Project X Zone 1 & Project X Zone 2: Brave New World
プロジェクト クロスゾーン / プロジェクト クロスゾーン：ブレイブニューワールド 「Purojekuto Kurosu Zo-n / Purojekuto Kurosu Zo-n 2: Bureibu Nyu- Wo-rudo」
Release Date: PXZ 1: July 05, 2013 (EU), PXZ 2: February 12, 2016
Genre: TRPG
Director: Soichiro Morizumi
Writer: Soichiro Morizumi (Script/Story)
Developer: Monolith Soft
Project X Zone is an isometric Strategy Role-Playing Game in which you guide teams of pixelated heroes around a grid spread across a 3D battlefield and enter into Close-Quarters Combat with a variety of fantastical foes. The main draw of the game is that it has sleek combat conducted by a roster of heroes and villains from a cross-section of game franchises.
Capcom, Sega, Bandai-Namco, and, Nintendo, were all tapped by Monolith software to contribute characters to two game exclusive to the dual-screen Nintendo 3DS.
A person who owns the system or is thinking of getting one is most likely interested in Japanese-made RPGS so this game will be like catnip to them. For non-fans, this is a harder sell because it features aspects of storytelling and gameplay that detractors of Japanese-made RPGs often decry – convoluted storytelling and reams of dialogue.
Those features a lot here.
Both games involve villains merging every dimension together (hence the crossover) and there is a McGuffin for the heroes to chase. The chase plays out over 40+ battles which last an hour on average. Some have special goals and quirks but most consist of eliminating every enemy on screen. Each battle is bookended by 10-minute talky bits where a needlessly complicated plot is constantly rehashed as each of the characters gets at least one line of dialogue to make sure everyone makes an appearance. I mean, why bring in Hiryu, the cyber ninja from the Strider games of the 80s with the newer ninja, mystical Natsu from Soul Calibur V, if they don’t get to say some sassy lines at each other?
The net effect of having so much dialogue is that it can be a chore to cut through and the two times when I lost a battle, I found myself feeling a little frustrated at having to skip through seen-before dialogue, especially as the story itself is quite throwaway. Losing shouldn’t happen often, though (just be careful to corral enemies when it comes to defence missions!) as the game is easy and the rest of the experience is actually a lot of fun!
Gameplay is concentrated around slow-and-steady battles as characters move towards each other and engage in melee combat/gunplay. The strategy part comes in equipping characters with skills/tools and navigating maps – made up of famous video game places like Kamurocho or Paris circa the 1930s – while the tactics part comes in knowing who to send into a fight.
Everything flows quite smoothly and rests on ensuring different teams of characters are paired up and support each other in the most efficient manner possible as they advance around the map. Once an enemy is engaged, a side-on view similar to an old-school fighting game/the 90s RPG Xenogears takes over the screen and the player executes a number of attacks that they have been learning/levelling up. The top screen of the 3DS shows the animated fireworks while the bottom screen has the move sets, stats, and power levels etc.
The battle sections can be high-tension affairs as concentration is required to execute timed button presses to create combos that stagger enemies and cause catastrophic damage. Botch an input and that may leave an adversary with just enough health to launch their own attack and wipe out a party. Battles can also descend into hilarity as a player launches an avalanche of ninja, knights, and cyborgs into the face of a single enemy and annihilates the poor sap.
The game is as deep or as shallow as a player wants.
It would be easy to brute force things with random button presses and crazy character pairings but the mechanics have depth with regards to gear set up and special active/passive skills that influence battles. Also, a shared power metre has to be built up by engaging in battles and this metre allows the unleashing of special attacks that can devastate an enemy. Learning how to stagger and juggle enemies is quick and intuitive and it becomes addictive trying to get the pairings/timings right to maximise the damage output of your teams. Characters bring different levels of verticality. Some have high-DPS attacks versus others with slow but powerful precision blows. Players have to decide on risk/reward of high attack power versus low defence.
At its heart, each battle is simple priority management as you go about working your way through chaff-like enemies to reduce the number of attackers or build up a metre for special attacks before focussing down an enemy boss.
As with any RPG, playing it can be slow initially.
