Zenless Zone Zero (Hoyoverse)

Zindan

Zindan

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Released the other day. The games aesthetic is REALLY refreshing in that its not some silly chinese flowery anime bullshit like Genshin and how Star Rail is (now). Its the best looking, most polished Hoyoverse game yet (imo), but its not open world like Genshin, and a lot smaller than Star Rail. Combat is superior to other action combat gacha games (better than Wuthering Waves, imo). Very chill music.

But..

It doesn't let the combat take center stage, you have to work your way through story exposition, and an odd exploration system to get to most fights. It does have stamina using combat instances for resources, but.. you can only do those so many times. You can't just run around exploring and engaging in combat like in GI / HSR. Yet, its better than both.

On the plus side, its not afraid of having characters / npcs with big booba. The HIA counter girls are...:emoji_kissing_heart:



Many of the characters shown in that launch trailer are not ingame yet, sadly. Lots of freebies to be had atm.
 
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Sludig

Sludig

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Any consolidated wiki or something with free codes?

Probably too weeb still for me, and i hate gacha. (sounds like gotcha can't be coincidence) Buti have little else on my plate now at work too play
 
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GuardianX

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Sludig said:
Any consolidated wiki or something with free codes?

Probably too weeb still for me, and i hate gacha. (sounds like gotcha can't be coincidence) Buti have little else on my plate now at work too play
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100% weeb, the hole game is set in a Japanese suburb.

Still a fun game IMHO but 100% weeb - gatcha - pay to win - zoomer monetization.
 
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Sludig

Sludig

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GuardianX said:
100% weeb, the hole game is set in a Japanese suburb.

Still a fun game IMHO but 100% weeb - gatcha - pay to win - zoomer monetization.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm the last 10 years gacha is probably the most time I've spent, but thats more because i think the ad heavy brain dead wine mom games are worse and action stuff controls bad or just not great when i get interruptions at work.

Usually play 6 months to a year until you hit the pay wall or otherwise becomes stronger drusgery for almost no gains. Afk arena finally killed my desire after too many events too fast and too many new characters to try and keep up with, especially once they started releasing them in 2's so you usually only could get one without coin
 
GuardianX

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Sludig said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm the last 10 years gacha is probably the most time I've spent, but thats more because i think the ad heavy brain dead wine mom games are worse and action stuff controls bad or just not great when i get interruptions at work.
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Combat feels fine for me for this game with a controller. I don't play it on mobile, but I'm gunna give it a shot LAWL...

I've been playing elden ring and it's easier than that obviously, but some "Challenge" mobs take a hit or two to understand the cycles on.

The battles take place in arenas that gate when you move into them. The "Hacking" reminds me of Neir hacking to a light degree.

Some cool things are that there is an arcade in the town that you can play that has a couple fun games, I laughed because it's 100% a game within a game.

Honestly give it a shot, it's not bad an I mean if you have a modicum of self-control you can get enjoyment from it without spending a dime (I only say that because I'm super a super tight-wad with my cash in gatcha games and other obvious money farm games).
 
Sludig

Sludig

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GuardianX said:
Combat feels fine for me for this game with a controller. I don't play it on mobile, but I'm gunna give it a shot LAWL...

I've been playing elden ring and it's easier than that obviously, but some "Challenge" mobs take a hit or two to understand the cycles on.

The battles take place in arenas that gate when you move into them. The "Hacking" reminds me of Neir hacking to a light degree.

Some cool things are that there is an arcade in the town that you can play that has a couple fun games, I laughed because it's 100% a game within a game.

Honestly give it a shot, it's not bad an I mean if you have a modicum of self-control you can get enjoyment from it without spending a dime (I only say that because I'm super a super tight-wad with my cash in gatcha games and other obvious money farm games).
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Controller, didn't realize it was actiony, when someone says gacha I expect turn/ auto battle etc
 
GuardianX

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Sludig said:
Controller, didn't realize it was actiony, when someone says gacha I expect turn/ auto battle etc
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On no, ya it's an action combat, I'd liken it to something like Genshin Impact, FFVII, or Gran blue Fantasy. I'd say really mostly Granblue fantasy but with more fluid combat.

To me it's the aesthetic and holy crap the world quality, it's so crazy to be able to read magazine titles while playing on PC, the HQ textures are impressive.
 
Zindan

Zindan

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GuardianX said:
On no, ya it's an action combat, I'd liken it to something like Genshin Impact, FFVII, or Gran blue Fantasy. I'd say really mostly Granblue fantasy but with more fluid combat.

To me it's the aesthetic and holy crap the world quality, it's so crazy to be able to read magazine titles while playing on PC, the HQ textures are impressive.
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Each of the games can be played against other players as well, thought that was fun.

Still feel kinda lost atm as not all the systems have been unlocked yet. I think I'm just about to finish off the Prologue/Ch1, it reminds a bit of Persona games (have only watched other ppl play) with all the characters and general connection to ingame social media.

