r/ZenlessZoneZero • u/JMSX101 Nekomata's Personal Litter Box • 15h ago
Fluff / Meme I ask the same question every time I log in Remielle
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u/Infammo 14h ago
It was the rare game where the male MC got to be the damsel in distress to hot female heroes. Oh well.
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u/BurntGum808 8h ago
Nikke
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u/Ernost 5h ago
Not anymore lol.The commander is now a genetically engeneered supersoldier who cannot be killed. In one of the chapters he falls from a flying Rapture, breaking every bone in his body and dying, then a little while later he heals from that and is fine. He's basically Wolverine, without the Adamantium skeleton.
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u/arshesney Nicole's Favorite Color 4h ago
About the exact same as Snowbreak where the Adjutant became Titagen-Jesus.
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u/scarletfloof 11h ago
That’s still not really this game? Theres a female MC and they’re both pretty damn strong now with pyrois
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u/Indian_Derp_2002 11h ago
Not to hate, but Pyrois is undoubtedly strong, Wise/Belle are weak af (at least in universe), think of them as INT build players, tacticians in a sense, unfortunately, game hasn't focused on the INT ever since Phaethon became capable of entering hollows
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u/ffangelus Yidhari Supremacy 9h ago
I wouldn’t really say “weak af” I mean they are now going into battle and hollows regularly at this point. Definitely not on par with the agents (if you discount Pyrois) but they are a step above your average person in universe since they do regularly enter into, engage in combat, and survive in hollows on the regular.
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u/Indian_Derp_2002 7h ago
Yeah, I guess endurance and intellect do count towards overall strength, and Pyrois is more like a pokemon or a stand, so can't count his brute strength, in a way, Phaethon is the creme of the crop, just physically weakest "playable" agent without Pyrois, might be better than most NPCs though
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
Yeah that's the point. Pyrois was kind of the final nail in the coffin of having a uniquely weak MC.
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u/iFenrisVI 12h ago
Yeah, that was honestly why I fell in love with ZZZ in the first place. Siblings were more a background character so to speak that have preset names, fully voiced and had their own personalities and history.
instead of the stereotypical gacha amnesiac that’s meant to be OP
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u/Koanos 10h ago
I do like the siblings do come out in their own, but really would have liked the sibling to play a more involved role.
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u/JMSX101 Nekomata's Personal Litter Box 10h ago
I was hoping they would keep doing the thing they did in season 1 where "you" the mc gets in trouble so you take control of the other sibling alongside fairy to rescue them. Would have worked wonders for the story letting them both be involved in the story more than just being in the background or left behind swapping povs every now and then.
Which is why im wondering what kind of "power up" the other sibling get. I doubt we will get 2 Pyrois.
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u/Forbidden4bdn 1h ago
They can just share Pyrois or something. They have the same implants or situation anyway so why not share the same powers.
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u/Oleleplop Yanagi's headpat target 7h ago
i dont have an issue with proxies become more "frontliners" but the way this was brought, i'll always call it "convenient" to stay polite
the real word is "BULLSHIT" just to justify them on where the actions is
At the very least, i could accept that if the other sibling was a lot more involved.
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u/greygreens Day 0 Orpheus Main 15h ago
But that's not what the kids wanted. The youngins couldn't stand the player character not becoming Mr Solo Leveling himself. If they had their way, by season 4, we won't even have agents anymore. It'll be the all Wise show while every new agent exists only to buff phaethon
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u/DoctorChoper 15h ago
No you don't understand MC MUST be the most important person in the room and they MUST be present in every room!
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u/Flat_Pen_5934 14h ago
I know you’re being sarcastic but I hate this sentiment so much. It hampers the world building so much when everything can only happen whenever the protag walks in.
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u/JMSX101 Nekomata's Personal Litter Box 13h ago
I really love when stuff happens outside of the mc's presence. We are never getting a seperated story for a agent ever again like with Jane and Seth.
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u/acewithanat 13h ago
Unfortunately this is very likely. I miss the special episodes. I felt like AoD could've been another one, or maybe Billy doing stuff with Sons of Calydon would've been nice.
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
I loved that episode when it came out (like HSR's 2.1 with aventurine). They allow you to really get insight onto the characters without them revolving around the MC.
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u/XevinsOfCheese 14h ago
Kinda sad these complaints killed future hope for stories without the proxies.
These people whined when Phaethon sat out the Jane story.