You know how people say that Final Fantasy XIII gets really good after the first 20 hours? Same thing here – but by the time I got my characters to level 20, things were going at a more rapid and exciting pace. I eventually found joy in dedication when I was able wipe out a boss with a HUGE attack by soloing him with Kos-Mos of Xenosaga. Having armour and weapons that significantly boosted her attack and then using a skill to multiply the attack value by something like 75%… the rush of seeing this set-up take out huge chunks of health and annihilating a tough foe in a beam of light and a hail of machinegun fire was thrilling. Meanwhile Vashyron and Zephyr, of Resonance of Fate, used their speed and dexterity to become the hit-and-run unit that would chase down treasure chests and kite/mobs bosses to control the flow of battle.
Now, I used a lot of proper nouns throughout this and non-fans will probably be bewildered but we come on to the next best thing of the game.
Fan Service
Which other game (aside from Mugen) can you see Capcom’s Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine of Resident Evil with Namco-Bandai’s Xiaoyu from Tekken? Favourite series like Dark Stalkers, Project Justice, and Valkyria Chronicles get brought to the fore.
That throwaway story of dimension bending is the justification but the joy is seeing how everyone interacts. This game is rich in fan service as the writers bring the personalities from each individual franchise. The best video games are rich with lore they can throw at the player and this has 30 years worth to choose from so while the plot is no great shakes, the narrative and dialogue still bristles with entertainment. Flavour text and banter the sexy Morrigan teasing Leon S. Kennedy and our earnest hero (in his Resident Evil 6 incarnation) admitting that he gets strung along by sexy women raises eyebrows while Tron Bonne’s Servobots are adorable.
References to Evangelion, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and more nerd culture ephemera abound in dialogue but the most characterful elements are definitely drawn from Capcom and Sega’s IP, particularly the Sakura Wars cast bringing so much flavour to events. The writers know how to drop parodic and fourth-wall breaking elements and there are esoteric inside jokes such as Sanshiro Segata’s love of Sega Saturns and the namechecking Katsuhiro Harada, the famed Tekken producer. The translators and localisers deserve a lot of credit because the amount of easter eggs and name checking related to games old and new is impressive, especially in the second game.
Beyond the writing, famous musical cues from each franchise plays out as you switch between characters and the choices are. Pitch. Perfect.
The Virtua Fighter boys bring Akira’s iconic Ride the Tiger theme pumps up confidence while the Valkyria Chronicles squad has OPEN FIRE which is thrilling to listen to while manoeuvring the team into the fray to save the day. It sent shivers running up and down my spine!
As someone who buys video game scores – Dreamcast-era specifically, like Skies of Arcadia, Dead or Alive 2, and Soul Calibur – this was as addictive and fun aspect.
As mentioned earlier, the art is a mixture of cute 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds. It is all colourful but where the game really shines is the use of 2D still images which are very expressive or when the 2D sprites are animated and the direction gets really hyperactive. Their faces contort in cartoonish ways to create strong emotions and some surprisingly brutal “executions” such as Vashyron charging an enemy, throwing a pistol in the air as a distraction before pulling his trusty magnum out just as he rams said enemy into a Christ-like statue with outstretched arms and firing in its face, point blank, the camera panning up at the statue. The pyrotechnics are really impressive, the extremes in the scale of destruction and the cuteness are also really funny.
The fan service aspect kept me going and just as I was getting bored of the gameplay grind. In RPG terms, you’re not creating a character or manipulating the material to extreme degrees, you are enjoying being in the company of familiar faces. Fans of action games and RPGs from the 80s, 90s, and mid 2000s will find entertainment as a lot of time is given over to characters and lore and slick combat.
And so it comes down to this. Are you a fan of the franchises? If so, you’ll find yourself buoyed by the flavour text and enjoying the smooth combat. Just be prepared to sink 50+ hours into the game.
On a side note, while playing I kept thinking of two things:
Is this game going to ever be remade or remastered like other 3DS games – Legend of Legacy, for instance? The cross-over nature of the title must mean there are timed deals for the use of the characters?
Japanese creators have a great track record of creating IPs and franchises and just general art. Together, this is a cool fan-service package but each aspect, from music to art, can be ported to other mediums, and enjoyed outside of the game itself.