Topic: Zenless Zone Zero OT

Topic.

Frankly, I’m gonna be honest and admit that this is out of my bubble of gaming, I’m having a very “fish out of water” experience but I’m very enjoying it because it reminds me a lot of Dynasty Warriors and I have to remind people here every other day that I’m a big Musou nut.

Now, truth be told, I’m not a very big fan of “the gacha games”.

But I’m told this can be played completely free and not miss out on much and I do believe it. It is fun so far. So far the character I’m gravitating towards the most is her so I do hope she’s playble.

So yea, I’m not very familiar with MiHoYo. I had fun with what little playtime I had in GI and Honkai, but lack of people in the Asia server really discouraged me from continuing. But this time I wanna play this for the solo experience, and I do welcome the underground hiphop aesthetic.

All of Hoyo's games can be played fully without spending anything. That character is Nicole, she is playable. In fact you play as her almost as soon as the game begins and get her permanently in under an hour.

Not sure why a lack of server activity would stop you playing GI or HSR as they are both single player games. GI does have coop elements but it's so limited it may as well not exist. Anyway, enjoy the game dude.

@Shigurui alright, thank you. Yeah I should’ve expanded and elaborated on some parts I’ve unintentionally left vague.

• I had moments where I lost progress and kept restarting. I didn’t feel it was necessary to include in my original post but it does provide context as to why my progress is a bit slow.
• I thought I mentioned it already but if I didn’t, the comment about servers was specifically alluding to coop with friends. Initially, that was the beginning appeal, as I was not interested in these games as a solo experience at first but that has changed with this game as the aesthetics appeal to my tastes more.
  Hope that clears it up and thank you! Do plan on having fun!

@Yousef- what are you playing on?.

I know there has been some mixed responses to it, but I love Zenless Zone Zero's core combat system and after gobbling up basically all this game has got to offer over a few weeks, I've spent the time since desperately trying to to find anything else like it and finding that it just doesn't exist.

Like there are plenty of real time action RPGs with a party you freely switch between, but I haven't found another game where switching characters is a core part of your actual combo. The almost dance like rhythm of using chain attacks to parry enemy attacks and switch between your party members is really the special sauce that makes ZZZ sing for me, getting into that flow state where everything perfectly feeds into the next and just all clicks, it is satisfying like nothing else.

Ironically probably the closest combatwise is Wuthering Waves, another gacha game, but there character swapping is hardbound to the D-Pad (maybe the official PS5 version will allow us to bind it to the shoulder buttons) so it doesn't just feel as smooth as ZZZ does to counter attacks. The trade off is you can parry using regular attacks, but plenty of games do that, so who cares.

It is kinda like how a turn based JRPG with HSRs production values, system depth, vastness of characters and kits also doesn't exist, either - I've been looking for that too. I guess cause people can't just afford to make a turn based JRPG like HSR without the gacha money behind them. Probably the most "premium" turn based JRPGs we still have are Person and Yakuza. It feels like almost everything else is some kind of indie using a retro vibe as a mask for budget limitations or a game from some series that is 30 games deep, every game is interconnected so you can't skip any of the early ones which are positively ancient and where even the most modern game in the series still plays, looks and feels like a game from two decades ago.

Its a shame, cause I think HSR really suffers by being a gacha - far more than ZZZ does, for that matter - but both games are offering experiences you really can't find anywhere else. So you put up with the business model or you go without. Hoyo really are geniuses in that regard.

@Pizzamorg - I'm right with you on ZZZ's core combat system, I really like it but thought everything outside of that was not for me. That aside if you're looking for similar gameplay loops have you played Sekiro? It doesn't have team swap or anything but it's entirely parry/counter attack based much like ZZZ and uses the shoulder button inputs.

DmC - Devil may Cry also has a similar thing with light and heavy weapon switching on the trigger buttons. Neither have the tag-team mechanics but when I played ZZZ both of those games came to mind.

I have to be honest @Shigurui I didn't even think about looking at the Souls space. I suppose an important thing I should have said, is another thing that I think really makes ZZZ work is how easy it is. Again, I know people are quite mixed on the difficulty design of this game, but I feel like ZZZ really wouldn't work if it was sweatier. It telegraphs the parries and dodges, gives you generous windows, you feel cool in ZZZ because the game is going out of its way to make sure you feel cool.

DmC though might be a good shout, probably the closest I am going to get to ZZZ's feel probably is in the character action space. Maybe I'll look up some good beginner friendly character action games and go from there.

@Pizzamorg - Sekiro is definitely sweaty but it does telegraph attacks and dodges extremely well though the windows are very unforgiving. If you're looking for more character action than soulslike then every Bayonetta game can abuse the parry system with the Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa accessory.
All the Ninja Gaiden games have a solid parry/counter system and if you have an old PS3 or 360 then you have a brilliant parry based game in Metal Gear Rising, it's backwards compatible on the Xbox Series consoles too if you have one.