Still the best mecha game ever made. Action is smooth and fun with flashy attacks and a variety of useful subweapons to play with. The artstyle remains perfect and hasn't aged at all. Jehuty and Anubis are still some of the best mechs ever designed. The boss fights are varied and the gimmicks never make the fights annoying. The story is cheesy and fast-paced which fits the game to a T and the poorly directed voice acting combined with the strange dialogue is campy and endearing. The soundtrack remains stellar as well. The only problems worth noting come from the shoddy port. While being in Jehuty's cockpit in VR is cool, the limited view compared to 3rd person is disappointing and not being able to see Jehuty in action takes a lot of the cool factor out of the gameplay. The game starts in VR mode and turns on my headset and starts up steamVR before asking if I want to play in VR mode instead of after which was very annoying. The sound is very quiet and only solvable by changing a setting in the volume mixer and going back to turn it off after I'm done playing the game. Vsync also broke the game entirely and performance was poor at the start of the game for no reason. All that being said, ZoE2 is still fantastic.

I had never heard about this game until I saw news a few months ago that it had gotten a full fan translation, but after reading up on it I knew it would be something I'd absolutely need to give a look. This game is undeniably cool; a driving-based JRPG that is perhaps one of the most soulful games I've ever experienced. I love mostly everything about it from an aesthetic standpoint and I already knew what a fantastic soundtrack it had going in, which certainly did not disappoint. The storytelling is dated but charming, and was absolutely hitting those Initial D vibes that I had secretly hoped it would; hell, the main character even starts the game with a variation of THE CAR so they clearly knew what they were doing in that department.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for actually playing it, which is why this cool piece of gaming history will go unfinished for me. As soon as you feel the car's handling you instantly know it's a little off, and despite many hours of trying to get the hang of things, the end result was that I couldn't vibe with it. Races can be absolutely brutal as well, with even minor bumps into obstacles or other vehicles sending your car to a screeching halt and ruining all chance of catching up. The game demands almost absolute perfection from you, unless you want to do the classic JRPG staple of grinding (in this case for better car parts), which I might have been down for if the game was more fun or approachable. Sadly, it wasn't, so while I personally couldn't see this through to the end, your mileage may vary.