Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: NemoTheCaptain

The magical machine came down to earth, Megatron.

Twenty years ago today, the space mecha game "Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner" (hereinafter referred to as "ZOE2") was released on PS2. This work is released by Konami, developed by Hideo Oshima team, GONZO is responsible for 2D animation, gold one horse cameo design, forming an unprecedented all-star lineup. As the first game to take the performance of PS2 to the limit, the overwhelming battle scene of "ZOE2" is comparable to that of PS3, an epic game that players remember to this day.

It should be noted that the official translation of "Metal Gear Solid" in China is "hidden dragon spy shadow". Although "Zone of the Enders" is habitually called the "ultimate zone", there is actually no official translation in China. The word "Enders" refers to "people living at the end of space", and the real meaning of "Zone of the Enders" is "frontier zone" or "limit zone". Because there is no uniform translation of the title in China, this paper does not translate the title, only the abbreviation "ZOE".

It all started when the Gao Da gaming community habitually referred to Hideo Kojima's team as the "Kojima Group". From 1996 to 2004, the Kojima Group was affiliated with KCEJ (Konami computer Entertainment Japan) and was based in the town of Huibuishou, Tokyo. Konami uses a spin-off listing structure at this stage, and KCEJ, as a subsidiary, needs to ensure that a number of games are listed every year. As a result, KCEJ needs more games to fill the gap in addition to the longest development cycle of the Stealth Dragon series, including the mainframe version of the music game "Beatmania" series and the heartbeat memory theater version of the love game series in the form of interactive movies.

Hideo Kojima is so interested in space and mecha that he doesn't have time to watch every animation in the "Gunda" series, but he is still the first "Gunda" audience. Kojima was full of praise for the animation when it was broadcast on television on behalf of Gao Da in early 1979. With the passage of time, in the early 1990s, Kojima focused on the development of the interactive film game Cosmic Mounted Police. Kato, a famous designer of the "Gunda" series, has built a complete world view of the Cosmos Mounted Police, which is no less detailed than any sci-fi animation. However, the protagonist of the Cosmos Rangers is a detective, and the mecha EMPS designed by Kato only debut as an enemy, which is not a mecha game.

Seifang Nishimura, a veteran EMPS animator in Cosmos, was in charge of "Gao Da X" in 1996. he joined the island group in 1997 and participated in the character action and illustration work of the original "hidden dragon spy film". The veteran provided the foundation for the Kojima group to develop their own mecha games.

Nishimura's illustration of "Dragon Bourne" at that time, KCEJ had about 80 developers in Ebisu, Hideo Oshima's "Dragon Bourne" team had 30 people, and Okamura's "Beatmania" and "Heart memory Theatre version" team had 50 people. Okamura used to be the chief programmer of the Cosmos Mounted Police and won the trust of Kojima. During the development of "Dragon Bourne" on the island, Okamura slightly improved the engine of "Cosmic Mounted Police" for the "heartbeat memory Theater version" trilogy. Among them, the first "Rainbow Youth" and the second "Love of Color" were directed by Okamura himself. The third "poem of departure" handed over the position of director to others, and Okamura was only involved in a small number of programs and performances.

Katsuaki Okamura, who is a little tired of the Theatre version of heartbeat, wants to develop an original game. Hideo Oshima approved this request, and the person in charge of Nishimura set up the work. Okamura's proposal in 1998 is called "Nine Yao Wars", which is an RPG. The game takes the fantasy style of ancient Japan as the stage, and the protagonists and heroines are monks and witches. Okamura has finished writing a draft script, but a game cannot only have a plot. Okamura, who has no experience in RPG development, cannot conceive a system for "Nine Yao Wars." as a result, the proposal was shelved, but the looks of the leading actors and actresses are fixed at this stage.

