TGS 2002: Hands-on: ZOE: The 2nd Runner

One of the few surprises at this year's Tokyo Game Show was Konami's Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (or Anubis: Zone of the Enders, as it's called in Japan). The PlayStation 2 game looked really slick and already features a number of improvements on its predecessor, not the least of which is a more varied collection of environments. The demo begins with a cool anime-style cutscene showing a large block plummeting toward a planet until its pilot triggers a mechanism that releases the frame (or mech) named Jehuty, which was also featured in the original game.

Upon being released from his shell, Jehuty is placed in a blizzardlike environment with harsh winds and heavy amounts of snow limiting visibility. However, off in the distance, you can see an enormous cloud of robotic insect enemies heading in your direction. There are a few different attacks Jehuty can use in this particular situation. You can either charge directly into the cloud and slash at the enemies with Jehuty's energy sword, or you can use his grappling ability to grab onto an enemy, swing it around, and then throw it into a wall or another object in the environment. This move is also effective because other enemies will receive damge while Jehuty is spinning. It's also worth noting that the throw produces a particularly cool effect in the winter environment because enemies will cause a small avalanche to occur when they make contact with a mountain. However, the most effective strategy for this part of the game requires Jehuty's energy missiles. Like the dragon in the Panzer Dragoon series of games, Jehuty can target multiple enemies at once and then fire a barrage of energy missiles.

After battling through dozens, if not hundreds, of these insect enemies, Jehuty comes in contact with some of the robotic enemies from the original Zone of the Enders, and like in the that game, these enemies are easily dealt with using Jehuty's melee attacks. The action in the demo begins to pick up when you move indoors into a multileveled base, where you encounter robot spiders that are mostly immune to Jehuty's melee attacks, so you have to grab them and swing them around. Again, this technique is made more effective by the fact that you can do more damage by throwing one enemy into another. To defeat some of the other enemies in the area, you can actually rip out one of the steel support beams in the environment and use it as a relatively long-range melee weapon.

By this time, we had the controls down pat. Jehuty can increase or decrease altitude with ease, and his various attacks and his shield are responsive and easy to use. In addition, the camera never appears to present much of a problem, which is somewhat surprising considering that the game moves at such a quick pace and requires an incredibly responsive camera to present the proper view.

Later on in the demo, Jehuty encounters the equivalent of a boss battle, in which he's pitted against another frame. However, this enemy can not only parry Jehuty's melee attack, but it can also use its shield to prevent any long-range fire from hitting it. In addition, it will occasionally fire out waves of missiles not unlike the clouds of enemies encountered earlier in the demo, so you have to go back to using the energy missiles, which is good since that's the only way you can really inflict damage on the other frame in the early moments of the battle. Eventually, the other frame will start become a little sloppy and you can move in for a few quick strikes with the energy sword.

On the graphics front, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner looks great. The game sports a somewhat cel-shaded look that lends itself well to this type of game and mixes in quite well with the anime cutscenes. The cel shading isn't particularly noticeable in the environment, but you will see traces of it on the frames and in some of the special effects such as the smoke trails and some of the enemy special attacks. It was also particularly impressive to see all those enemies onscreen at once in the initial stages of the demo with little to no slowdown.

We'll have more on Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner soon.