Pro:

- It's pretty fun! The gameplay is a combination of third-person action combat (mostly melee, though some characters do have ranged abilities) and puzzles of various types (Bomberman style, á la mode "slidey piece puzzle", and so on). The missions are grouped based on which type predominates, but they'll often throw you a curve ball and drop a puzzle into the middle of a combat mission, or a fight at the end of a puzzle. I sometimes find this tendency a bit annoying, but I respect the intention to keep things fresh.

The combat works a little bit like it does in fighting games, with each character knowing a few canned moves and combos that can be chained together in ways much more intricate than my antique brain can accommodate. You're operating with a squad of three, usually, and can switch between the active agent at will, so that adds a layer of complexity, plus they have a large network of assists and coop moves that I often don't know about before I semi-accidentally press the combination of switches that cause them to happen. I will freely acknowledge that I am no more than a high-function button masher in this type of game, but it's gotten me through so far, and lately I feel like I might be getting the beginnings of a handle on it.

- The worldbuilding is interesting. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world that's more or less back on its feet, which is my favorite kind of post-apocalyptic setting. Humanity is down to a single city, as far as I can tell, and said city must be constantly defended, but inside the perimeter the standard of living is quite good. The ongoing hazard takes the form of spatial distortions called Hollows, inside which things look familiar but somewhat altered in slightly unnerving ways. As the name suggests, space acts strangely inside Hollows, and it's easy to get lost in there. People who spend too long in a Hollow are at serious risk of either being killed by the monsters that roam around in them, or turning into more of such monsters themselves. On the other hand, there's a lot of neat stuff in there and they can also make useful shortcuts between places in the real world, so people go into them without proper authorization all the time--kind of like the Zone in Roadside Picnic, but with the added complication that exactly where they are in the real world fluctuates over time.

You play as a Proxy--an illegal facilitator with the knowledge base and technology needed to guide people into and out of Hollows, for purposes of exploration, looting, or whatever. The playable characters you use for combat missions are the stalkers (as it were; they're obviously not called that in the game) you're guiding, who are taking their cues in action from you, not unlike the way you "command" the soldiers in XCOM-type games.

- The characters are charming. This is not a particularly grim post-apocalyptic world; people are getting their shit together and mostly doing all right. As such, most of the playable characters and significant NPCs you interact with are decent folks with whom it's a pleasure to interact. I like their art style, too.

If there's an explanation for why there are Friends-style animal people (and some not so; one of the Agents I've rolled so far is an actual bear, as opposed to a kemomimi-style "man with bear features", who also happens to be an accountant) and supernatural creatures roaming around this mostly-technological setting, I haven't run across it yet, but just to give you a feel for the vibe: I first took an interest in this game because of the shark girl, but once I started playing, one of the first Agents I rolled was this one. She's a blue oni in a necktie with kusogaki energy. Uh, don't mind if I do. To quote a line BZA wrote for G in OWaW, "We both know you have a type, Lieutenant Oxton."

Also, this girl is clearly Flandre in biker cosplay. I mean, they didn't even try. :)

- The visuals please me. The Hollows feel slightly uncanny but not too creepy, the city setting is attractive, and the combat graphics are flashy without being overwhelming, at least once you turn off the Borderlands-style flying damage numbers. This measure is entirely subjective, of course, but for what it's worth, I think it looks really good.

Cons:

- It's a gacha game, which means it's a single-player game that runs like it's a free-to-play MMO, with a loader, constant updates, special events happening all the time, and constant, relentless monetization. It will nag you mercilessly to check out whatever's going on today, even if all you want out of life is to continue the mission chain you left off in the middle of last night. Fortunately, for the most part that stuff is readily clicked through so you can get the thing to stop blinking in the upper left and get on with your day.

- The "administrative" gameplay component is insanely complicated. There are literally dozens upon dozens of different things that need to be leveled, upgraded, optimized, etc. to keep your agents, support mechanisms, etc. current, and each one requires a different part, widget, currency, and so on to do it with. The game does a pretty good job of pacing out the introductions of all these mechanisms so they're not all dumped on you at once, but I have to admit I'm still pretty fuzzy on what at least two-thirds of them actually do and/or are for. Again, this feels very like the worse habits of MMOs.

- On the flip side of that, you know how the XCOM games had those looooooong tutorial arcs that kept you locked out of huge swathes of the game until it decided you were good and ready to deal with them? Yeah, ZZZ has a ton of that going on. I've leveled into the low 30s (no idea what the level cap is, or even if there is one) and it's still happening. I admit it's kind of necessary with how complicated the game is, but even so, having to get 12 hours into the game before the social-links-with-your-agents minigame unlocks seems a little excessive.

- It's a gacha game, part deux: all those charming characters are locked, and you have to roll randomly for them using in-game tokens that can be earned through gameplay, but are calibrated to take long enough that you'll bust out your wallet. This is just the nature of this kind of beast.

I am pleased to report that I have paid zero dollars thus far for character unlocking purposes. The only real-world money I have parted with for this game's sake was to buy one agent an alternate outfit. Millions* for cosmetics but not one cent for tribute, as President Jefferson intended. :)

* well, OK, 10 bucks

Anyway, yeah. This has been a disjointed report on an expedition into territory that was previously unknown to me, and about which I've frankly been pretty suspicious for years. And I still am, for the most part, but I think I'll keep playing this particular one for a while. It's kinda neat.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.