Zone of the Enders - Reviews | HowLongToBeat (2025)

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Private

60%PlayStation 2

Was an interesting experience when I played it. You can just go play 2nd Runner unless you want to see what came before. Be more leaning towards a 2 than a 3 for how dated it feels as the first game of a series.

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Mewa

60%PlayStation 3

3h 30m Played

Zone of the Enders HD

🎮PS3
🕹️Action Meccha

✔️Bonne OST
✔️Combats dynamiques
✔️Belles cinématiques
❌Attaques à distance et CaC sur le même bouton, pas ouf pour le sauvetage
❌Les allers retours
❌Objectifs pas clairs
❌Assez ennuyeux et redondant...

⏱️3h30
🎯Fini

🎼12/20

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refat17

70%PlayStation 2

5h 36m Played

Pretty fun, although the game feels padded and badly paced. For example you have 5 boss fights and you get one near the beginning. The rest are closer to the end of the game. Last part feels great, but the lack of boss fights from the first to second boss was kind of disappointing. All the bosses are pretty good and required me to think which was fun. That being said, the general combat was satisfying and felt cool throughout playing.

Outside of bosses you have 3 types of enemies you fight that get harder as they level up. They are pretty fun to fight and its fun figuring out the fastest way you can beat them as you play. Generally using your melee is stronger, but more risky. Long range is weaker minus the ranged burst attack, but that has a long wind up to it. And then you also get sub weapons, although a lot of them can feel kind of pointless. Similar to the bosses, I wish these came in earlier than they do as they can add some variety to the gameplay. Overall I still had fun fighting the enemies. It was also fun when you get to play as a raptor at some point as your move set changes a bit, I kind of wish there was more of that (you can get a taste of this by playing Versus mode). Apparently the harder difficulties also have a level down mechanic if you let the colonies get destroyed which seems cool conceptually, but I feel like could be annoying in practice (I played on normal though and did really poor on the rescue missions, so yeah).

Story is pretty typical, but I enjoyed it. The cut scene presentation and voice acting (at least in Japanese) is pretty good. I like the whole becoming attached to a AI them, so ADA was a cool character.

Overall, not a deep game, but you get to play as a speedy mech that has a sword and can even throw enemies. Cool vibes and fun story, and not too long, so if you just want something cool like that for a day or 2 of gaming, it's a good time.

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acrololaznog

75%PlayStation 3

You know what, I enjoyed this a lot. I understand most of the criticism it gets, but it felt really good to play such a fast paced game. At first I thought it was just a button smashing type of game, but I quickly understood that you actually need to understand the buttons you're smashing. My fingers almost fell of with some fights. Boss fights were really awesome too.

In terms of story, I get why people hate Leo but he's basically Shinji from NGE, which kind of makes him even more hateable. I didn't hate him for most of the game really, but then again, I am an Evangelion fan so, don't take my word too seriously. During the boss fights though, Leo was really annoying.

Anyways, I'm really excited for the second game. THIS WAS MY FIRST KOJIMA GAME!!! After this series I'm going straight into MGS.

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Finnedorb

60%PlayStation 3

4h 9m Played

There's nothing offensively bad about this game, but there's nothing good about it either. the combat is mindless, the dialogue is awkward, the voice acting sucks, and this game is way too easy. There's also some annoying parts where you need to go to previous areas to find something, but the game gives no indication of where.

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binjjo

50%Emulated

4h 3m Played

Zone of the Enders barely feels like anything more than a tech demo. The fluid movement makes it feel good to control, but there is very little in terms of variety or substance on offer. The boss fights are fun, but the game is literally bookended by them and the space in between is filled with pointless backtracking to pad out the already painfully short runtime. Most of the game is spent fighting trash mobs of which there are only two varieties. Really, you get your fill within the first hour of the game.

While the story could be seen as serviceable, the voice acting is really bad and ADA, the AI voice of your mech, never shuts up. The design of the mechs are cool, but the rest of the visuals are underwhelming and bland at best.

This would be a “rental game” back in the day.