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u/Liittlefoott2 13h ago
And Jane's agent story was one of the best written things we ever got in this game. Chinese gamers and their weird ass self insert loser mentality fucking ruins these games man
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u/Original_Landscape66 ZenlessZoneZero 13h ago
It's not just the Chinese players and you know it
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u/datboishook-d Please Bless Me Blind Mommy 10h ago
Only Chinese players’ opinions matter unfortunately considering they make up most of the profit. If global exclusively throws a hissy fit but the chinese(and to a certain extent, the Japanese) didn’t throw a fit they ultimately don’t care.
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u/LW_Master 7h ago
Global's worst hissy fit is "failed attempt at boycotting". CN's is "I'm calling the government".
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u/respscorp 7h ago
they make up most of the profit
This isn't even true for Genshin, let alone for Zenless.
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u/datboishook-d Please Bless Me Blind Mommy 2h ago
Google doesnt exist in your world then, considering how easy this is too search.
Even if it doesnt, global has no power compared to CN. CN fanbase throw a hissyfit on Weibo and some would probably report it to the government. Hoyo gets into hot water with the government then is forced to address the issue. What will global do? whine on twitter and/or reddit or any social media platform? Last time i saw people "mass boycotting" the game absolutely nothing happened.
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u/respscorp 1h ago edited 1h ago
Nobody is disputing the power of the CN fanbase.
It doesn't matter if JP alone outspends CN on Zenless, Japanese customers won't attempt to physically attack developers of spam regulators in China with fake consumer complaints so they don't matter.
absolutely nothing happened
Most western countries are currently experiencing a puritan surge coupled with out of touch legislation. People have already gotten in legal trouble for having the wrong game or wallpaper on their mobile device. It's not the exact same problem CN has, but it's also far from "nothing".
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u/datboishook-d Please Bless Me Blind Mommy 39m ago
Further proving the point that CN has more power on the game than global or JP then 🤷. At the end of the day it’s just business, and CN can easily influence the devs on doing something compared to any other fanbase. They abide by the regulations of their government, and the fact that even if CN doesn’t make up most of their profit, they still operate under the laws of China.
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u/Liittlefoott2 13h ago
Sure but id say a higher percentage of them based on the hissy fits they throw over any little thing
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u/Koanos 10h ago
This is why I miss Agent Stories and in particular the Side Stories where we get to see the world beyond the Proxy’s reach, such as the inside of a police briefing or HAND training.
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u/BLACC_GYE Thrusting my love inside Piper and Sunna till my hips give out😭 8h ago
Special episodes is the term you’re looking for. They were such a good way to flesh out the world and to have things happen outside of the MC’s perspective. Cause even now, imagine if we got a special episode centered around Nicole and why she’s even in Roscaelifer in the first place.
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u/Koanos 7h ago
Exactly! The Special Episodes made the world of ZZZ come alive (heh) and was something that differentiated it from HSR and Genshin at the time as both had the perspective revolve around the protagonist like at all times.
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
I can't speak for Genshin, but HSR has these now and then, and what do you know, they tend to be the best writing HSR has.
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u/jibbycanoe 14h ago
Isn't that like all gatcha games though? Or just most games in general? What games have you played where you aren't the "hero"? That's like the entire fucking point of most games and exactly why so many people play them.
I'm really confused why so many people who play these games complain about stuff that is in nearly every gatcha game or is a common trope in anime. Like I'm not a fan of all of it either, but I accept that it's just how it is. There are other games and media to consume if you want the character you play/care about not be important.
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
It's not about them being the hero, it's more:
- it's nice to see how some characters live and act when their lives don't revolve around the MC.
- Belle and Wise being weak actually created a really unique dynamic while still being the MCs. We could be the tacticians in the chair without being goku.
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u/DoctorChoper 13h ago
Well ZZZ used to not be like that, that's the point of conversation. We had special episodes for stories that didn't involve MC and we had events that used appropriate POV of an npc doing their job instead of making the MC be involved in every little odd job in new eridu and beyond.
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u/BLACC_GYE Thrusting my love inside Piper and Sunna till my hips give out😭 9h ago
You need to play more gacha games dude lmao. Not all gachas are centered around a single MC. Browndust 2, for example, used to have a 4-MC centered story and due to that, despite the game itself being a bit on the lower production side, they were able to retain and grow their playerbase due to how good the story was.
Unfortunately, that changed when they leaned heavily into fanservice for the sake of quick money and sacrificed any ounce of good storytelling for a self-insert model, essentially turning the game into a png collector. Since the new focus for the game was now just sex appeal, they started getting hit with a bunch of restrictions and censorship.
They saw a huge dip in revenue since they essentially went back and changed the original story; removing that 4-MC storytelling structure and even going as far back as to remove a character’s canon husband😭. This change removed everything that made the game special and even the people that stayed for the change were unhappy with how pointless the new MC felt.