It suffers a bit from every combat skill having 1-3 conditional versions, all with different name (not as bad as Wuthering Waves though), so trying to get a good understanding of what you can get your team to do in combat is a little confusing. If The First Descendent hadn't been released in the same week, I would be no lifing this 100%, but my attention has been split. ha!
 
GuardianX

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Zindan said:
Each of the games can be played against other players as well, thought that was fun.

Still feel kinda lost atm as not all the systems have been unlocked yet. I think I'm just about to finish off the Prologue/Ch1, it reminds a bit of Persona games (have only watched other ppl play) with all the characters and general connection to ingame social media.

It suffers a bit from every combat skill having 1-3 conditional versions, all with different name (not as bad as Wuthering Waves though), so trying to get a good understanding of what you can get your team to do in combat is a little confusing. If The First Descendent hadn't been released in the same week, I would be no lifing this 100%, but my attention has been split. ha!
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I'm enjoying the music, LOL I dunno if that makes me super simple but damn the music gets hyped for battles, massive boss comes out and a heavy beat hits? LoL I'm in. Other than that the general music is cill to listen to passively and not annoying, almost like listening to LoFi girl live.

As for the combat, ya, I feel like it's simple. A bit more engaging than Genshin and i didn't play WW's much at all, having to do client edits to get inverted controls for camera sucked, could be fixed now but I wasn't super into the characters and I mean...thats the intent in these games is basically "Playing an Anime" real time.

Will be interesting to see if ACTUAL anime's start getting this treatment.
 
Zindan

Zindan

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So far I hate the Hollow Zero music, its like Skrillex DnB, so I just turn it off and play something else via Spotify. I also have no idea what I need to do with HZ though atm, I've done the first Assessment (twice, derp) and just unlocked the 2nd Assessment.

I want to have a ranged team since playing Billy is a lot of fun, and I managed to get the big titty Maid Rina, and will eventually get the other big titty character, Grace (who is range). Yet, some of the melee characters are super fun as well, like Lucy, Piper (spin to win!), and Corin.

Have no idea how to build up a team so that they enhance each other, that is confusing part. All I know is that its super fun to fire off like 4-5 character swaps by getting a Daze or Perfect swap.
 
Pancreas

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Been messing around with this one.

It's fun so far, combat is very reminiscent of another game, "punishing gray raven", which probably borrowed mechanics from a different game ect ect.

My current team is Anby, Koleda (my free and only S grade character) and Corin.

Corin does extra damage to stunned enemies, so pairing her with two stunners is fun.

Corin is the main DPS but hardly spends any time on the field. Usually she comes out at the end of a chain attack to melt a stunned enemy before swapping out again.

Pull rates seem abysmal and expensive so spending money on this one seems... costly.
 
Springbok

Springbok

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This is very stylish, and runs great - don't love how vanilla the gacha characters are (I feel absolutely no need or desire to pull), and the whole approach feels a little bit shallow to me and like it was made with the Hoyo "B" team. It's fun but it's so easy it doesn't compel me to fly through it. Also, while a bit improved from Beta the tv portions of the game are very tedious after a certain point.

It feels like a game to me that is half baked and not quite sure what it wants to be - they should have opened up the world much MUCH more and leaned into the Persona aspect more, right now the time/activity stuff feels completely tacked on and unnecessary. The zones you fight mobs in might as well be grey caves, because you feel no connection to the areas themselves to the game world at all.

I don't know, it's kind of fun in small doses but unlike some other in the genre (WUWA, HSR, etc) I don't really look forward to playing and pulling. Seems like a game they fired off to keep investors in China placated while working on the next mainline title.
 
Zindan

Zindan

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The annoying thing about the game, to me at least, is the amount of "dead time" between actions. It happens everywhere, you do something (anything) and there is a pause before you can do anything else. Especially noticeable in Hollow sections, lots of unnecessary dialogue that stops you from moving through the TV's.

Combat suffers from what every other "team" combat does, though maybe a bit less. I really dislike swapping to a character to do something benefits yet another character, I vastly prefer playing 1 character. This combat system does offer up a lot of auto-swaps which is really fun, but playing that way isn't efficient at all.

My main team has been Billy, Amby and Nicole, with Billy being on field most of the time (he is just more fun, and ranged). I try to avoid swapping to Nicole as she seems to just kill any momentum I feel, while Amby is alright. I had been trying out a team of Billy, Lucy and Piper.. very fun, but I felt I stayed on Piper too much (spin to win!), and that made having Billy around seem pointless.

I'm thankful that I can skip 99% of quest dialogues, and also thankful that all the cutscenes have been very good.

Springbok Springbok I find ZZZ to be far superior to other Hoyo games, its major failing was the inability to make the Hollows into an "open world" type Urban area(s) vs. the "move through TV's until a combat situation occurs". I'm ok with everything else for now, but I've only just got to Chapter 2 / Belobog.
 
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