Zanki Zero – JRPG review

THIS IS HANDS DOWN THE BEST JRPG I’VE EVER PLAYED @$adf%^!#rgafgad

And I just discovered today that the English PS4 version comes out in a week. Lucky you English gamers! You’ll love this game so buy it!

Before we go into the review, I don’t know why, but I just stopped writing reviews. It became a chore to pen down my thoughts every time I play a game. I think I’m just getting old and have accepted the fact that games and life goes on no matter whether my opinions are on the internet or not.

Or maybe because it took me three months to fully clear this game (from July~Ocotober 2018) and I am STILL trying to get all the trophies in this game! It’s hell-ass long and one of a fun game. I felt so sad when I completed the story because I wanted more dungeons to explore, more monsters to kill and more items to create.

Rumour has it that monokuma appears in this game. I haven’t met it on the home base dungeon yet, but the reason why it appears is because Spike Chunsoft is not so subtly advertising their old and still very popular game Danganronpa.

I haven’t played Danganronpa because I didn’t like the graphics but I can tell you why I love Zanki Zero – the graphics are AMAZEBALLS. Their CGs, animation, dungeons, voice acting and control system are all perfect. There’s just so much to see and do in every dungeon + the plot twist in nearly every chapter gives me absolutely nothing bad to say about this game.

There’s firstly a story part which guides you through the entire length of the game from dungeon one to seven with lots of character interactions, then there’s the actual ‘hunting’ part where you kill monsters to get items or food, then there’s cooking the food and making weapons or armours and of course, levelling up.

My favourite was waiting to see what the next dungeon would be like and none of them disappointed me. While this game is slightly horror-ish in nature, it’s not overly gory and has no psychopaths coming after your life so there’s none of that black fear. Plus, there are 8 characters who you can switch in and out of a party so there’s safety in numbers too.

I have to be honest and say I had to use guides many times for the higher-level dungeons because I am not good with dark, scary places and finding light switches while trying not to get jumpscared or killed, especially by this one asshole called Kage Otoko (Shadow man)

This f***ker. 

He appears out of nowhere after you turn or pause for more than a second anywhere and if you are cornered by two of them, well good luck to you – time to get back on that autosave.

Talking about autosaves, this game automatically saves everytime you exit a field so even if you die it’s not that big a deal. I often make use of the autosave to change my strategy when exploring a new place. Just one advice – dying is the way to go in this game. Don’t be safe because dying gives you lots of trophies and things which you’d actually need to move on in the game so don’t be afraid to die!

There are tons of funny episodes too, because in higher difficulties (you can pick level 1 to 5) and from level 3 onwards, the characters often need to go to the toilet to pee or poop and if you drag it out, nasty things like the above happens XD.

There are ALOT of CGs in this game of both the girls and the boys, even those of them almost fully naked in bed (the ‘soine’ CGs) which come much later in the game. I fully recommend this game to anyone looking for a good JRPG and beautiful summer graphics. A word of caution though – this game is Cero D for some blood splatter and the horror aspect so you might want to steer clear if you faint easily or have anxieties getting jump scared.

For now, I’m waiting for Spike Chunsoft’s latest game AI : Somnium files which seem to have a similar vibe but on a much darker scale since it involves murder. It will be another summer game coming out in July but alas – this will only be on Ps4, Switch or PC… meaning that I’ll have to finally start looking at getting a Switch or a PS4 so I can also play Detroit: Become Human.

I’m also looking at clearing my huge backlog of drama CDs and otome games which I haven’t touched for months since getting them early last year (facepalm). I hope to still be able to blog every now and then but for now I’ll be just enjoying my games and responding to any comments I get here, so come talk to me still! 😉