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Private

50%Emulated

same enemies over and over

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CindaarR

60%Xbox 360

4h 30m Played

Mecha machination from the mind behind the Metal Gear Solid series. One of Kojima's odd side projects he was allowed to work on during the rare occasions when Konami let him out of the MGS basement. Zone of the Enders (ZoE) is a strange attempt at making what can only be described as an off brand Gundam game complete with all the musing about the senselessness of war (I'm starting to see why Gundam resonated with Kojima).

you control the super mech Jehuty as you battle against small squads of enemies on only slightly less small maps, you have the basic melee and beams attacks that you would expect from a mech game, it all works well and I never found myself confused by any of the controls however maybe too well as I never felt the need to use anything more then the basic melee string to take down any enemy which is a shame because you do get some interesting weapons to use but they are just so much worse then your melee there's no point in using them. You fly from one area to the next unlocking the next one by essentially killing all the enemies in the last, there is some back tracking a couple of times but progress is straight forward. I liked flying to the areas, its pointless as you never get attacked here but it does help give a sense of scale to the game that is sorely needed in mech games.

The main issue with the game is that its just really short with there being around ten of the fight areas to visit interspliced with the occasional boss battle now and again. The bosses are cool visually, like the rest of the game, but they don't have much going on and are just an excuse to use some of your fancy weapons which is a shame when MGS is famous for its boss battles. So you just do this for fourish hours and the game ends, it doesn't even have any classic Kojima tricks to throw at you really, I thought ZoE was meant to be the full game and MGS2 was the bonus demo you got not the other way around. Music is fantastic with a lot of trippy chanting tracks that, being the Shadow Hearts fan I am, I'm always a sucker for.

The story bares such a striking resemblance to Gundam as I said its uncanny, young boy living in a space colony that gets attacked and he happens to stumble into the secret state of the art mech during the fight and what do you know he happens to be a prodigy in piloting it, it feels like Kojima binged watched as much Gundam as he could and said to himself "I can do that" and ZoE is what we got. I'm a big Gundam enjoyer so I'm not bothered by this but I do find it rather funny. VA is surprisingly poor for the most part and the terrible lip synching makes it all the more noticeable. In keeping with the Gundam feel Leo is just as whiney and annoying as Amuro ever was, the other characters are forgettable due to the short nature of the game except Viola, Viola is the only interesting thing narrative wise even if she does feel like Sniper Wolf 2.0.

Theres that Kojima magic sprinkle in here but it struggles to shine through what with the the bad VA and just how short the game is. Feels very rushed but its got some interesting ideas pilot tested and some cool mech moments, its short so give it a try if curious at all.

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nibilly

70%PlayStation 3

5h Played

Short and sweet. Decent story, Viola is a fascinating and sad character. Main character Leo extremely irritating and juvenile. Minor vagueness and difficulty spikes, but on the whole fair. Most sub weapons seem useless, utilized heal and decoy though.

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Private

60%PlayStation 2

5h 9m Played

An amazing mech action game. The over world and sub weapons are lackluster. A rather short game, but very enjoyable experience.

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Mrsonicisawesome

60%PlayStation 3

It was ok but not really enjoyable and the gameplay seemed really barebones when compared to the 2nd game and even for it's time it's still really short and doesn't have too much variety.

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Prohypnogamer

80%PlayStation 3

10h Progress

It was pretty fun, pretty frustrating at parts especially at the boss battles (tyrant) but besides that the game is really fun and fan based, the story is okay it is pretty short and I feel like there is no time for the development for the characters (despite the huge amount of cutscenes). But oh well I heard that the second game is better anyways. We shall see.

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walkonwalkoff

80%PlayStation 3

5h Played

It may have been more wondrous in the past, but playing it today it is a good and simple short story captured on a small map, the lack of too much plot explanation adds to its charm, though it stays in the shadows of ZOE2.

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INaN

50%PlayStation 3

4h 39m Played

Weebs really have the worst taste in everything, don't they?

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Private

70%PlayStation 2

Replay

story mode

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Imran

60%PlayStation 2

5h 42m Played

Its really fast paced but the game is extremely short. It feels more like a preview rather than a full fledge games. Its like a preview for the full game and story which is the sequel. So it could have been much better

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60%Xbox 360

4h 52m Played

In november or december 2002 I bought Zone of the Enders as the single extra game I could afford together with my new PS2 console for the full retail price. I had not heard of the game before, but the cover art looked awesome and I had watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series shortly before, so I was pretty hyped on my way home. Looking back I only remembered two things about this game (as nearly 20 years have passed since then): The graphics where very dark and the game was VERY short. Back then I bought the console mainly to entertain myself over the holiday season and you can imagine my disapointment, when the credits of Zone of the Enders rolled before supper the same day I bought it and played it the first time.

