More portable goodness from the house of Prinny with Z.H.P.
How can any game with Evilman in the title be bad? Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger VS. Darkdeath Evilman on PSP delivers hours of addictive, customization gameplay with the same twisted humor, setting and characters NIS America has become known for. There are many references to past games such as Disgaea (hello Prinny) and to the costume, live action shows prevalent in Japan that fans will dig. All this means nothing without solid gameplay and on this front Z.H.P. delivers. What’s a gamer to expect, let’s take a look.
Gameplay – Lots of customization await in this straight forward strategy role-playing game. Gamers take the lead character, customize their look and feel and go at it in many, many levels of intense, odd and humorous encounters. Build a base, decorate it and control the heroes movements from there before jumping into the gird based, turn based battles.
Graphics – Bright, vivid and very old-school. Anyone familiar with Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea will feel right at home on the semi-3D playing fields full of colorful characters. The characters static images look good with limited animation but the core look just feels so NIS. A good looking game but nothing mold or ground breaking for the genre.
Sound – Music has catchy tunes that remind of NIS games past (seeing a pattern here?) while the limited voice work is well done with perfect overacting and over the top emotions. A fun entry into what has always been a great sounding genre of games from NIS.
Design – Random generation rules the day offering tons of re-playability and the amount of customization really makes this a shining example of solid S-RPG building. The characters and settings are fun but the random levels and customization make this a truly great on the go game.
Miscellaneous – Mentioned titles like Final Fantasy Tactics take themselves very serious with a deep, politically driven story. Z.H.P. is quite the opposite and it’s refreshing. It’s even more loosey goosey than Disgaea and is so much fun to play. Also Prinny should be in every game as a wife, just too good dood.
Overall Z.H.P. offers up what fans of NIS should expect; quirky, fun and very deep strategy role-playing action that will consume hours of their lives. Its fun, has an audience who know who they are and should be picked up. Video gaming is not always about what people, the experts, say are the top titles, sometimes it comes down to personal preference.
