Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

Your characters can die from stress after soiling themselves if there's no toilet nearby. Realistic survival mechanics. This is more intimate character writing than any prestige indie game has ever achieved by orders of magnitude. I have not played Outer Wilds but I would unhesitatingly say your characters pissing and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ themselves in this is a more artistic statement about the human condition than the entirety of that game. I'm at the end of chapter two and even though the story is basically MK Ultra alchemical trauma processing with clones on an island, it actually respects that bad things happening to you just makes you a worse person instead of a "survivor" and the only real means of healing is banishing the reanimated corpses of your tormentors. Far closer to the logic of exorcism than therapeutic reframing that everything else runs on. It also feels like it has a stronger metabolism for actual redemptive metaphysics and Girardian sociology, like DR had at its peaks. The first enemies you encounter are literal goats and both backstories so far revolve around scapegoating. Not just skin deep stuff or vibes. Since Peter Thiel as our primate Girardian has bought the f…

The mystery element was good. The gameplay elements seemed interesting as they were developing. I just stopped at 2.5 hours because the game kept hinting at creepy stuff with children, like characters being reverted to children and people being reminded that physically they are 10 years old, but mentally 25 years old. I stopped playing and looked it up and saw that was a theme according to several reviews and decided this wasn't for me.

Eye of the Beholder 1991 DOS-era gameplay meets post-apocalyptic survival. Surprise! There's also an anime-poisoned story in here that, much like the poisonous food ingame, can be enjoyed if you build up a tolerance to pockets of bad writing. This game is very, very experimental with what it tries to do, and is absolutely *NOT* worth $60. But conversely, you absolutely *SHOULD* get it on sale, since it usually has 90% off. $6 is a steal for what you get. By experimental, I mean this game does some reinventing of the RPG wheel to make it fit a survival gameplay angle. For starters, levels only give skill points. You get the same HP at level 1 as you do 100. The real path to power is getting murdered. Revival is cheap in town and the game has a long list of "death benefits" that make you far more resistant to what killed your party members. As an example, if a party member dies by getting shot with a poisoned arrow from a wall trap: They would get a small universal resistance to all ranged damage, a bigger boost to piercing resistance, a massive boost to neurotoxin damage resistance, and a final gigantic boost to the poison ailment if it also afflicted them during the f…

Many elements of Zanki Zero: Last Beginning are deeply intertwined and reinforce one another. The horror is driven by the real-time combat and inventory management systems, the sound design and atmosphere of the locations, the enemies, traps, and of course the overall shocking revelations surrounding the characters. Strong emotional attachment to the cast is created through the RPG mechanics, the individual gameplay quirks (allergies, favorite foods, different skills), the bonus events, the death system, aging, the grueling journey, and the survival mechanics (hunger, toilet management). There’s characterization even in the loading screens! Through the revelation of the characters’ most intimate secrets, the base-building and bunker mechanics, as well as certain story events, the game creates a genuine sense of group cohesion. It almost feels like you are “raising” the characters yourself, and when the game talks about the power of friendship, it has ABSOLUTELY earned the right to use that theme, because it never feels like an empty phrase. The story works because, while it is extremely shocking and bleak, it also maintains a humorous, quirky, and occasionally cheesy undertone, pr…

I got bored of the game faster than expected. The mechanics of rapid aging and cloning with extras seemed interesting but really is just annoying method verses a standard leveling up system of getting better. The maps start out fine but then become more and more annoying starting with the shopping mall area being too open and walking around figureing out where to go next. It was also annoying some levels change layout after the first visit and then leaveing back to base as doors change states closed/open, barricades moved also the amount of them changed and then trap doors have changed state closed or opened. I watched the story bits beyond to the end and it was dissapointing and wouldn't have been worth the effort slogging through the game.

I enjoyed this game, bought on steep discount (90% off). It was interesting enough I finished the game, Stick through the credits, the ending falls flat if you don't see the final cutscene! Cons: I would be mad if I bought it for $60 simply for the inaccessibility of the settings even on the main menu. There's over an hour of gameplay before you can even get into the menu to adjust volume or any settings. You can save before you can change settings. You also don't have access to an 'exit game' which is hidden at the bottom of the settings menu. We talked to someone who played it and asked how to exit the game and their reply was "I dunno, I just alt+f4" If you die in a corridor, it's entirely possible for the game to delete items because there isn't enough area for them to all drop. I've had times where the lost items washed up on the beach later. But I also permanently lost a unique item you can only acquire once and it never washed up for me. That's when I checked out and turned the difficulty down just to finish the story. You can't skip tutorials even on New Game+. You can't directly skip story even on New Game+. Some of the zones are so convoluted, I tried a New Gam…