Editor's Notes: This review is based on Zenless Zone Zero during it's release around July 2024. This review may not be reflective of the game's present state.

Introduction

Live services. A genre that has become an ever growing genre in the world of video games, sparking caution, concern with their regards to monetization, content, and how it keeps the player engaged. There are good examples of how a live service can be adopted, just look at Helldivers 2’s model from earlier this year.

One big player in the free to play live service space is Mihoyo the studio behind the weeb odyssey Genshin Impact providing a free to play open world, collectible characters acquired through gacha mechanics and various new activities incrementally added to the experience multiple times a year.

Well now here Mihoyi are now out with their new hacker-man Y2K pseudo-cyberpunk themed experience that I can only closely compare to Jet Set Radio in its world and style, Zenless Zone Zero.

We’re now about over a month since the game released and I’ve completed the games main story, invested a decent amount of time into side activities and spent $0 dollars in the process. This is my first time properly experiencing one of HoYo's games having played a little Genshin back at its release, and never touching Honkai Star Rail, I went into Zenless Zone Zero with no real expectations.

So how did I find this game? Well, I want to outline the top of this review, that I think Zenless Zone Zero is a good game and a well put together one too, I really enjoyed my time, but do I think this game will be for everyone? No. So this review is in many ways why I do think ZZZ is a good experience, but it is also to serve the purpose of aiming the question, does is this an experience for you, before committing to that download. So without further delay let's get into my review for Zenless Zone Zero.

Story

The story is a compilation of different stories that on surface introduce the player to the characters Phaethen who you'll control that being either Belle or Wise. But primarily aims to introduce the player to many of the different gangs of New Eridu, and whilst these chapters are self-contained stories, they do all loosely weave into a broader narrative that is still being fleshed out with content updates and stories to this day.

There are plenty of stories to be told in this experience too, with the agents you acquire as well having their own side stories, but here's the cool thing you don't need to own the agents to see their story, all these agents stories are available to all players. There's a substantial amount of story content here, and seeing as it's first new chapter has released this month with Undercover R&B it seems like Zenless Zone Zero's broader narrative beats are only looking to grow, and I really can't fault it, and I respect it in a lot of ways. They're continuously adding new agent stories, and main story content.

One thing that I will say is that man there is A LOT of exposition, especially early on, and it can really feel like a disruption to the overall experience. But I think that after the first chapter the game does start to improve with its pacing between combat and exposition. Also there is a lot of jargon in this game, and terminologies to familiarize yourself with it'd make Final Fantasy 13 blush. But for me the overall character of this experience was enough for me to push past it, and I did eventually become more interested in the story, and at the time of writing this, whilst I wouldn't call it anything spectacular, I am interested to see where it goes. But I definitely see it not being for everyone.

Gameplay

Combat

Combat is satisfying albeit in some ways one dimensional, with every character having an attack dodge, a parry, and lastly an ultimate. ZZZ does a great job with the damage numbers, and absolutely nails the feeling of feeling like you're doing a lot, but in terms of move sets and kits, I do think doesn't reinvent the wheel. With that being said their are some characters that do come with gauges and particular quirks to their move-sets and these are quite satisfying to weave together, and there are match-ups for different enemies that you encounter where certain elemental attributes are effective against certain enemies.

Overall there are a good variety of enemies to face and the foundations of ZZZ's combat is actually quite fun if you're just looking to kick back and relax. There is a level of flexibility that does open up the gameplay to an extent when you unlock more of the various progression trees and unlockable items later throughout the experience. I would like to see them expand upon this over time and provide more abilities overtime, but as it stands ZZZ does provide a enjoyable combat loop, which I think remains engaging due to how much is on offer from the various game modes, and story content on offer, and if you're looking to jump on and play a gacha game that provides action combat, then you're in for a good time, if you're looking for depth, complex builds, there is a sense of different roles and character classes here, along with an element of synergy and team composition that will optimize your performance in the later activities of ZZZ's end game. But if you're wanting some sweaty experience, that is on the level of raid-like mechanics then I don't think ZZZ is what you're looking for. But it isn't something that I feel the game is marketing itself to be, and it also doesn't mean that activities can't be challenging, because some of the later challenges can knock you on your ass, if you are ill-equipped for them.

But say what you will about whatever level of simplicity you may see in ZZZ's combat on the surface, there is one core feature that despite not being overly complex it still manages to be... and that word is fun.