Since then, Okamura has turned this book into a space mecha game, and the code name has also changed from "Nine Yao Wars" to "Atlantis." The hero Leo is a driver, the heroine Sylar is a princess of a small country on earth, and the villain Viola is the leader of space pirates. Viola kidnapped the princess. Leo fought a fierce battle with the pirates to save Sylar. Ida, the artificial intelligence on the mecha, provided Leo with help in the battle.

The concept map of Atlantis, Atlantis, already has a prototype of "ZOE", establishing the name of the character and the relationship between ourselves and the enemy. However, the character at this time is still a far cry from "ZOE": Leo is brave, Sylar is grumpy, and Viola is a funny clown. Only the clever and simple Ida has not changed and is completely retained in "ZOE".

The plot style of "Atlantis" is similar to ancient animations such as "Time Bokan" and "Crusher Joe". It is full of comedy and is very different from the serious "ZOE". In addition, the machine armor setting of the game is vulgar and lacks eye-catching features. Hideo Kojima then sent KCEJ's strongest art, Yoshiji Shinagawa, to the rescue.

Xinchuan unearthed several drafts from his school days, including a wolf-headed body and a bird-headed body. The wolf's head is called Anubis, taken from the Egyptian god who guides the undead. It was at this moment that Atlantis became ZOE. When he was a student, Shinagawa did not understand Egyptian mythology. He just thought that the image of the wolf head was very handsome, but this picture gave Okamura more inspiration.

Wolf-headed body and Bird-headed body called Fortune ("Lucky" or "Fortune") in the draft, is the old enemy of Anubis. Okamura thought that Thoth, the god of wisdom in Egyptian mythology, was also a bird-head human body, so he gave the alias Jehuty of Thoth to the bird-head body. According to this idea, Xinchuan gradually moved the body closer to the image of the crested ibis according to the mythological system.

In Egyptian mythology, the undead need to be judged by Libra before entering the underworld. Anubis puts the heart of the undead and feathers representing truth at both ends of Libra, and Thoth is responsible for recording the results. If the undead are good, the heart will be lighter than the feathers, and the dead can enter the underworld. The heart of the villain is heavier than the feather, and his soul will be swallowed by the crocodile mouth of Warcraft Aumaan.

Libra's trial, from left to right, conceived a "ZOE" worldview for the villages of Anubis, Aumaan and Thothgang based on this myth. Jehuty and Anubis are twin machines built at the same time and equal in performance, and these two bodies are also the keys to start the space fortress Aumaan, whose power can change the fate of the entire solar system and judge all mankind. "ZOE" also refers to part of Hebrew mythology. Metatron means "servant of God" in Hebrew and is used to refer to powerful angels. Metatron in "ZOE" is a cool techs mineral from space, which is used in basic materials, energy, space compression and quantum computers, greatly accelerating the efficiency of human space development. Metatron can even react with the human body and eventually change a person's mind. This mysterious mineral seems to have its own life and will. The armor made of Metatron is as powerful as the gods, and its driver is called the "messenger of the gods" (Runner).

Floating Battle Yoji Niigawa believes that most Japanese mechs are limited by joints and screws, and their movements are stiff, and players are not flexible enough to operate after turning into a game. Xinchuan's armor often has bionic elements and is more flexible, such as Rex in the original Stealth Dragon Bourne, which looks and acts like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The performance of the PS host is limited, and Rex is still a square iron pimple. In the PS2 era, thanks to functional evolution, the bodies in "Stealth Dragon Bourne 2" and "ZOE" are more rounded, with body joints similar to marine creatures such as lobsters or crabs.

Rex Shinagawa in the Stealth Dragon Bourne doesn't like the mecha clattering on the ground like a duck, which is hilarious. As a marine airframe, Rex in "submersible Dragon Bourne" was forced to adopt the design of big feet, while Ray in "submersible Dragon Bourne 2" removed the soles of the feet in order to reduce diving resistance. Most of the ZOE body floats in the air through anti-gravity technology, so there is no need to walk. The legs are directly reduced to a pair of cones, which only exist as attitude-changing thrusters, and the aircraft does not leave footprints on the ground when it lands, only two fine scratches.