TodayI wanted to replay it (playing the Xbox 360 HD version running on the Xbox One X) to refresh the memory of the story before playing the PS4/PSVR version of the 2nd game. I am kind of going out with the same feelings as back in the days - "Wow, that was short!" - again, I finished it the same day I started playing. It's not just that the game is "compact", it really feels like the story has just begun and there is a rich sci-fi world with a great lore waiting for you, but no - that was it, it's over, roll the credits. There is an anime short movie that was released prior to the game that serves a prequel and maybe it would have been a good idea to complete the series on DVD with the game for a bit more value for the money (instead of the Metal Gear demo disc that originaly came with it). A few month after the release of the game they followed up with a more lengthy series that plays partly before, partly after the game.

From a technical standpoint the HD update can not save the graphics from looking dated and bad even for a PS2 game. The pre rendered video sequences just look ugly nowadays. They should have gone for drawn anime sequences like in the 2nd game from the start. The gameplay is ok at best - the controlls are fine once you have locked on an enemy, but feel strange when flying around freely. There is no option to invert the analog controllers axis too, which made the camera controlls awkward for me (first thing I do in a game is invert y-axis every time). The voice over for the characters is also very amateurish and the main character is a whiny carbon copy of Shinji Ikari (Evangelion).

I heard the 2nd game is much better, so maybe start with that one, as the story of Zone of the Enders 1 can be summarized with whiney boy falls into a mech while the space station he lives on is attacked and deliveres it to some people he only knows over radio on the other side of the space station, the end.

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Injuredhunter

70%PlayStation 3

5h 30m Played

Native 1080p/60fps on PS3. Beat it. Sequel is better in every way. Play Sequel on PC/PS4 or PSVR/VR.

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CoratosInfused

70%PlayStation 2

5h 50m Played

What a barrel of fun to play, great hack and slashing combat. Awesome sound track and some corny voice acting.

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MatterofM

60%PlayStation 3

6.5/10

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Nanakix

60%PlayStation 3

5h 30m Played

Interesting ideas but the average feeling is "clumsy".
It could have been deeper, but it could have been less by just being an arcade game.

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eilonen

50%Xbox 360

6h 32m Played

Boring, repetative. Only the bosses entertained.

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xxcoolsjxx

80%PlayStation 2

3h 55m Played

A forgotten gem by Hideo Kojima is the best way to describe Zone of the Enders.

Combat in this game is so fluid and smooth, especially for a game closing in on the 20 year mark. Story line is a little bland and I hate listening to the main character whine every cut scene, but as stated before the combat/ battles really make this game shine. The automatic switching from ranged weapons to melee, the rotating camera lock and switch, and of course the battle animations.

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Private

60%Xbox 360

5h 51m Played

It was okay. Glad it was rather short. I basically forced myself to finish it. It had it's fun times, but overall was rather forgettable, to be honest.

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MyNameIsDefault

60%PlayStation 2

5h 8m Played

If I reviewed this based on gameplay alone, I'd have rated it a 7/10. Some people say it gets repetitive, and I'll agree that there isn't much done throughout the game to spice things up, besides upping the normal enemy AI, and throwing a boss at you every once and a while (the second boss being my favorite, was so satisfying to learn its patterns and destroy it). But, being a bit of a whore for mecha games, I enjoyed every single moment of the fast-paced action, flying through the air while raining fire down on enemies before going in for the kill with your sword or a grab-and-throw attack, sometimes having to act fast to outsmart the enemy and bring them down from behind. Something I didn't like was how useless most of the sub-weapons felt. I only found use out of 2 or 3 during my playthrough, 1of which was mandatory for a boss. Your mileage may vary.

The reason I'm docking a point from the score is everything else about the game. While I didn't think it was horrible, the story also wasn't anything to really write home about. It was short and to the point, setting a clear goal within the first half hour, with very few obstacles between you and this goal.

The voice acting, oh the voice acting. It seemed like 3/4ths of the time the delivery of lines was horrid, not matching up with the words or the moment. The main character, Leo, was especially bad in this area. His constant "What?"s will forever remain a bad meme in my mind. The writing was also poor at times, seeming inhuman, though I wonder if this may all be due to a flawed translation, or the voice acting ruining everything. However, there were still a few moments that managed to really grab my attention.

