Zenless Zone Zero, or ZZZ, is the next game from China-based game development and publishing company, miHoYo. And it is hoping to replicate the success its recent games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail have experienced. Zenless Zone Zero is aimed at the casual gaming community with a strong emphasis on action, and miHoYo wants to attract gamers who want to play action games, but don’t because they can be challenging. As the company gears to put finishing touches to the game, I got a chance to experience it as part of a closed beta. How does it stack up against other games from miHoYo and other game makers? Let’s find out.
Before I share my initial impressions of the game, I must admit that I am a big fan of miHoYo games. I’ve been hooked on Genshin Impact for a while now, playing it regularly for a couple of years. When the developer dropped Honkai: Star Rail, I was pleasantly surprised by how they managed to draw in casual gamers to a turn-based RPG. But with ZZZ, I’ve got mixed feelings — at least for now. As with the last two games, I must commend miHoYo for its craftsmanship in the visuals and combat department of ZZZ. However, despite this, I couldn’t help but feel as if something was missing, something pivotal that would encourage me to keep playing further.
As I noted before, the characters and visuals of the game grabbed my attention right from the start. Just like its previous hits, miHoYo has absolutely nailed it with the character designs in Zenless Zone Zero. The playable characters, called “Agents” in ZZZ, include non-human characters, and I mean really non-human right down to their bodies. For instance, Ben is a bear walking on two legs, Billy is a cyborg, and Lycaon is a wolf rocking a human-like form. Oh, and miHoYo’s fixation on twins as protagonists continues here too. When you kick off the game, you have to pick between Belle, the female sibling, or Wise, the male counterpart. But, unlike Genshin or Honkai, the sibling you don’t choose sticks around as your assistant instead of disappearing, a refreshing change. Plus, your main character doesn’t actually join the fights.
The variety of character designs in Zenless Zone Zero.
Getting to the basics, Zenless Zone Zero is an urban fantasy action RPG with roguelike mechanics. The game is set in the post-apocalyptic cityscape of New Eridu. But it is not an open-world deal like Genshin. See, in Honkai: Star Rail, even though it isn’t an open world, there is still much to explore and uncover. Now, with ZZZ, you are not exploring a vast landscape. Instead, you are jumping into these alternate dimensions called “Hollows” just for fights. These places are pure battlegrounds, essentially like a dungeon crawler. You get into the Hollows using the Hollow Deep Dive system and hook up with a “Bangboo” — which is basically a small robot with bunny ears that also serves as a mascot for ZZZ — to navigate through this Hollow Visualization TV Wall. Inside, it is all about battles, puzzles, and more. Now, here’s the thing: while I don’t mind this setup, the game can get very repetitive because most of the time, you are just going into the Hollows and engaging in combat with enemies in very bland levels, and then coming back. Repetition is expected in roguelikes, but in Zenless Zone Zero, it feels like a cycle of entering, executing flashy moves, and exiting without much incentive to revisit. It’s a loop of replaying the same type of battles as you progress through the story without any compelling reason to dive back in.
Navigating the Bangboo N.E.T. through the Hollow Deep Dive System.
Considering combat is one of the primary mechanics of the game, it is where Zenless Zone Zero shines. Combos and moves are the bread and butter of the game. During combat, you have three main attack types: Slash, Strike, and Pierce. The type of attack a character uses depends on the weapon they wield. So, if they are swinging a sword or a knife, the Agent uses the Slash attack type. Guns or drills is Pierce, and those heavy-hitting melee moves are the Strike type. Each attack type packs its own punch against different type of enemies. This adds a lot of variety to the battles, which is what keeps things exciting during combat.
On top of the regular attacks, each character has a distinct attribute including Fire, Electric, Ice, Physical, or Ether. When your Agent dishes out some attribute damage, it triggers something called “Attribute Anomaly.” Once this bar builds up, your character can slap a debuff on the enemy, making them more susceptible to that attribute. But truth be told, it is not as satisfying as Genshin Impact’s Elemental system and its corresponding Reactions. In ZZZ, even if you brush off attributes most of the time, you can still breeze through the game without breaking a sweat.
This leads me to a crucial point: in the effort to target the casual player, Zenless Zone Zero might have leaned a bit too much towards the easy side. Honestly, it often feels like a button-mashing fest, where you will eventually take down the enemies simply by throwing out different attacks and responding to prompts when the game tells you to switch to other characters in your party. It can get pretty monotonous as you play the game longer. This feeling compounds when the primary routine involves moving through Hollows, whacking enemies, and repeating it all again. In the end, the game starts feeling more like a chore than an engaging adventure.
Yet, this doesn’t diminish what ZZZ manages to offer. Beyond the big and the obvious bits around visuals and characters, the game presents a trove of smaller, but noteworthy, elements. It introduces several quality-of-life improvements that add a nice touch to the overall experience. You can skip through dialogues, and there is this cool story mode option where you get to pick your party for the Hollows. This option ensures that only story-related Agents join the battle, enhancing the immersion. But the game still has a few kinks to iron out. For instance, the dialogue option box doesn’t display the full text — instead, it scrolls through like a ticker, forcing you to wait to catch the whole message. It is a small thing that can be added to the quality-of-life improvements.
Moving back to the good stuff, I loved just how effortlessly stylish and smooth the gameplay feels in Zenless Zone Zero. It is downright cool! The devs have put a lot of attention into keeping everything aesthetically on point. One of the examples of such attention to detail is the sleek UI that is relevant to the gameplay. And as part of this section, it would be an injustice if I don’t talk about the music of ZZZ. Just like in other miHoYo games, it just hits the mark. No surprises there; I didn’t expect anything less. The music in ZZZ takes on this fresh and funky, urban vibe that fits the game like a glove.
However, as it stands, Zenless Zone Zero nails the charm, style, and character aspects flawlessly, but it is the core gameplay that needs some serious sprucing up to truly captivate and make it an irresistible experience. Right now, Zenless Zone Zero feels like a cutscene marathon with occasional breaks for some overly easy puzzles and combat in a repetitive mechanic of Hollows. It needs to be diverse and challenging for the good parts to work. With its release slated for 2024, here is hoping that the devs at miHoYo can roll up their sleeves and tackle these gameplay shortcomings.
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Rayan Sayyed is a staff writer for IGN India with a primary focus on Asian entertainment spanning from anime, manga, games to films and dramas from the East. You can reach out to him at rayan_sayyed@ign.com, or find him on Twitter @rayanaver and Instagram @rayansayyed.