The body of Jehuty is engraved with grooves in which Metatron's flickering green energy circulates like a breathing lamp, as if the Jehuty is no longer a cold body, but a living creature that continues to breathe. In the case of serious injury, the green energy will turn red, reminding players of remaining durability. As the Jehuty moved, the bright flash of the fuselage left an impressive shadow on the screen.

In terms of capabilities, Jehuty can use traditional weapons such as lasers and missiles, or it can make a ball of air with empty hands like the Saiyan in Dragonball. Miyamu Yigui, a veteran designer who participated in "Super time and Space Fortress," believes that according to the usual classification of Japanese animation, "Gunda" and other "real-life" animations evoke the audience's sense of reality through real-world designs such as gun barrel and missile cabin, while "super-series" animations such as "Devil Z" do not need to consider realistic design. The body structure of "ZOE" is suitable for the space environment, and from this point of view, its design is "real system". However, the overall appearance full of mythological style gives people a sense of "super system", which can be said to be original.

Hand-rubbing Jehuty, although the body and worldview of "ZOE" are unique, these are elements reflected in the background setting. As a PS2 game, the content of "ZOE" is very scarce. It takes only three or four hours for players to clear customs for the first time, and the tasks are mainly escort, rescue and bomb disposal, and there are few parts that can shake off their baggage and fight happily.

In the plot, most of the characters lack personality, and the protagonist Leo is a cowardly teenager who hates fighting, who accidentally boarded the Jehuty and defeated one opponent after another by virtue of the performance advantage of the body. This story has been staged too many times in Japanese animation. The only characters that really shine in front of players are the villain Viola and artificial Intelligence Ida.

Viola lost everything in the long war, leaving only endless emptiness in her heart. it was not until she turned into cosmic dust that she found the peace she had not seen for a long time. Ida is an artificial intelligence carried by Jehuty, which constantly provides intelligence to players through voice in combat. As a quantum computer, Ida has lightning speed and thinking ability, but its personality is as simple as a child, forming a sharp sense of contrast.

Artificial intelligence like Ida, Viola's 3D model in the game, is not uncommon in science fiction animation, but the game is unique as an interactive media, and it is not easy to provide a large amount of voice intelligence in combat. Only a handful of masterpieces such as Ace Air Battle 4 and Halo achieved this at that time.

Okamura said that the inspiration for interacting with Ida was originally inspired by the experience of developing the theatrical version of heartbeat memory, but he didn't want to portray Ida as a tangible character, so Ida became a voice-only computer program. In Japanese animation, the messengers who provide voice intelligence for the protagonists are often women, this arrangement has become vulgar, and the invisible Ida has got rid of the conventions.

As for the final Boss--Anubis, it is a strong enemy that players cannot defeat in "ZOE". Anubis can use space compression for teleportation, Jehuty needs to install a complete driver to unlock this ability, there is no driver Jehuty can only flee, the game in such a hasty state ushered in the end, waiting for the completion of the sequel.

Anubis's official set map PS2 version of "ZOE" was released in March 2001, with sales of 120000 in Japan and 800000 worldwide. As a machine A game, it seems impossible for Europe and the United States to far surpass Japan in sales. Even the "Gunda" series of games have never been sold in Europe and the United States. In fact, most players buy "ZOE" only for the trial version of "Stealth Dragon Bourne 2", which is the truth that the game is selling well in Europe and the United States. In the end, the proportion of sales of "Dragon Bourne 2" in Japan, Europe and the United States is similar to that of "ZOE", which is much higher than that of Japan.

