Zone of the Enders HD Collection

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I have been holding off on gettings this because of all the negative reviews about performance. Apparently the game has been recently patched though and decided to pick it up.

I have only played zone of the enders 2, wasn't a big fan of the first game, and so far it seems frame rates stay at a steady 60 fps.

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Man, where do I even start. Let me just start with this: Zone of the Enders 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and easily my favorite robot game ever. That's probably why I'm even bothering to write this review. When I heard Konami was going to re-release the two games in HD, with a brand-new animated cutscene, and with the special edition of ZoE 2 (which was never released in the USA until now), I was looking forward to playing the 2 games again for the first time in a while.

However, despite 2 being on this collection, this is probably the most disappointing game-related purchase I've made since Metroid: Other M (big Metroid fan here). I know that I'm not changing much by writing this review, but I hope that it can shed more light onto why many people are complaining about this collection and that, in the very slim chance that a Konami rep is reading this, a patch will be made to alleviate the problems with the collection.

Let me make this simple:

3 Pros:

-The Metal Gear Rising Demo is fun, despite being short (especially if you skip the cutscenes).

-Zone of the Enders 1 looks and runs as it should.

-The animated opening cutscene is masterfully done and, arguably, the most interesting part of this collection. Check it out on Youtube if you haven't!

3 Cons:

-If I had to take a guess, Zone of the Enders 2 runs about roughly half the speed or so of the original PS2 version. The whole point of the ZoE series is to be a fast-paced robot action game. When the game plays as if I'm playing heavily drunk, something is wrong. I mean seriously, it's barely playable in this state and it's definitely not as fun to play as the PS2 version was (which had very minimal slowdowns). I understand that the game was not made for the PS3/360, but come on, Konami: there's, more or less, no excuse why the game can't run properly. The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection runs almost flawlessly.

-Zone of the Enders 1 isn't nearly as fun as it used to be back in the day. It's also incredibly short at only a few hours long. Somewhat of a weak argument, I admit. However, it is easily the weakest part of this collection.

-You're essentially paying $40/$60 (depending on what collection you purchased) for a demo, a really short (2-4 hours or so on your first playthrough), mediocre game (in my opinion), and a decent-length (6-8 hours or so), incredibly fun game (also in my opinion) that's been absolutely butchered by incompetent programmers. This package is, in its current state (as of November 1st, 2012), worth no more than $20, in my opinion.

Anyway, hopefully Konami will learn from from this mistake and make some sort of attempt to patch the 2nd Runner as soon as possible.

Buy Zone of the Enders HD Collection Now

Make no mistake, I love the Zone of the Enders games. Next to Virtual On and the newer Armored Cores, they are some of the most fast, fluid and intense mecha games ever created, with the added bonus of a compelling sci-fi narrative masterfully crafted by Hideo Kojima. So why do I award this "HD remastered" collection of the two PS2 ZOE games one star?

Next to the dire Silent Hill HD, this is one of the sloppiest HD collections yet released. The porting work was farmed out to High Voltage Software, an American studio notorious for putting out licensed junk like White Men Can't Jump, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, and Dora the Explorer. They have very little experience with HD consoles, zero experience with porting other developers' code, and clearly had no idea what they were doing. Compared to the PS2 originals, the framerate of these ports is a complete joke.

Make no mistake, the games will stutter, lag, slow to a crawl, and possibly even crash across the course of a mission. In the scenes that tax the hardware the most, like certain boss battles, the game is practically unplayable. A huge amount of my enjoyment of the original versions came from how fluid the "high speed robot action" was, where you truly felt you were in control of these gorgeous floating monstrosities. That's all but gone here. The unacceptably low framerate also has the unfortunate side effect of rendering the difficulty of some previously challenging battles inconsequential, since you are given so much more time to react to your enemies.

If you are playing the PS3 version, the framerate will be even worse. Konami has claimed that the games play at a smooth 60 frames per second, which is an outright lie. They have also claimed that these ports preserve all the subtle graphical touches and effects of the original versions, which is also untrue. They are mostly intact in the 360 version, but if you are playing on PS3, motion blur is downgraded to be barely noticeable and certain particle effects are entirely removed. There are also strange glitches in background and facial graphics that make it look like you are playing poorly emulated versions of the games.

There are other major problems that could have been solved by a longer development cycle and more competent programmers. For example, getting a trophy in the PS3 version will often freeze the game for minutes at a time. But they are beyond the scope of this review. Suffice to say, Konami needs to release a major patch for this game to fix its numerous issues. It took them a very long time to do this for Silent Hill HD, and it was hardly a panacea. If the ZOE collection is patched and the hardcore fans determine it to be an adequate fix, by all means buy it. Until then, stay the heck away. These amazing games deserved far better treatment.

