A few well-targeted tweaks is all it took to turn Zenless Zone Zero from a slog into a thrill. Hey presto! It seems miHoYo might be on to another winner.
You know that giddy feeling you get when a game does something unmistakably right? I felt it using the delectable Grappleshot in Halo Infinite for the first time; when floating through a trippy music video-like sequence in Control; and when fighting the beautifully horrific Hyperion boss to ethereal organ tunes in Returnal. Perfectly preserved memories I reach for when I need a reminder on how good games can be. Imagine my surprise then when that giddy mood resurfaced during a hands-on preview for Zenless Zone Zero, Genshin Impact developer miHoYo’s upcoming release. Something I already previewed during its second beta — and had a lot of issues with at the time.
It was the Twin Marionettes that did it. A boss picked at random in an area I stumbled into by chance while flicking through new maps. From what I can gather, you can challenge these ‘Hunt’ bosses three times a week to get either level-up materials or currency rewards, a standard way to keep you coming back and building shiny new characters. Resource farming doesn’t exactly scream excitement, but that’s precisely why the fight caught me so off guard. I had no idea what to do for the majority of it, but damn did it feel good swapping between my three characters at speed, watching flashy transition animations and blasting the duo with chaotic ultimate attacks.
My tiny Bangboo bunny-robot-thing even joined in on the fun to adorably slap the boss about, after I downed my dear Nicole by getting distracted by the spectacle of the Marionettes’ assault. It felt like I was back in some bizarre, anime version of Returnal, sussing out how to dodge and weave in my offence, only this time the arena was coated in comic-book style dressings, reminiscent of the urban surroundings in games like Persona 5, Jet Set Radio, and Hi-Fi Rush. An ultracool design paired with super slick combat. Hello precious gaming memory, take a seat next to the Master Chief, you’ll feel right at home.
But then, this was part of my major issue with Zenless Zone Zero even back in its second beta. There wasn’t much room for these Twin Marionette-type joys because the majority of your time was taken up by the Hollow Deep Dive (HDD) mode, a television-styled mini-game that had you slowly moving up, down, left and right on a repeating top-down board view to progress the story. There were some variations on what you did during these excursions, like solving puzzles, but not enough to keep the boredom away as you were pulled from the all-too-brief stints with the more enjoyable combat sections, or exploring the unusually cheery streets of the post apocalyptic cities of New Eridu. While I can’t confirm if these pacing issues have been entirely fixed, as I didn’t get to play through much of the story again during my preview, I’m happy to report that the HDD screen time has been drastically reduced during every other part of the game. There’s also a new double-speed toggle so you can move across the board and read dialogue faster while in these HDD segments. It’s almost unbelievable how much this simple fix has changed how Zenless Zone Zero feels, now that its focus is on looking and feeling ridiculously cool, not navigating this lacklustre board.
Regarding why the HDD TV mode is still included and laid out the way it is, Zenless Zone Zero producer Zhenyu Li told Eurogamer that, while some don’t enjoy the HDD TV exploration, others actually do.