Even without talking about the lack of process and plot, "ZOE" does not satisfy the players on the screen. As a gorgeous mecha game, the special effects of this game are insufficient and the image is too dark. Seifang Nishimura, the art director of "ZOE", is not familiar with the 3D lighting environment, and KCEJ did not develop a tailor-made engine for "ZOE", but directly used the engine of "Dragon Bourne 2". Such a decision, on the one hand, is to save time, on the other hand, it is also convenient for the development of Qianlong Bourne 2. Hideo Oshima said that ZOE experimented with a lot of ideas, saving time for "Dragon Bourne 2", such as scratches on the ground in "ZOE" and roller skates with the same special effects code.

The picture of "ZOE" is too dark. On the whole, the development team of "ZOE" can only be regarded as the second team of KCEJ, while "Dragon Bourne 2" is the first team. Several veterans, such as Yoji Niigawa, span two projects, but their main focus is on "Stealth Dragon Bourne 2" rather than "ZOE". Hideo Kojima, as a producer of "ZOE", mainly works on editing trailers for games and has little participation in actual development. It is expected that the inexperienced second team came up with such a result. Director Ken Okamura thought he had completed the task told by his superiors, and he was ready to develop a sequel, but it came as a bolt from the blue.

The second emissary, Akira Okamura, conceived a tragic ending for "ZOE2": Leo drove Jehuty into the Aumaan fortress to fight Anubis, the battle between the two bodies triggered the energy reaction inside the fortress, all the Metatron technology products of the solar system stopped in an instant, and mankind lost this new technology. The two bodies became scrap iron. Leo backed up Ida's recorded data through the CD, but without the quantum computer, Ida fell into a state of shutdown forever, and the CD became data that Leo could not read.

After the release of "ZOE", the team took a short holiday, and then they participated in the development of "hidden dragon spy film 2" as reinforcements, all of which had nothing to do with Ken Okamura. Yoshioka Yoshioka, president of KCEJ, said that several developers of ZOE thought that Okamura was unkind and too strict with his subordinates, and they asked ZOE2 to change its director, and the president agreed to this request.

The fully evolved "ZOE2" island, as the vice president of KCEJ, has a good personal relationship with Okamura, and he wants to keep Okamura around. However, Yoshioka believes that the Shinjuku branch of KCEJ, which develops animated games, is in urgent need of a producer, and he asked Okamura to transfer from Huibishou to Shinjuku. The vice president could not change the president's order, so Okamura had to pack his bags and leave.

Okamura has been working for Kojima since he graduated from college. He never thought he would leave the island one day. This arrangement was like a thunderstorm to him. In July 2003, when KCEJ's Ebisu and Shinjuku departments merged in Rakamagi District, Okamura returned to the island, when "ZOE2" directed by others had been released, and missing the sequel became Okamura's everlasting regret.

Let's go back to 2001, and with the "ZOE" team as reinforcements, "Dragon Bourne 2" was released as planned at the end of 2001. Ueda said that "Dragon Bourne 2" was his favorite work in the series. He had just finished developing "ICO" and saw the huge mecha Ray in "Dragon Bourne 2". He was shocked by the amazing sense of volume and inspired him to make Wanda and the Colossus.

After the release of Ray "Dragon Bourne 2" in "Dragon Bourne 2", the island group took a short break and then launched a crazy multi-opening program, including the handheld sketch game "our Sun", the expansion film "Dragon Bourne 2: entity", the orthodox sequel "Dragon Bourne 3" and "ZOE2". Kojima prioritizes the four games: "our Sun" and "Dragon Bourne 2: entity" are small-scale projects; "Dragon Bourne 3" is large, but it is still in the early experimental stage in 2002 and will not take up much manpower; the absolute focus of the island group in 2002 is "ZOE2". This time, Kojima handed over the strongest team to "ZOE2", and he hoped to make up for all the regrets of the previous work.

