Platform

PlayStation 2

I have a new phrase. If something is zettai zetsumei, it now means its something that absolutely should not exist, should be banned, zettai dame, really bad, don't do it. One probably think that means I'm major league disappointed with Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, but its more like being so impressed with something that you somehow want to spread it in some meaningful way. In short, Zettai Zetsumei Toshi is game not without a host of minor problems, but a real gem where gameplay is concerned and easily one of the most fresh games I've played in a while.

And that's the best way to describe Zettai: that its not quite what you're expecting. It has elements of ICO, Silent Hill, Zelda and classic PC adventure games, but its definitely something entirely on its own. However, first impressions were not good. Upon booting up, you get a pretty static title screen with no music and have to wait a minute for a somewhat weak and ill put together cinema attract mode. New Game, Load Game, ? and Options are apparent. Options are usual array, and I still don't know what ? stands for, but I imagine it opens up once you win the game. Choosing new game gives you the option of your level of difficulty (easy, normal or hard) and a tutorial. The tutorial is really weak. Its basically four different movies showing you the basics of walking, camera control, water manipulation and avoiding damage in aftershocks. There's a somewhat annoying use of glass shattering screens, but what I started to notice from here on was the attention paid to making this game "feel" unique. I'll come back to that later.

Okay, so I choose normal and the name screen appeared. This is where the game improved dramatically and I went from being totally underwhelmed to totally blown away (the music in the name screen is nice by the way). I left the default name of the protagonist (Sudou ) and went on. A hazy, dim sky afternoon sky appears. A plane is flying through this sky and Sudou narrates for us that he's a newspaper reporter and come to start a new life on the the island Shutou (yes, there's a very interesting pun in the two names that's quite clever). He's pretty excited, but all we see is this blue hazy sky. After he's done talking, a news report flashes across this blue sky (all voice acting), listing various names of people who have vanished in Shutou Island. The scene cuts right before she announces your name! Fade in to a weird room diffused with light in incredibly harsh black and white, it makes everything look like a ghost world. Suddenly, you notice a smudge in your view and a line as if in broadcast straggling up the side of what you realize is somebody taping something with a camcorder. There's almost a minute of this mystery person silently panning a crowd of people in what looks like an airport. Its a very creepy and somehow ominous scene. What is this person concentrating on? It really slides into you insidiously. All of a sudden things start to shake violently and the camera drops, falls and all you can see is it knock about until the signal goes out. Cut to a full color shot of a light diffused and a hand reaching up something to pull itself up. Everything is blurry, and it looks like a very odd place, restaurant? Bathroom? Business building? Why does the perspective look so odd? As it pans out, Sudou san sits up and is equally confused. Then an ominous tremor hits and from what shakes you instantly know where he is. The hand rests where commuters hold on when the bus is too full for sitting. Your standing on the window of a bus which has flopped over sideways, alone, in the middle of an ocean on top of a humongous bridge. That shake means the bridge is going to crumble soon and you're right in the middle. Escape.

And thus, Zettai begins. Not exactly the way you would expect it. At this point, you get control. Basically, X makes you run (you walk pretty slow without it), triangle is used to look at things (this common look command is probably used better and more important in Zettai than any other game I've played), square goes to your menu and circle is ye olde action button to be used for many different things. Pushing R1 makes Sudou crouch/hide/duck/balance or otherwise try to steady himself in a safe place depending on where you are and how you're standing when you push it, but you can't move while you hold it dow. L1 calls like ICO. R3 pulls up your maps. Jumping is Ocarina of Time style, automatically executing if your running and this turns out to be a blessing in disguise. R2 changes the camera based on a Z trigger camera changing in the Zelda games and when you have access makes sure there's never any camera problems.

The first order of business is to look to see whether anyone else survived. The game's pace is immaculately controlled because when you get to the place your supposed at the time your able to do it, only then will the game start to mess with your freedom of exploration. Therefore, as long as you're not dying of thirst, you can do all the exploration as you want. As unrealistic as that may be, (and it certain cases, its true that taking too much time will damn you) this game would be hysterically frustrating without it and because the developers put in a very, very intriguing setting to explore, they do give you the methods with which to explore it. Thus, the first puzzles consist of finding a way to navigate the broken bridge and get to increasingly safer ground. As you walk around and explore, EXTREMELY dangerous things will happen, glass cases will break, sections will fall away, places will crumble, things will tip off the bridge and so on and so forth, the ground your balancing will tip or sway and you can always have to take this into account. The game has been developed extremely well in this way to balance to dangerous situations with exploration, puzzle solving Yorda/Ico like cooperation between the different characters. There's no place I feel I could make a valid criticism, surely this is a well loved and tended, tweaked gameplay experience. Plus, the variety of dangerous situations you find yourself in never seems to run out, as the developers seem to like to trick you into new levels of unwariness and then spring surprises on you, or give you different ordeals to consider.