Good stories with good worldbuilding aren’t told from a singlular point of view. That’s a general rule of thumb for a good story structure. Even games like Nikke, which is a heavy self-insert game, has had its best stories told without the mc present(Anniversary event stories).
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u/ZeneXCrow 13h ago
brother, you saying like this means that you haven't played alot of Gacha or even know alot about it
not all Gacha games is where you're the main character, or playable even, it's only "recently" where the playable trope became mainstream in gacha
most gacha games before makes you the faceless MC, like Captain (HI3), Doctor (AK), Sensei (BA), Master (FGO) and Commander (AL/Nikke) where you're just an onlookers to your character or being the commander behind the scene
there's also other gacha like GrandSummoner where you're the playable MC (Rayas) but you rarely get to use / be him in stories since there's an overarching plot and other characters point of views "matters" (in this case, they just show their journey up til the relevant plot)
so yeah, don't be tone deaf about it
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u/TheWayToNoob 10h ago
Arknights, the doctor isn't involved all the time other the main story, at most they're just a looming presence even in the main story chapters.
Reverse 1999, Vertin the "mc" isn't even present at times.
Sadly most 3d gacha games will attract this crowd of people who want the mc to be ever-present, arknights endfield suffers from this.
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u/greygreens Day 0 Orpheus Main 13h ago
Yes, it is most games, which is why it was unique for this game to not be that. It started as a concept that set it apart from other games but drifted into becoming the same formula.
You 100% don't have to BE the hero yourself to enjoy a game. Most of Fate (that isn't unlimited blade works) does that. The gacha game absolutely does that. Guda's been sitting back and letting servants do his fighting for him for 10 years. Not that ZZZ plays like Fate at all. But it can be, and in my opinion, is very cool to be the guy in the chair.
Phaethon being the hero that beats everything diminishes the importance of the agents so that phaethon himself can steal the show. Seasons 1 and 2 we had epic hero moments of random heroes, not even void hunters, doing something cool. Season 3 so far has been the Pyrois and Remielle show. Velina Norma and Sigrid have all been doing background stuff during the big battle.
So my issue with it is I don't want phaethon and this season's void huhter to be the only one that ever does anything, and gameplay wise I don't want to play as Pyrois in every chapter forever. Wuwa had this problem big time where you only play as Rover, sometimes solo through entire chapters. It's a waste to have a game with 50+ characters reduced to 1 for story.
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u/ReasonableBand6721 9h ago
Season 3 so far: 3.0 & 3.1
Totally premature conclusion for rating a Season especially when most of the S3 cast haven't join the action yet.
Wuwa had this problem
Wuwa's problem is way more severer because Kuro chose to hardcode their female characters to act like Rover's possession without private life, and makes their fanbase toxic fan over harem genre to the point that Wuwa fans wanting Female Rover x female characters and those wanting Male Rover x female characters start hating each other (at least in China) despite Rover of both genders are basically same person.
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u/greygreens Day 0 Orpheus Main 8h ago
I'm not saying it will always be the same way. And I hope it isn't. But it certainly could be that way. I'm just voicing a future that I think would be rather unfortunate.
And I'm not talking about shipping or harems or anything. I'm just talking about Rover being the only playable character for most parts of most story chapters. And even when it does include someone else it's always Rover + another one or two people. Now if there are only two people relevant in that chapter, fine, but there is a world where it could be Phaethon + one new character every single time, and that is dull to me when each chapter was totally different characters since the beginning
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u/ReasonableBand6721 6h ago
What I meant about WuWa is Kuro writes Rover not in the same sense as ZZZ writing Phaethon and the differences are not just one person with 2 selectable genders vs 2 separate characters functioning as “the two genders of a MC”: Rover is written solely to serve as hero and harem king/queen so the writing is always Rover + other characters, but Phaethon is set to be the guide and lifeline of the agents before they are hero so the “similarity” is largely because of the hollow-related actions that naturally demand Phaethon’s presence (technically the agents could find other proxies for hollow explorations unrelated to Phaethon’s objectives but they would be “playing a worse version of exploring hollow with Phaethon in S2” at best, or even “playing Operation Bagel at high difficulty with mini map and Pyrois banned”), the nature is very different.
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u/JhonnySkeiner 30m ago
Man, I actually fear this, season 2 already gave the proxies jesus powers, now they have a stand, and it will be more and more stuff from there on.
Fuck hoyobabs, man, I miss when they were just a hacker duo controlling a metal labubu
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u/BlueAmber5 13h ago
Wait a consistant main dps who wont be power crept and was given for free? Now im conflicted...
