, then the gatcha system here will be familiar. There is a guaranteed five-star character at 90 rolls, with at least a four-star character every ten chances. If you miss the banner character the first time, you are guaranteed that character next time you get a five-star character. There is a standard banner, a character banner, which rotates between limited five-star options, and a weapon banner. Unfortunately, I felt that the starting roster of characters was a bit thin compared to previous Hoyo entries, so I felt like I wasn’t getting a lot of characters to try different team compositions out. It is a problem that will be fixed with more updates, but the initial pool is smaller compared to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
Something unique to Zenless Zone Zero is the bangaboo banner. The bangaboo banner functions differently than the other banners because they have a different currency than regular banners. You can pick which five-star bangaboo you want to roll for without worrying about winning coin flips. While you can’t buy this currency directly, you will get the currency you can exchange for bangaboo rolls by rolling on the other banners, which can be purchased for real money.
Zero or Hero?
Zenless Zone Zero feels like a fresh take on a genre that Hoyoverse has done already. Its setting feels unique, and its combo-centric combat allows players to experiment and express their playstyles through team compositions and combo theory. All while maintaining what makes a Hoyoverse game unique: its cast of fun characters and stellar combat. The learning curve for this game is steeper, and the roster is thin out of the gate. For those looking for an action game to stick with for a while, Zenless Zone Zero is worth checking out.