For me, Zenless Zone Zero's fun comes from the combat, the activities and the loop of progression found in the games various systems, and I feel there is plenty of activities on offer and enough gameplay variety for a cross-platform experience like this to keep you entertained or least wanting to check-in regularly when you're on the train or wanting to relax after a day of work. Overall I think that combat feels satisfying and responsive with its sound, the way attacks connect and the spectacle of it all.

Game Modes

Zenless Zone Zero offers a good variety of content, and as you get more into the game, more of its various activities and mission types open up to you. One thing that I think will put some off is how long it does take for ZZZ to really get into this flow and open up these activities to the player, but I feel that the game does a good job overall at introducing the player to the world, and the multitude of activities they can participate in.

First and foremost you'll be playing through Main Missions which will carry the story forward and open up each subsequent activity that is available to the player. I've talked about my thought on the story in the story segment. But the two types of other missions that will accompany the story are combat and exploration missions, and there are some cool bones here with how Hoyo have introduced these missions, as you'll find a good variety of them through talking to people in the world and logging in to complete the missions. In terms of the substance of these missions, I think they're serviceable, but it is something I hope they continue to add into the experience perhaps with some more interesting world-building and plot threads. But overall, many of these requests do feel mundane, they're fun to complete, but I would largely say that this is mainly attributed to how fun it feels to get into ZZZ's combat, and we've already covered how I feel about that.

But it feels like Hoyo are aware of how satisfying the combat loop can feel because many of the later activities introduced pull back on the dungeon crawling aspects and lean more into the combat, and those activities are of course the Rally Missions, VR Missions, and Shiyu defense. Shiyu Defense serves as a A horde mode, that gradually will throw in more difficult as each wave progresses. The VR Missions, are the core

But with that being said, it doesn't feel like the dungeon crawler element of ZZZ's core combat loop in the main missions, does play an essential role in what is one of the more chunky pieces of side content on offer called Hollow Zero, which operates as this interesting dungeon crawler with some rogue-lite elements, making each time you jump into the activity feeling like you're going for a run through particular floors and obtainable pick-ups to keep you afloat.

If there is one thing that I would love to see in future it is more open and explorable areas that aren't operating through the proxy dungeon mini-game, but more aligned to the rally type of combat missions, but with more diverging paths, maybe platform puzzles it'd be really cool, because whilst I do like the amount of variety in what ZZZ offers, I feel like it is a little boxed in, and started to feel familiar towards the later hours of my playtime.

But I do appreciate that HoYo are continuing to add new modes to the game along with the new characters, and I'm wanting to continue to see how this game evolves over time, and even report back in at a later date.

Game Systems

Progression

Zenless Zone Zero's core gameplay and activities are around servicing and upgrade the various different forms of progression systems, thus allowing the player to partake in harder activities. There are a lot of systems at play here and I feel like ZZZ does a good job at introducing and getting the player familiar with each system, before introducing a new one. I feel like ZZZ does feel like it provides a good sense of progression with there always being something to strive for and upgrade, and most commissions whether they're main or side commissions will reward players with a good amount of Polychrome which is the main currency used to unlock new characters through ZZZ Gacha systems, which we'll get to shortly.

But I'd like to touch on more of these systems and how they interlock with one another first and foremost we'll start with your agents who are the controllable characters that you'll play as during the various missions in ZZZ, and each of these Agents have a level, upgradeable abilities, and another collectable item called a W-Engine. Each Agent facilities a particular role and has a kit of abilities to reflect that and their W-Engines that you equip are able to work in accordance and facilitate that playstyle. Later on in the game you'll unlock disk-drive slots, which accompany the W-engine and these are like mods to your character that provide stat boosts and modifiers to help you build and improve your favorite agents. I mentioned previously that agents will come with various different abilities well, each of these from the dash, basic, ex and even the ultimate can all be levelled up to improve the effectiveness of how the agent performs.

Gacha Elements

Now onto the most contentious part of this review, and the one thing that I feel may put off some, and that is the Gacha elements which are a inescapable component of Zenless Zone Zero's progression as it is the core driver of unlocking new agents and W-Engines.

Look I get it for a free-to-play game and with how much they're giving the player free of charge, they need to make their money somehow, and that is where these gacha incentives come into play. However, throughout my time with the game I was able to unlock most of the characters and a good chunk of the W-Engines through just playing the game and in-game rewards. I have yet to pay a single dollar for anything, and after 40-50 hours of playtime. The game does feel fair in its rewards economy, and everything is technically earnable. The biggest outliers here are he banner characters which are roughly available for 20 days, and you'll need to pull these either with the in-game currency you acquire or by putting down cash. However these banners ensure a failsafe reward system, providing the player an A-tier reward at least even 10 times they draw and a guarantee for the S-tier hero on the 100th attempt, if you are that unlucky.