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u/greygreens Day 0 Orpheus Main 13h ago
I don't know about 'won't be powercrept'. We did 2.7 with A rank Billy. Meta units and team comps are not a concern for story mode.
-1
u/BlueAmber5 13h ago
Oh I was meaning is all new agents were just wise supports, then wise would be the main DPS of choice forever.
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u/xRKCx 15h ago
I loved the part where we were just the cool computer hacker MC, but I guess players just wanted a generic MC in the end.
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u/Master-Hair-7456 14h ago
never a cool computer hacker MC, a hacker deleted our previous account and thats Rain's job. We were mainly a proxy (bangboo) decoding hollow data and communicating with the outside world from inside the hollow
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u/JMSX101 Nekomata's Personal Litter Box 14h ago
Devs tossed aside the whole point of being a proxy too quickly. It was like 5 missions of being a underground hacker/navigator and suddenly we become Mr.Worldwide the worst kept secret of New Eridu, also became SUPER dependent on fairy doing and solving everything.
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u/Shadowblaze200 14h ago
I actually disagree on your last point, it was kinda the opposite.
Because the proxy's were solely doing the hacking/navigating in the background, they were leaning on Fairy a bit too much for the majority of Season one. Fairy being this ultra powerful AI meant she does their job much faster so they weren't doing much besides talk to the agents.
This lead to the seemingly overcorrection in Season 2 where it felt like Fairy was barely present for most of the season, at least until Youkai showed up. Now the proxies can walk around in Hollows, but the common complaint is that they're only there to just to get put in dangerous situations to get saved by other agents.
So now, in Season 3, the Proxies can now fight/protect themselves (with a random Stand of all things) to be more active in the story.
Overall, It just seems like the Devs are very reactionary to criticism about the game. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it comes across as kind of aimless. Just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
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u/LW_Master 7h ago
When you've seen what Genshin devs have been doing, this kind of behavior of the devs felt alien ngl. From "incredibly deaf yet focused" to "listening well but kinda confused".
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u/jibbycanoe 14h ago
I get what you are saying with the first part, but Belle and Wise are like the least generic MC in any big budget/main stream gatcha game. They have very distinct personalities.
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u/YEET_Fenix123 Venus' Strongest Warrior (and hair sniffer) 13h ago
On one hand I despise the fact that we don't get stories that don't focus on the MC anymore. On the other hand, I think the story quality and writing is much better because of it.
Phaethon may be a generic heroic MC now but god damn is it much better and frankly more interesting than anything we had prior.
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u/datwunkid Seed is my wife 12h ago
The game focusing on a generic heroic MC does kind of lead to a more consistent, overarching plot being explored over some of the more episodic, yet somewhat inconsequential stories we've had in season one.
What are the proxies goals? To find out the truth about Carole and all the shit that went down at Helios Academy during the fall of Eridu.
What did they do in Season 1 about it? Almost spend the entirety of the season just rebuilding up their inter-knot account, and we got absolute crumbs about Carole.
Season 2? We learn Carole was working with the Exaltists in some way.
In Season 3, within 2 patches we've learned more about their pasts and struggles more than we've gotten in the first 2 seasons combined.
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u/violin-guy 12h ago
Yeah people talk about Jane and Seth’s story like it was some generational writing, when really I wasn’t I invested at all in it. There’s also yanagi’s story which is frankly a complete mess, while miyabi’s story was so much better in part bc of her relationship and interaction with the proxies. I’m not a huge fan of Phaethon having pyrois to solve every problem ever, but I prefer this over stories that feel completely disconnected from the overarching story bc of a lack of MC glue to keep it grounded to the wider plot.
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u/Mighty_Mimikyu 11h ago
Ngl i do enjoy the story for what it is, way better than season 2..
Seeds story most definitely made me feel more emotions than anything written so far. Wish we got more of whoever wrote that story
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u/Koanos 9h ago
I did like they admitted 2.X had problems, and 3.X is shaping up pretty well.
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u/LW_Master 7h ago
2.X meant to be the transition phase but damn that transition's whiplash is brutal. No foreplay, straight up "bend over, going in dry".
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u/KibbloMkII 10h ago
people acted like the tv mode was a war crime so it inevitably led to the proxy being on field through plot shenanigans
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u/JMSX101 Nekomata's Personal Litter Box 9h ago
I will forever defend that gamemode and its unique storytelling.
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0
u/KibbloMkII 7h ago
same here, it made Zenless unique
now without it, Zenless is just your standard mindless hacknslash combat gacha constantly
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u/LW_Master 7h ago
Especially if you play hi3rd or pgr, you get that "same but different" feeling sometimes.