The water system is pretty complex and runs like this. The more strenous the action Sudou does, the more thirsty he gets. So walking and talking and exploring doesn't take much water, but climbing onto things, lifting things, anytime you run, things physically strenous take more of his gauge away faster. Also, things that make you nervous, like jumping on rafters or balancing over the sea also tend to make you lose water faster (because he's sweating, see? !) Running all the time is a pretty normal thing in Zettai though, because the water fountains are spaced easily enough so that the game never ever even comes close to unfair little marathon in finding the next water source and it never limits exploration, though it does add to the sense of urgency. At water fountains you can drink (or not drink, sometimes you'll find oily, muddy or sea water you may want to refrain from drinking) and fill different pet bottles with spare water. A little one can hold one ration, medium, three, and large, five. You can also save at water fountains, so they function as focal points for the games division of challenges. You can also mix stuff with the water, like in a convenience store I found juice mix (like Kool Aid) and mixing it with a pet bottle made fruit juice that refilled life and water. Once you run out of water, your life starts to decrease, however, the more hydrated you are, if you're injured, the faster you'll recover. You will also come into situations where you might have to use your water for something and this can sometimes be a moral decision...either way, as a gameplay dynamic, its pulled off flawlessly. Its never been annoying and justifies it place for being there, because sometimes you'll have to be smart and prepare, if you're going into a building, you might not be able to get out for a while, or there may not be water sources inside, so you should stock up. I ran into a case where it turned to be a godsend I had enough water.

Besides water, there's also interaction with characters. The second most main character who you'll spend most of the game with is Aizawa Mari. Since she lived on Shutou Island, she knows a hell of a lot more about it than you, so she'll recommend places for you to go, tell you about island and story elements you don't know about, search for things in places you can't get to and prove to be a nuisance you have to save a number of times! Besides her, there's also a high school girl and an old man, and each of the cooperation/interaction dynamics between them differs. The characters don't just follow behind you, but rather have Ico/Yorda type AI routines. When it rains, they don't follow you out into the street, but keep under cover and run quickly to other covered places. When aftershocks and instants happen, they take different methods of action than you do, sometimes going and hiding different places, sometimes you can get a hint of what you should do by their actions in this critical situations.

Okay, now I have get into why this game turned out to be more complex than I thought it would. And that would require the menu system. Just about everything you carry needs to be stored somewhere or else you can't take it. Near the beginning of the game you'll get your first knapsack. As the game progresses you'll get bigger ones. This is impressive. The inside of each one is a 3D representation of what he realistically stuff into it set into 3D cubes. Get new items and he'll automatically try to fit into the bag by shuffling around the contents. So... for instance, an umbrella is layed on the top of everything else and takes up 2 to 3 blocks sideways, while bandages only take up a corner of one block, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, he can also hang things on the knapsacks, or stick them out of the top even he can't fit them inside, up to three. What's neat is these things actually show, if you get a crowbar, it sticks out of the zipper hole and an umbrella, he might hang on a snitch on the side, and it shows as you walk around. (What's kind of cool is there is a key ring in the bag, and all keys you get can be checked by clicking on the key ring, so keys never take up more than one space.) In addition to this, there's also a somewhat complex wearing system. If it comes to crawling for instance, and you have to crawl over glass or broken debree, its dangerous, so you need to put gloves on your hands to protect them. Or maybe you need to see better in a super bright area, so you equip the sunglasses and go into look mode to look around and things will now be noticeably less bright. Equipped items, also, of course, don't take up room in the knapsack, but they can erode away to unusefulness if used too much, but only a realistic extent, i.e. the gloves will get pierced, knicked and ripped eventually from all the abuse and will eventually have to be thrown away. There is a rather medical looking diagram of Sudou and where exactly the things he has equipped are draped or worn so you can see what parts of his body would rub or scrape and wear them away in certain instances. All these ideas are carried extensively and to their utmost.

Whew. Okay, next in the menu, there are the options for combining and dismantling. In the combine menu if you pick up one item than can be used in combination with another to create a new item, it is listed as a possible combination with the rest of the necessary items either shown if you have them or with ? if you don't yet. This nicely solves the problem of not having to guess the game's logic and still live you to find the items for the problem at hand. For instance, combining a bar and bandages and lighting with a lighter would produce a torch, but you could also get the same thing if you dismantled an umbrella, and used the handle, its rod, a bandage and a lighter, which affords for perhaps better holding than the bar produced torch. The previously mentioned juice is a function of this idea. (Though of course, you can't dismantle the juice once you've made it like you can the rest of the items.)