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UPDATE 7/18/2013: After a prolonged wait, a PS3-exclusive patch has finally been released by porting experts HexaDrive. It fixes everything wrong about ZOE2 and more, making this by far the definitive version of the game now. Only problem? It doesn't affect ZOE1, which still retains all of its performance problems. Admittedly, it doesn't have it as bad as ZOE2 had it before the patch, but it's still a major flaw. Note that the patch is over half a gigabyte, in case your PS3's hard drive is nearly full. I've raised the overall score to 3 stars, with the "fun" score referring specifically to ZOE2.

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I have been a fan of Zoe since it came out on PS2 many years ago. So far I have beat the first ZOE and I am halfway into ZOE 2. I have had an occasional hiccup every hour or so. I am running it on the latest software for a slim PS3. But I HAVE NOT had constant freezes or frame rate drops to where it is unplayable or even crashes. I do not want to disregard the other one star review but I highly doubt Konami would release a bad port considering they are working on a sequel.

What did upset me a little was that they remade the main opening movie but didn't touch the opening movies for the individual games or touch the cut scene animation. It is a bit of an awkward balance in graphics. Especially for ZOE 1. I felt they could have redone those considering it has been nearly 10 years since the originals came out.

Either way, I got two of my favorite games on a disc for $40, even though I already paid about $40 per game on PS2 and the PS3 hardware is capable of playing them but Sony took that feature out. But at the end of the day, $40 for two games and a demo of MGS:R isn't too bad of a deal. The actual game play does look better, no frame rate or lag issues, I would recommend renting it then buying it.

Edit: I have been playing ZOE2 daily now. It still has not crashed or froze on me as others have said. It does lag a little transitioning from cutscenes to the game but it is livable. I have not experienced frame rate drops in combat either.

Edit 2: after playing ZOE even more, I got a software update to 1.4.something and now the game plays very silky smooth. I am really not sure why the others who have wrote negative reviews are experiencing low frame rate. I'd say rent before buying.

Want Zone of the Enders HD Collection Discount?

Konami should be ashamed that they allowed High Voltage Software to be the developers behind the Zone of the Enders: HD Collection. Their track record in recent history has been spotty at best, and this is just another strike on their record. Despite having this purchased from a physical retailer, I feel that I should warn as many people as possible to avoid this product, particularly since at this time, reviews for this product on major gaming websites are either grossly misleading or non-existent.

I own PS2 copies of Zone of the Enders 1 and 2. Both of those versions run at higher and smoother framerates on a consistent basis, with slowdown and frame drops occurring usually where you'd expect the PS2 to have had serious slowdown. The model of PS3 tested while playing the PS3 version was a CECHExx, originally purchased as part of the MGS4 pack released in June 2008. To confirm whether or not the console was the source of the slowdown, I played Tekken Tag 2, Killzone 2, Killzone 3, Dead or Alive 5, MGS HD Collection, and Uncharted 1-3 after upgrading to the latest firmware (4.31). All of those games run just fine. PS3 owners should avoid this collection at all costs, as their version runs at a lower framerate than the 360 version, and suffers from more severe slowdown even when there is no action. Demonstrably, the game suffers from slowdown just staying still in the training mode chamber, while only ONE enemy is present during the basic movement tutorial.

This isn't to say the 360 version is dramatically better. While it does maintain a higher and more stable framerate than the PS3 version, it still suffers from slowdown and frame-drops at all the same points that the PS3 version is. This version of the game was tested on a Xbox 360 250GB edition system. To see if the Xbox was responsible for any of the issues, I also tried out Halo: CE Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo Reach, Dead or Alive 4, and Ace Combat 6. Those games also ran fine on the hardware.

The bottom line is that the Zone of Enders HD Collection is a low effort port of two PS2 games that does not run well on modern gaming consoles capable of playing far more visually complex games. If Konami is hoping this will drum up interest from newer fans who were not fortunate enough to experience these games when they first released on the PS2, they have shot themselves in the foot. If for some reason we do not get Zone of Enders 3 (despite it being announced fairly recently that the game is being worked on), all of the blame should rest firmly on the poor sales of an poorly made compilation made by High Voltage Software.

As an aside, until Konami, Sony, or High Voltage Software acknowledge and address the issues with a patch on both consoles fixing the framerate and overall performance, I would not only avoid purchasing the product, but I would not trust any reviewer claiming the game runs well. At worst, they are paid advertisement shills. At best, they are just fanboys attempting to defend either their console of choice of the franchise they love.