With regard to the director of "ZOE2", the first person recommended by the team was Yoji Shinagawa. At that time, Heart of the Kingdom was about to be released, and Nomura's experience of turning from an art to a director inspired the team. However, Xinchuan himself refused this arrangement. he is not a person who is good at managing the team, and the work of the art team leader alone is busy enough. In the end, Murata Zhou Yangcheng became the director of ZOE2.

Murata was a film enthusiast in his early years. He made short films and wrote screenplays when he was a student. Because the Japanese film industry was underdeveloped, he chose to enter the game industry. The young man's mental journey is the same as that of the island, which is why the island regards him as his successor.

Murata Zhou Yang, director of ZOE2, joined Konami in 1995 and was originally in charge of the CD broadcast screenplay for the heartbeat memories series. He believes that the island group is a "super elite force in a hundred". At first, he did not have the extravagant hope of joining the island group. Unexpectedly, Kojima invited him to the post in 1999 to write the prequel novel "Shadow Moses' Night" for "Dragon Bourne 2". After that, Okamura was so busy at the end of the development of "ZOE" that Murata put the finishing touches on the script and animation of "ZOE" as a firefighter. With this experience, Kojima believes that Murata can become the director of ZOE2.

In Murata's view, the problem of the previous work lies in the separation of the plot and the hurdle, the two parts are developed separately, and finally they are not effectively integrated, and the play of the sequel will be more closely integrated with the plot. "ZOE2" also reduces the number of complex tasks such as rescue and search, so that players can fully experience the pleasure of fighting.

Anubis, as the final Boss, has been in the limelight in this work, so the Japanese version of this work is entitled "Anubis: Zone of the Enders". The title of the American edition is "Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner", which stands for "the second messenger". Murata believes that Leo, as a teenager, could not complete the task of defeating Anubis, so Jehuty's driver in the sequel became the new character Dingo (meaning "Australian dingo").

The protagonist of "ZOE2" has become Uncle Ding, the strongest driver of the Martian Legion. Ding's strength is unparalleled, but he is heartbroken by the war, living in seclusion in the remote Callisto, spending time in the ice and snow. The Martian Legion into Callisto instantly awakened Ding's fighting consciousness, and he suddenly turned into a rabid dog attacking the enemy. Dinger is not a snake creeping quietly on the ground, but a grumpy beast.

Murata questioned the design of many mecha games: after the body is destroyed, these games will directly display the Game Over screen. In fact, the protagonist can be detached from the body, and the story does not necessarily end here. In order to combine the plot setting with the actual game, Murata let the protagonist into a seriously injured state, the artificial heart is located in the interior of the Jehuty cockpit, Ding must be connected to the Jehuty to breathe normally, even out of survival instinct, he must fight to the end.

Turning PS2 into PS3 Island originally intended to turn "Stealth Dragon Bourne 3" and "ZOE2" into PS3 games, but Sony released limited information on PS3. He realized that it was too early to launch the next-generation console, and the team still had to develop games for PS2, but he did not reduce his requirements for the work. Even if the previous work and the sequel are on the same host, more performance can be achieved by virtue of the optimization program, and a leaping improvement can be achieved.

In Kojima's eyes, PS2 still has a lot of potential to tap. The formula in his mind is not "1-1-2", but "3-1-2". In other words, PS2 is not an enhanced version of PS, but a weakened version of PS3. After making a trade-off in terms of polygons, number of frames, resolution and special effects, PS2 can achieve the same scene scale as PS3, depending on how the developer chooses.

"Dragon Bourne 3" changed the scene from a factory to a jungle. "ZOE2" did not change the floating combat environment, but improved the quality of the special effects, giving people the feeling that they had passed a lifetime. Take the basic attack as an example, the ordinary laser in the original "ZOE" is only 10 in a row, while the "ZOE2" has soared to 40 in a row, and the surging firepower makes the player's blood open.