Next are the maps, which are the coolest maps ever. Since Sudou is a newspaper writer, he has appropriately newspapery items on hands, like pens and notepads. There are torn pages of a notebook that look totally an A4 notebook currently sold in Japan that I use for my classes, its ridiculously accurate. And you create the map as you go along, when you get to a new place, Sudou draws some rough outlines of the general area, with stuff like street names and borders and buildings. As you explore, he will tear off small yellow 3M notepad stickies and post them to parts with notes of what was there, or blue ones which constitute a place you should investigate. There are all written and stickied and everything like they would be in real life, wrinkled and somewhat blurry or torn, with scriggly handwriting and such. These maps are extremely helpful for getting your bearings as the game puts you in small areas of the greater city one step at a time. He also puts an X and circles it in blue for any water sources on the map as you explore and will also scriggle down red lines for a place you've explored that doesn't allow you to go any farther. Thus, searching new areas, you basically find out which areas you can navigate and which you can't, so you don't have the inconvenience of trying to deal with red herrings you never can solve. You can zoom in the map with the R button and read the notes more detailed by pressing the O button. There are tons of them too, over 40 (the numbers in the notebook even correspond to the order in which he tore them out!) This doesn't include the various item maps you can find, which I'll take about in a minute. Last but not least is the compass, which is a useful 3D guidance system, but the cool thing is, you can find different compasses all over the game that change the appearance of the compass. I've gotten a turtle and R type ship so far! Combined with all this, I've never once felt lossed or frustrated by the size of Zettai Zetsumei Toshi.

Next, readable, recordable and listenable items. If you have a radio or a recorder, and suitable enough battery power, you can record things and listen to them back on. Also, once you find the radio, you can listen to it on various random updates that the news source in main Japan broadcasts for information on how the rescue is going. Why would you need to play recorded stuff? That's a secret I shouldn't spoil. Anyway, readable things show either maps or readable items you've picked up with Resident Evil ish close ups of the actual thing and more readable type if there is anything to read. I've picked up posters, a business card, different maps that show where different buildings are in the city and stuff like restaurant guide magazines. All the puzzles and information you need is scattered in these in a very, very convincing way. Instead of "hmmm, I need the four jewels to pass this door and there's a witch sky writing symbols in the clouds back at the mausoleum" its piecing together diverse bits of information that you could realistically come by in a such a situation.

So with all this, you would think the game would have enough to work with, but throw in the disaster situations, lots of cute character interaction and an attention to detail and reality that borders on the insane, and you've got a game that's much more interactive and complex than I thought it would be. You're not Superman, you're like the hero from Silent Hill, a normal guy in an abnormal situation, so you only have normal guy and normal world solutions to these abnormal situations. It works extremely well, is extremely fresh and new, and I can honestly say I'm so happy to see no box puzzles thus far whatsoever, though I'm sure it could be justified in a game like this, I'm still happy for its lack.

The thing I like most about the game is its attention to detail. If you've ever been to Japan, this is even better than Shenmue (sans extensive character interaction) for showing you what its like. The buses, subways, streets, office buildings, everything is paid great attention to, and better yet many places tell a story with their gameplay, not cutscenes. A while ago I was saying how I wanted more games to make me wonder and set up a world through gameplay, graphics and sound and this one does it.

The biggest theme is the sadness factor of this great huge city where people lived, worked, played and loved being totalled. Finding corpses, checking their pulse, trying to help survivors, reading advertisements, signs, city stuff. In a convenience store, you can look at the time table and see that the owner works more than his hired workers do, and that he tries to maintain a fragile sense of control over this young people who obviously didn't care for his store. Some weirdo has posted an advertisement asking people to contact him, because he's collector of mayonnaise can covers and if they're still using the mayonnaise the better. You can check the toilet and see that the water lines to the place are still running. In the register you find money and can actually take it, if you do and talk to Mari, she'll say, "I didn't just see you steal that money" as if it mattered any more, you can actually put it back out of a guilty conscience and she'll say "Good, because if you did take it, that would have been bad." A window fan lazily continues to waft near the register with rays of sunlight dashed with dust streaming through it as it revolves and manipulates the sunlight and dust. The shelves are almost completely ravaged of all items, doubtlessly from desparate victims eager to get their hands on things useful. An advertisement on the wall advertises of Nitro Power, the popular metal band's summer tour. And this is just the convenience store you can explore. I also like how the game has a sardonic sense of humor, as beautifully (graphic wise) glowing "don't cross" pedestrian signs light across crosswalks as if you're still going to listen to them. Often its said in Japan that the government doesn't make laws, they make suggestions and this can be seen in the little notices besides some streets that say, "A lot of accidents happen here, so please be careful." In one such place, obviously placed to mean regular, ordinary car accidents, the entire street has caved in.