I do believe that it should be possible to acquire enough in-game rewards with daily and weekly reset activities and small pop-up events, but there is still undeniably a sense of FOMO in terms of time to acquire a particular character, and if that turns off a few people I can't blame them. But I guess with these types of games it comes with the territory, and I think Zenless Zone Zero is one of the less predatory, and more fair approaches to this model.

Overall the gacha elements did not feel like they were a must and the game never felt like it twisted my arm with monetization. There's a free tier season-pass and the paid version really doesn't feel like I'm missing anything essential.

Visual and Sound Presentation

One thing that I feel Zenless Zone Zero absolutely nails is how it handles both its visual and sound presentation and I'm wanting to break down now why I feel that way, starting with the visual presentation. Man, ZZZ has in incredible aesthetic and atmosphere, and the anime stylized world of New Eridu pops to life and every area in the world you can explore as Belle or Wise feels like it is so vibrant and packed full of little details and it is just such a nice looking world to be in, even if there is a limited amount of places here that you can interact with in the world, which is ever-evolving. The UI's are quite nice and have a good sense of style too them and for the most part aren't to cumbersome of hard to navigate, with all upgrades been tied to the agent page, and all commission in their own place.

But I've saved the best for last the cutscene, comic book scenes, and in-game discussions are all these methods of exposition and they look unreal, from the freeze frame comic moments, to the more traditional cutscenes and not only do they unreal, but they're all voiced, and that brings me to the sound for this game, there is so much voice work that has been placed into this game to accompany the story components whether it is main story or side content, and for a game that's story is fully free-to-play this is absolutely crazy. Next there is the music and the soundtrack for ZZZ is actually my jam, and there are moments where I've been afk and had the game running and just started bopping to some of the tracks that'd play in-game. I love the mixture and eclectic variety of genres this game borrows from, with some jazzy relaxing tracks, to more electric, even EDM sounding tracks when in combat. Hoyo have done a fantastic job with the presentation of this game, and I think whether it is the sound effects, visual flare of combat, or general exploration and the atmosphere that pops out, no one can deny that ZZZ's presentation is top-notch.

The Ever-evolving Nature of ZZZ

So given that Zenless Zone Zero is ultimately a live-service it means much like the other titles in HoYo's portfolio they'll be wanting to support this game long into the future with various updates, and new content, and the good news is even after a month after ZZZ's release they've provided more 3 new characters, and have two more on the way within the month, along with a new story content called Undercover R&B along with more content that is in the pipeline. It's pretty crazy to see this continued support in such a small window of time, and I'll be interested to see how the content and support for this game continues to evolve over the next year, and I'm contemplating touching base at some point in the future with a video to see how this game tracks, but for now I think I'll be playing more ZZZ in my downtime when this review is done, because simply put it is a fun game, and for a free-to-play game offering this much content, and not continuously trying to nickel and dime me every chance it gets, I think Zenless Zone Zero is definitely good in my book.

Conclusion

So to bring this whole review together I'd like to close by saying I really did enjoy playing Zenless Zone Zero. There was something that was just so enjoyable about jumping in and clearing out few different objectives, seeing some quality cinematics, and the different variation of the roster of existing characters. There is a really satisfying gameplay loop here, and once you're past the early hours you can get into a rhythm and find an abundance of things to do, and with how frequent there is new content, whether it is mini-events or new characters or story beats, you never feel bored or like you've done everything. At least not after 50 hours of playtime. Now whilst this game really clicked with me, I highly suspect that some will bounce right off this game, as it is one that does take a bit of time to introduce all the game mechanics, characters, and its more broader story, not to mention it feels like it takes control away a lot early on for a lot of exposition. But I'd wager, if you can push past that and see a lot of what this game has in store it'll be one that you'll more than likely find some fun in, because it is my belief that for a game that is accessible as running seamlessly on both mobile and your pc, Zen less Zone has the potential to be one of those games you easily come back to, and yes I know Genshin and Star Rail are equally as accessible, but I feel like this games approach is a little different in being a large collection of reasonably sized activities with an ever-evolving story, and it has the potential to not only separate itself from its contemporizes, and as long as it remains fair in its free-to-play model, and continues its cadence of new content, it'll be a game I will return to and check-in to play.