The gorgeous 40 continuous laser "ZOE2" initially uses the traditional cartoon rendering of the whole hook edge style, and the result is very cheap. What Murata Zhou Yang wants is not the effect of cheap TV animation, he wants the quality of the game to reach the level of theatrical animation. To this end, he gave up the black tick edge, only in smoke and avalanche and other special effects on the use of no tick edge cartoon rendering, the main body of the picture using conventional rendering, but the map is mainly solid color, such an image is still very close to animation, but there is no sense of cheap.

Yoji Shinagawa was only responsible for setting up the body in the original "ZOE". He served as the head of the art team in "ZOE2", and it was also his job to manage various 3D special effects. Xinchuan strengthens the glare and speed line effect, and enhances the sense of speed and strike of the battle. Under the bombardment of all kinds of special effects, "ZOE2" consumes four times more rendering resources than similar games. Even so, this work still achieves all kinds of great scenes.

The special effect of the speed line strengthens the sense of attack. PS2's narrow 4MB memory is the biggest obstacle for developers. In order to save space, PS2 games often use 256color maps, while "ZOE2" uses 16 color maps to maximize the 4MB space. The color of this work is monotonous, but enough special effects make up for this shortcoming.

Minimizing the color of the map maximizes the battle scale for "ZOE2": high-altitude fleet warfare, Zakat mobile battery warfare, wilderness warfare. Players are amazed by one overwhelming battle after another. It can be said that "ZOE2" is the first game to take PS2 to the extreme, compared with "Wanda and the Colossus" or "Ares 2" released a few years later. Murata Zhouyang once wrote the goal of "shaking the sky and shaking the earth" in the proposal of "ZOE2", and the art and program of the island group finally achieved this goal.

As huge as mountains, but ever-changing mobile battery Zakat Murata is not only concerned about the picture, in terms of playability, "ZOE2" has also been qualitatively improved, the movement speed of the body is greatly accelerated, and all kinds of movements are more flexible. After catching the enemy, the former Jehuty can only throw it again, but this can turn the enemy into a shield or melee weapon. The iron bars and plates in the scene can also be used as weapons, and the hard physical attack is very refreshing. The complex scene becomes a double-edged sword, and players can use various means to slap the enemy against the wall, and vice versa.

Kojima believes that the development team of "ZOE2" is basically the same as that of "Stealth Dragon Bourne 2". The biggest difference is that the director is different, which is like the same ingredients and kitchen utensils, meeting different recipes and cooks, showing two different results. At the time of acceptance, the most impressive part of the island was the chaotic battle in the wilderness. there were hundreds of enemy and us targets in the radar, the scene was very chaotic, and the island's thinking was instantly at a loss. "Dragon Bourne 2" did not have such a messy scene.

Many of the development ideas of the large-scale wilderness and chaos of Murata are contrary to those of Kojima, but Kojima is only the producer of "ZOE2". The director in charge of the actual development is Murata, and the producer needs to respect the director's choice. Kojima believes that the two development concepts also represent two different players. A player who is not interested in "Dragon Bourne 2" may like "ZOE2", and vice versa, the gaming world needs a variety of choices.

The all-star lineup Hideo Oshima did not quarrel with Zhou Yang Murata, while the political tail responsible for character design and Seifang Nishimura, who is in charge of animation, quarreled. Zheng Weiyi, a newcomer who only joined Konami in 1997, was mainly in charge of the "Beatmania" series of art work, and then he showed several graffiti to Kojima, which likes this slightly retro style. As the art of the "Beatmania" series, the political end takes over short and quick jobs, and "ZOE2" is the first game that allows him to calm down and spend a lot of time thinking about it.

The political tail wing mainly designs the costumes and shapes of the characters, while Chengfang Nishimura directs these shapes as animations, a difference that has sparked a dispute between the two. The political end tends to be gorgeous and complex, while Nishimura wants the clothes in the animation to be as simple as possible. Murata, as a director, did not interfere in these quarrels, but let them solve the problem on their own. in the end, both of them made some compromises, and the actual effect was a fusion of the two styles.