So if its all so good where are the flaws I mentioned? Well, the attention to detail is sometimes scizchophrenic (sp?). Sometimes things you really thought should have been shown or scenes are omitted and left to your imagination (why not show Sudou opening the bus door with his crow bar, instead of showing the door slowly being forced open and then zooming down back to him?) Other times, there are noticeable polygon seams that go through each other, but these are thankfully more rare. Also, the graphics in this game are a mixed bag. The most annoying thing is the slow down, the framerate seems to be fine, but when the game has a whole huge chunk of city to show, the ambition is too much and the game kind of plays in slow motion. I'd liken to good SNES games, games that were great in just about every way, but were hampered by slowdown. It never really effects gameplay, as I never died or got hurt or anything bad happened because of it. However, its still annoying and one wishes between slowdown and ambition, Irem would have chose the safer route. Still, it is admirable that Zettai pretty much shows the largest environments short of ICO and Zone of the Enders I've seen without the slightest hint of pop up or fog (there is haze for items waaaaaay off in the distance, but its appropriate because thats real life, right?.) Other than that, the game often loads new sections with a cut away screen and the loading times aren't bad (about 4 or 5 seconds) but they are noticeable. Luckily, you'll probably never go back and forth between these places and you won't have to deal with it too much. But still it breaks the immersion when it happens. Last, sometimes the game puts you in special situations where you the camera angle is set. And its not always set in the best way. In these cases its often needed to use the first person look to see where you can go so you can navigate things like blind jumps. If this they're idea of disaster gameplay, its not the best one they could have had, but again luckily it doesn't manage to be too annoying. Basically, these are all minor distractions and irritations that don't chafe away at an otherwise superb game, besides the slowdown, which is somewhat more irritation, its Zettai Zetsumei Slow Motion Cam!

Graphics can be quite cool (the opening for instance) but most of the time settle for depicting a city in all its ordinariness. Every once in a while, an a truly inspired camera angle, set of details, lighting, coloring or other such things will brighten up the day, but its not the rule, as it was in ICO. Because the game is often displaying so much in one screen, sometimes textures are blurry and lack detail (the knapsacks tend to be hideous). But other times they are really well detailed and very sharp, so it depends. On the whole, its usually sharp. Characters are well modelled and detailed (as you go on in the game, it will show Sudou and his compatriots getting their close ripped, holes in their pants and shirts, getting cuts and bruises and showing bandages, which is a really cool and noticeable detailed.) What makes up for all this is again the attention to detail, from amusing graffiti to a bus ad for an old Irem game, to the many, many different animations and types of animations the game uses for your characters when its crisis time, from running for their lives, to trying to balance, to crawling desperately, to covering their heads with their hands, to crouching and shivering and so on and so forth. Its also neat how you can get damaged from not bracing yourself and fall down or lose your balance. Music is almost non existance so far and when its there, its, well, there. Nothing too special. Sound effects are also a mixed bag. It doesn't sound like grass when they walk on it, it just sounds bizarre. However, sometimes the game will record each minute thing that falls into the sea and a sound effect of its splash according to its largeness will follow in a rolling echo or the sound of you gulping water. The most graphically impressive stuff is of course, the disasters. With Indiana jones like spheres falling, ropes dangling realistically, whole skyscrapers tumbling down and the land falling into the water beneath the latter you climbs, its often thrilling and breathtaking.

So that's Zettai Zetsumei Toshi. I played for quite a while before I told myself I had to get to sleep for school the next day (until 3:00 in the morning) and I really didn't want to stop. From my estimates, it looks live I've just begun and the game has a long way to go. It will probably be at least longer than ICO, probably as long as MGS2 is what I'm guessing. The most intriguing part so far is, believe it or not, the story. From the very intriguing introduction (why was Sudou's name on the broadcast and not the other characters? Who was the guy with the camcorder?) to further intriguing (why did the rescue team leave you stranded and yet write you a note? What does the cryptic meaning on the dead guy's business card pertain to? Why did Sudou say that the wound of one dead person didn't look like it was caused by an earthquake? Why is the creator of the island still on it? What's with the police car that bursts out of the street and hauls ass at one point?) and really interesting things. Mari has a ticket that says the flight was the 21st, but both her and Sudou say they thought the day was the 20th. There are also other screwed up dates. It would be impossible for them to have been unconscious on the bridge for a full day without it collapsing as it was incredibly instable. And even if that happened, why did nobody save them when everyone else was rescued? I'm not sure whether this develops something really good or not, but right now its definitely mysterious and makes me want to get the bottom of it. Which I think I shall do after my part time job tonight...

Ijou.


- Shou Suzuki
EMail foxspiritshadow