Perhaps one of the worst things to befall anime fans are shoddily-made licensed games, quickly shoved out the door in order to cash in on fans' love for a particular show. We've seen it time and again, from the utter garbage of the DRAGON BALL Z video games, to GUNDAM games, to MACROSS. Indeed, to this day, there hasn't been a mech game released that has managed to completely capture the "feel" of being in a Gundam or piloting a Valkyrie fighter plane. But, luckily, people itching to take control of ground mechs (a la GUNDAM) have been blessed with quality "non-anime" games such as the ARMORED CORE series, or even VIRTUAL ON. However, no one has managed to capture the feel of space mecha combat, MACROSS-style, with quick dashes and dodging missiles and so on...until now: Konami's ZONE OF THE ENDERS for the Sony PlayStation 2 is that game! From the utterly stunning crisp graphics, to the even crisper and tighter, perfect controls, this is the essence of true space mech combat.

When this project was first announced last year, Konami established that it was dead serious about this game. Just look at the talent involved: they got the creator of METAL GEAR SOLID, Kojima Hideo, as the producer, Shinkawa Yoji (from METAL GEAR SOLID) as the mechanical designer, and GUNDAM X's Nishimura Nobuyoshi as the character designer. Overall, a pretty talented group of people were involved in this project. In the end, this is deftly illustrated by the game's solid look and feel, as well as by the "pure gameplay" attained.

It may be hard to appreciate just how amazing ZONE OF THE ENDERS is until you actually sit down and play it. They have truly captured the very spirit and essence of what we dreamt about when watching Hikaru (Rick Hunter in the U.S.) blasting through space in his "Skull One" Valkyrie, taking on hordes of Zentraedi enemy pods. What the ZONE OF THE ENDERS team has accomplished is nothing short of amazing—perfect controls, with the ability to quickly dash, lock-on (and hence circle strafe), dash and attack simultaneously, and unleash a nice group of laser/missile blasts. It's like being in the MACROSS universe, but only better!

In addition, they've given you a shield button, to instantly activate an energy shield at any time, as well as simplifying the attacks to just two buttons. The square button automatically fires energy bullets at the enemies from far away. If you dash while attacking, you fire off a homing salvo of "energy missiles." If you get in close to the enemy, the default attack automatically switches to your "energy sword" and you can perform up to a four-hit combo if you keep tapping the same button. The other attack you have is with "sub-weapons," and that is nicely relegated to the circle button. After picking a specific sub-weapon, when you are far away it will fire off that weapon, but when close, it turns into one of the coolest moves in the game: grab and throw. You basically lock the enemy in an energy grip, and you can briefly move him around before letting go of the button and boom, smashing him away from you. Finally, you can charge up and then press attack, and that unleashes either a huge fireball (almost like Son Goku doing a Kamehameha), or a vicious 360-degree spin attack when close to an enemy.

With this simple and very intuitive control scheme, this game allows you to pilot your Jehuty (mech) however you see fit. Here's a perfect example of the wonder of this system (and what makes ZONE OF THE ENDERS so great): the first boss you meet, Tempest, is a huge squid-like mech, towering over the environment. It has various laser attacks and can fire off a stream of six giant fireballs at any time. When you're far away, you can start dashing in towards Tempest while firing off your assortment of attacks, then when the giant fireballs come streaming towards you, you can literally dash in-between them. Words don't do it justice, but the feeling you gain while quickly dashing between all these fireballs is amazing. And then you end up right next to the enemy to unleash whatever attack you want!

One complaint levied upon this game by various reviewers has been the lack of variety of enemies. While I can agree with that, the later missions reuse the same enemies (but beefed up) to perfect skill and orchestration. There are times when you're engaged in a massive aerial dogfight involving you and six or eight or more enemies, and the action never lets up! It's beautifully choreographed destruction—flying around, dashing into an enemy and trying to strike it with your energy blade, only to have the enemy use its blade as well, which causes both of you to lock blades for a split-second, before breaking off, at which point, you quickly dash back and rotate around it, while firing off a killer salvo of missiles at it, eventually destroying it. But then you immediately lock-on to the next enemy, grabbing it in your grab move, and punching it into a nearby building and destroying the mech and the building in a huge explosion! But then another mech right on your tail locks-on, and the waltz continues...

The variety of missions is also nice, ranging from search-and-destroy all enemies in an area, to "rescue missions" where civilian neighborhoods are under attack, and you're graded on how well you do to protect the neighborhood (how many houses are still standing and how many survivors are left after you and the mechs go head-to-head). There's even a mission where ADA, your on-board computer, gets infected with a virus and, running on almost no defenses, you must find a vaccine for that virus and restore her defense systems.

The only downside to this great game is the rather melodramatic, trite story. The year is 2172, and you play as Leo Stenbuck, a resident and "Ender" of a space colony called Antilia (very similar to some of the space colonies seen in the various GUNDAM series and other sci-fi anime). Antilia gets attacked by a group of night raiders searching for a secret mech. They naturally raise hell, and along comes Leo, the standard wimpy shonen protagonist, who, running away from the destruction, accidentally stumbles upon a secret weapon—an ultra-powerful mech called Jehuty—that he manages to pilot (shades of original GUNDAM, MACROSS, and many other shows). From there, against his will, he goes on to save the colony. Along the way, extreme melodrama ensues at times, and well... anyways, while the story may not be the strong point, it serves as a solid shell for the rest of the game.

The Japanese voice actors are, once again, outstanding. Highlights include Horie Yui (Narusegawa Naru, LOVE HINA), and Natsuki Rio (Akari, BATTLE ATHLETES). The sound effects are solid, if a little lacking in the bass department; it would've been nice to have just a little more bass when massive explosions occurred, but that is minor. The music is solid as well, with haunting chants and vocals, and a solid ending theme (JPOP ballad).

In the end, while ZONE OF THE ENDERS was a bit short (you can beat it in about 4-6 hours), and the story was a tad derivative, the graphics of the areas and the mechs, along with the perfection that is the gameplay, makes this game a delight. If you've ever wanted to play a fun, breath-taking, action game, that really shows off the PS2 with destroyable environments, huge open arenas, wonderful dog-fighting and perfect control, look no further than ZONE OF THE ENDERS. And if you need another incentive, this game ships with a playable demo for the ultimate masterpiece-in-the-making, METAL GEAR SOLID 2. Konami is to be congratulated for this game. If it does well, the sequel should only make this series even better, and hopefully they'll be able to straighten out the few flaws with the game (namely its length and the story), to bring this up to perfection. This is what the MACROSS games should've been: pure, adrenaline-pumping space combat bliss.

Rating: 8.9 / 10.0