Overall, despite the flaws it does have, I enjoyed every moment I played of this game, and look forward to playing the sequel that, I've heard, is the better game.

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Private

40%PlayStation 3

5h Played

Zone of the Enders is "imitating the wrong heroes".

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nyknamd

60%PlayStation 3

6h 10m Played

That was... fast, awfully fast, and underwhelming. I mean, even if the gameplay mechanics were pretty fun and responsive (I didn't had the chance to play to many [understand here: any] mecha games before this one though, need to fix this ASAP), everything else was just so average. I heard here and there that ZotE2: The 2nd Runner is clearly better, I'll give it a try a bit later.

Oh, and yeah, the HD collection port (I think it's from High Voltage Software?) is terrible.

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Codc

80%PlayStation 3

4h 8m Played

Great gameplay, cheesy storyline and awful voice acting. Still a little gem created by Kojima.

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joshleaves

60%PlayStation 3

7h 43m Played

Nice mech game, rather repetitive, but still fun.

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CitrusFury

70%PlayStation 3

ZOE is an enjoyable game, though pretty short. The combat is somewhat simple, but very flashy and engaging. It didn't get old throughout the game though, so that's a testament to its enjoyability. A lot of the special weapons seemed rather underpowered, and kind of useless though.

The story and the world is fairly interesting, but the game is so short that you don't get much in the way of exploration of the lore in just this game. Also, the voice acting is pretty sub-par, which definitely affects enjoyment of the story. I did watch the ZOE OVA entitled "2167 Idolo" beforehand though, which was quite enjoyable. There is also an anime that takes place either side of the first ZOE game, called Dolores, I, which I intend to watch before playing ZOE: The 2nd Runner. So there's a fair bit to help fill out the universe. But with regards to just this game, the story is lacking.

The art direction is good, but it is just HD quality PS2 graphics. It feels fairly dated overall, but not unenjoyable. Also, there are only 5 rescue missions where you have to defeat a bunch of enemies while not letting occupied buildings get destroyed. Just 5 of them. On top of that, the ranking you get on those missions, as well as how many continues you use, are the only factors that contribute to the rather arbitrary ranking you get when you finish the game. It just feels a bit limited and silly.

Overall, it's an enjoyable game, but nothing particularly special. It also feels outdated now, as I stated earlier. It's short though, so it's worth a go if you don't spend too much on it (and it does come with the sequel, so it's an even better value that way).

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Kikkelipaa666

70%PlayStation 3

4h 18m Played

Short game. Fast and fun combat and that's about all there is.

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stuka06

70%PlayStation 3

12h 11m Played

I finished the game in the HD Version as part of the bundle.
I knew about the game, but never played it, so I can approach the review with a clear mind.
The part that holds up best is the gameplay. Fighting the normal enemies continues to be fun throughout the game. Something that is not always the case. Weirdly, for a Kojima game, the boss fights are probably the most unimaginative part. Not all mind you. Bit most bosses have to be defeated using a single tactic, ususaly with a single type of attack.

Something that is usual for a Kojima game, is the script. As in, it really needs an editor with pruning shears. It works basicly, but there is so much clutter and the main protagonist rarely becomes something that you could call likable.

All in all, the game does hold up where it has to. The gameplay is smooth even whe you are revisiting ol levels.

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Official IGN Review

75%No Platform Specified

Oh, what might have been.

Or what might be, alternatively. The people who created Z.O.E obviously have tremendous talent. The 3D engine and control scheme they have created are absolutely marvelous, and the game's visual designs are top-notch. It has flashes of brilliant scenario design, and yes, there are a few character moments I liked. So I hope their next game builds on those strengths, and does something about the problems I've already discussed at length.

And there probably will be a next game. The conclusion of Z.O.E lacks only a giant Big O-esque "Sequel Coming Summer 2002" placard. If and when that sequel does come, I have high hopes for it. Since the tasks of producing the engine and core gameplay are complete, its designers and programmers have plenty of time to add more variety in areas like level design, enemies, puzzles, and the like. With luck, the screenwriters will try to earn my tears a little more honestly. And maybe whoever handles the localization will learn the virtue of a hands-off approach.