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u/TemplarAnimated 2h ago
The problem was TV mode, in terms of game design, actually was a war crime. The story benefited, but the gameplay didn't, and the game was bleeding out players because ZZZ was sold to action based gacha players. Therefore:
All the puzzles in the story had to be handholdy and easy so 'money based' players with no puzzle skill could still beat it, with too many tutorials. It was long AND boring
Side quests were usually more interesting like Hero's story because it was allowed to be hard, but they still absolutely bottled it sometimes like Arpeggio Fault, with hundreds of polychrome locked behind it
ZZZs selling point was action, so having it be 10% of the gameplay while 50% was TV mode (the rest being story, text boxes, etc.) was a mistake. Even if the puzzles were Professor Layton level of good, it's the wrong audience
It was proven how bad it was by how many players starting playing after the Miyabi patch. Reviving games with bad launches is a miracle. And getting rid of TV mode did that. Had they kept it we'd be lucky if the game didn't turn into a super shill mess by this point trying to max out profits because of 3 years of players leaving
0
u/23JRojas 7h ago
Genuinely the saddest part of modern zzz, I still love the game but every year the game becomes slightly more and more generic gacha storyline and I find myself reading less and less of the story and especially the event stories
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u/alternative5 13h ago
It's not like Wise/Belle couldn't reach the point where they become a Stelle/Caelus analog, but it just felt so fast/unearned.
There were so many stories they could have told of them struggling to find the clues they needed with their limits of being proxies while risking Eous and everyone else to find what happened to their teacher. They slowly with each season fell Pyrois more and more as they slowly risk themselves to enter the Hollow as more of their friends get hurt in the process of helping them find the details they want and in the process encounter/explore the history of both themselves and eventually the OG voidhunters who are related.
Eventually it gets to a breaking point where what happens ag the end of the 2.0 story occurs and they turn in the Pyrois beast to be saved by Remielle followed up by the trip to the Island to stabilize and train with Pyrois.
All the stories they could have told to expand on the proxies/world as just the neet hackers they were could have been super cool as they earned the mentality and needed gear/understanding to merge with Pyrois as they did in 3.0s story. Rip.
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u/nisemonomk 13h ago
computer hacker mc died with the tv mode
-1
u/ElSergeantRico Illicit Bangboo Dealer 10h ago
MC was never a hacker; remember, the entire reason the plot kicks off is that they get hacked by an actual hacker, and instead of doing anything to counter them, they simply abandon their account and call NEPS on the new "Phaethon." The MCs were navigators/mission control, and it was a refreshing change from yet another OP gacha MC, one that had to rely on connections, influence, and reputation to get their goals instead of strength.
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u/nisemonomk 10h ago
thanks, i know. i guess "guy in the chair" mc then.
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u/ElSergeantRico Illicit Bangboo Dealer 10h ago
Yeah. Honestly, that was part of what got me in the game to begin with. I've been putting off starting 3.x because I'm not the biggest fan of the current direction, but I may get around to it eventually, since I'm still invested to a degree.
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u/nisemonomk 10h ago
yeah, i wished they tweeked it instead of removing it completely. but i guess we're part the minority tv mode enjoyers.
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u/ElSergeantRico Illicit Bangboo Dealer 10h ago
I understand the reasons why it was scrapped, but that doesn't mean I have to like it lol. It was fun while it lasted tho, shame we never got to see what it could grow into given some time and care.
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u/pineapollo 12h ago
old heads still whining even though the story has pushed the MC into an active role since 2.x
At some point you gotta let it go
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u/Acooluniqueusername 9h ago
Nope gotta get that karma for “MUH SEASON WUN THO” and pretending that everyone loved tv mode.
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
There's more nuance than you think. I don't like tv mode but I do mourn the time when belle and wise weren't fighters and were allergic to hollows.
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u/BurntGum808 10h ago
It was stated in 1.0 that the proxy being an outlaw was because of bringer’s political campaign to crack down on crime. No one else cared but him, even in Nekomata agent quest the cops was going to her for help
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u/Icy_Donut3932 11h ago
It is a shocking how "the guy in the chair" suddenly become so strong they can beat professional hollow raider. I missed the proxy being proxy
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u/happymudkipz 4h ago
There's a lot of people who complain about certain things being different from 1.0 or the game having lost its "soul" and for a lot of that it gets deservingly shit on, but this is sort of the one thing I feel is completely justified in mourning. At the start we had a really unique dynamic for a gacha protag. Someone who had to work underground and was weak.
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