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Zenless Zone Zero Preview: Will It Meet Hoyoverse Fans' Expectations?

Steven Weber Updated: Posted:
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As the countdown to Zenless Zone Zero's release begins, fans' anticipation has reached a fever pitch. If you’re a fan of Hoyoverse titles like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, you’re probably wondering if ZZZ will live up to the lofty expectations set before it. Hoyoverse invited the media to Singapore, to put their latest title through its paces. My hands-on experience in Singapore left me thrilled by Zenless Zone Zero’s charm and exciting gameplay, but will it deliver the unique experience fans crave?

Zenless Zone Zero is a curious action hero collector with a fondness for the retro 90s era. During my play sessions at Hoyoverse Singapore, we were introduced to 15 max level characters and were left to our own devices to experience the game at endgame. The premise of our play session was daunting. It's challenging to fully appreciate a game when you're given instant access to everything that players would typically spend months working to earn.

Luckily, I wasn’t totally lost, having played a closed beta previously. Once logged in, I was taken to Sixth Street, which is one of the main drags where you’ll spend most of the early game. Sixth Street is brimming with life, featuring a nostalgic noodle shop, a bustling arcade (complete with arcade games), a quirky grocery store, and a vintage record shop that all set the stage for your adventures. You’ll also find the protagonist’s home, which is also a video store. I stepped inside the boxy yellow video store Random Play and walked into the back room labeled “staff only” where the Hollow Deep Dive System resides.

The Hollow Deep Dive System is the primary hub where you’ll find the three main game modes: Story Mode, Combat Mode, and Explore Mode. Story Mode will take you through the story of Zenless Zone Zero. The Combat Mode will take you directly into combat encounters. Finally, the Explore Mode gives you several options to work your way through such as puzzles, investigations, and special encounters. With the testing limitations, I spent my time in intense combat scenarios, exploring the diverse abilities of the 15 eccentric agents.

The Hollow Deep Dive (H.D.D.) also introduces players to the somewhat controversial game board mode that is meant to add a unique twist to exploration. The game board is essentially a tile-based system where a Bangboo, a unique bunny-like device, traverses the Hollow unlocking new tiles and moving you forward. At first glance, the game board feels like a roguelike adventure reminiscent of Slay the Spire but in most cases, it offers a straightforward exploration path with limited surprises. It doesn’t limit where you can go, and only in rare game modes will it require any abstract thinking to break through to the goodies that are otherwise blocked.

The game board does have some great gameplay options, such as a true-blue roguelike mode, but I didn’t get to test that at length during my session in Singapore. The information on the roguelike Hollow Zero experience will have to wait for our full review after the game launches. With my short journey through the H.D.D out of the way, I finally hopped into some combat against a pair of menacing marionettes. The marionettes are end-game bosses that must be defeated simultaneously, or they'll regenerate endlessly.

This is where building a cohesive team in ZZZ really comes into play. Producer Zhenyu Li said that if you’re good at the combat system, you can beat any enemy. While that did ring true, I learned very quickly that simply defeating an enemy, and defeating them quickly are two different things. Bosses have weaknesses. If you choose not to exploit these weaknesses, you can whack away for more than 10 minutes, which I often did. For the new ZZZ player, matching the correct weakness is a tip you should certainly heed.

After fiddling with numerous characters, my favorite team consisted of Ellen Joe, Soldier 11 and Zhu Yuan. Ellen Joe was by far my favorite character out of all of them. Her element of Ice is powerful and can freeze enemies, while her attack pattern is a mix of quick lateral slashes followed by a ranged rotary-blade attack that eviscerates your enemy. As a melee character, her swift style of combat let me weave in and out of dangerous situations, swapping in my alternate characters after I effortlessly performed a perfect assist.

The visceral nature of combat feels a lot like a fighting game which makes more sense when you realize that producer Zhenyu Li took a lot of inspiration for how combat feels from Street Fighter 6. You really need to pay attention to your opponent and await a bright orange flash to set up a perfect assist, and once triggered you can swap your teammates for a special attack. The better you fight the more decibels you earn, which is a point rating that builds your Ultimate attack. Ultimate attacks often play an intense animation that Honkai Star Rail players should be familiar with, and the damage is often potent.

Despite my apparent combat prowess, I failed to defeat the twin marionettes the first time, but eventually rallied my resolve and beat them both before they could resurrect one another. Before I knew it my time to play was over. Zenless Zone Zero has created a truly special combat system that weaves the elemental combat from past Hoyoverse games with a faster paced fighting game. What really stands out is the thrilling complexity of the combat system, which offers a multitude of possibilities for team composition.

Characters can gain bonuses when they are from the same company, or you can play up certain elements by slotting the same type of element to a team, but character selection goes further than that. It was divulged that some characters can unleash secret moves when paired with specific counterparts, adding a layer of mystery and strategy to team building. These move sets are not advertised in game through any tutorials, and they developers are hoping that players are able to figure out the secret combinations post-launch.

As the release date of Zenless Zone Zero approaches, excitement among Hoyoverse fans continues to build. With its intricate combat system and engaging story modes, Zenless Zone Zero has the ingredients to be exactly what the fans have been looking for. Be sure to mark your calendars for July 4th, 2024, and if you’re still on the fence, keep an eye out for our full review.


StevenWeber

Steven Weber

Steven has been a writer at MMORPG.COM since 2017. A lover of many different genres, he finds he spends most of his game time in action RPGs, and talking about himself in 3rd person on his biography page.