The Let's Play Archive

Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

by Scintilla

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Original Thread: Born in Space - Let's Play Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars

 

Introduction

Let’s Play Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars

Title Music: Z.O.E. 2173 (Here because it's a pretty kickass theme)



Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars is an SRPG released for the Gameboy Advance in Japan in 2001 and in other territories the following year. The game is part of Hideo Kojima’s ‘Zone of the Enders’ series, focusing on futuristic mech combat. Kojima himself was not the director or writer for this game, with those roles falling to Atsushi Kamata as Director and Kazuyoshi Horikawa as the Scenario Writer (He, along with a few others on the development team, also had a hand in Rondo of Swords for the Nintendo DS).


The Game
Chronologically, ZOE: Fist of Mars takes place in 2173 AD, one year after the original Zone of the Enders and one year before Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner. It is a sidestory in the series and shares a number of concepts and plot elements with the other games. You do not need to have prior knowledge of either of the other games in the series, although the background of the story and certain events that happen in it will have a better context if you do.

In terms of story, Fist of Mars is liberally sprinkled with anime tropes – there are even 26 chapters, like there are 26 episodes in the average anime series. Nonetheless Fist of Mars has an enjoyable plot that does a lot of things right and proves that it’s not the usage but the execution of such tropes that determines whether or not a story turns out well. There’s terrorist groups, intricate plots behind the scenes, characters who have multiple motivations beyond what we are initially told, etc. The plot isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s pretty good for what it is.

The gameplay is in a similar vein to the Super Robot Wars series, but with a few special twists I’ll explain when the time comes. There is also a plot branch around the halfway point where the game splits into two distinct routes depending on certain actions taken by the player; I plan to do both routes by completing one and then reverting to a prior save in order to do the other, but if someone else in the thread wants to do the one I didn’t pick then please feel free.

Table of Contents

Unified Story Path Story Path A Story Path B Credits and Secret Scene Extras
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