The development of two-person-style character map games requires this kind of on-site chemical reaction. Hideo Oshima also mentioned that Yoji Shinagawa will not draw the setting diagram exactly as he asked, but will add his own ideas. the end result is the fusion of Kojima and Shinagawa, which is what Murata wants.

The previous characters completely lost their human essence after they became 3D, so "ZOE2" decided to use 2D animation to represent the characters from the very beginning. This part of the animation is outsourced by GONZO. GONZO has experimented with 2D and 3D fusion techniques in works such as "Qingzhi 6" and "Battle Leprechaun Snow Wind", and is familiar with "ZOE2". The participation of famous animators such as Yoshida Yoshida and Hiroshi Oakura makes the lineup of this work more luxurious.

Only 2D animation can preserve the human spirit Hideo Kojima even found a wine friend and invited him to design a character and its supporting body for "ZOE2". Jinzi has been busy with the development of the RPG "reincarnation of the Goddess" series for many years. After the original "ZOE" was released, Jinzi felt a trace of chagrin. He had already conceived this kind of machine armor with mythological elements in his mind, but he could not get the space to play, so he was preempted by Xinchuan. When Kojima invited Jinzi to participate in the design of "ZOE2", the latter did not hesitate to seize the opportunity.

When Kim visited KCEJ, "ZOE2" was still in the early stages of development, and the team first showed him some blueprints of Xinchuan to let him understand the general worldview. Kim wants to design a unique Boss body, but the team has already designed a Boss model for him: a ninja-like body that fights with knives and missiles in the dark. In spite of this, the team did not give any instructions on the appearance of the body, and gold still has room to play.

The conversation between Xinchuan and Jinzi in the magazine Jinzi Yima misses those unique villains in the animation of the ancient super series such as "Iron Man 28" and "Devil Z". The animation in the 21st century lacks this personality, and the villain body is reduced to mass production on the assembly line. Therefore, Kim Yoshio thinks that he must come up with a design that is different from that of Yoji Shinagawa or the tail wing of the government, so that he can show his personality, otherwise Hideo Kojima does not have to invite an outsider.

It is generally believed that mecha is an industrial product that requires heavy steel plates for protection, but not all real chariots are heavily armored, and there are other materials besides metal that can improve protection. The body in "ZOE2" has crazy flexibility, and Jinzi believes that gel is the material that is really suitable for this kind of body compared to metal, relying on elasticity rather than hardness to ensure protection.

Based on this idea, Jinzi designed the airframe Inert (which means "inertia" in English) and the driver Lloyd. The pair have a strong animation flavor of the ancient super series: a strange doctor with a piercing head coupled with a completely hand-made weird body. In the game, the black gel released by Inert will cover the entire battlefield, and Jehuty will be forced to fight in the dark. Players can only evade, seek enemies and fight back through Ida's voice prompts. This unique battle makes Gold very satisfied.

Inert and its driver Lloyd have designed a lot of machines in the "reincarnation of the Goddess" series, but they are limited to the type of game, and these machines do not play a significant role in RPG. On the other hand, the machine armour is the soul of "ZOE2", and this guest performance finally made up for the regret of gold.

Xinchuan believes that although there are protagonists and supporting roles in the game, each character has its own peripheral value as a product, so he will never cut corners when designing supporting roles. Every airframe of "ZOE2"-- including mass-produced soldiers-- is unforgettable, and that's what the game is supposed to achieve.

For Xinchuan, every airframe is very important. "ZOE2" has put the banner of "unprecedented production lineup" on the official website, which may have been a propaganda strategy at first, but it seems to have become a reality 20 years later. Due to various reasons, even though "ZOE2" has been republished many times, it has not been able to sell well, and the sequel plan has been stranded many times. 20 years later, no space mecha game has such a luxurious all-star lineup, and the epic "ZOE2" has been remembered by players so far.

(to be continued)

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