I bought this solely because I heard it was by the same people who brought us Danganronpa. Because of this my expectations were kind of high. Despite a couple of nods and occasional similar vibes it gave me, it didn't really live up to Danganronpa in my opinion. This doesn't mean it's a bad game, I actually did enjoy it, just don't go in expecting perfection like I did. Zanki Zero, similar to games like Danganronpa or 999, starts off with 8 strangers waking up in a strange place with no idea how or why they got there. They discover that they're the last remaining humans on earth and that their current bodies are "clones" of their original bodies. Throughout the game you will be exploring dungeons in the gameplay style of a first person dungeon crawler. Fighting enemies, leveling up, getting new gear and materials to expand your home base. One thing that Z.Z. does that's somewhat unique is a mechanic in which when you die, your next "clone" body will be more resilient to the way in which you died. With this mechanic the game encourages you to die in different ways, each time making your next body stronger and stronger. As you go through the dungeons you'll slowly uncover the mystery behind what happened to the world, what the 8 of you have in common, why you were "cloned", etc etc. It's essentially a horror/mystery visual novel with first person dungeon crawling game play. I found the gameplay personally to be a little boring and tedious, especially when your characters die to a new enemy or trap and you have to use your reserve members to pick up all their gear, go back to base, "clone" them, and re-equip their gear. Thankfully though the game offers SEVERAL different difficulty options, the lowest of which actually removes all enemies and survival elements from the game, basically turning it into a visual novel where you explore empty ruins and solve the occasional puzzle. The lowest difficulty basically eliminating the combat/survival is kind of what saved the game for me. Halfway through I dropped the difficulty all the way and just enjoyed it as a visual novel essentially. There's lots of intrigue and plot twists in the story, it kept me interested throughout.

This game really surprised me. I got it simply to support Spike Chunsoft, but got quite an experience out of it! It's got the writing of Danganronpa crossed with the gameplay of Legend of Grimrock. I pretty much love every aspect of the game and have put 100+ hours into it (on NG+, got 85 out of the main story with a weak attempt at trophy hunting). The story is intriguing to say the least (everyone is a super fast aging clone that dies and is reborn as a child again every ~13 days in a post-apocalyptic world), but it was really the gameplay that hooked me: bonding events, weight limits, skill trees, hunger/bladder meters, status effects, combos, kamikaze body mods, every death makes you stronger, and grid-based mapping with labyrinthine maps full of puzzles. Get this, have fun, and support quirky, unique titles instead of Generic Shooter #58,874!

A lot of people don’t really value the game, it has a great story and is fun to play, with many different levels of difficulty. Overall great game

The get is a. Mix bag. Lots of story elements and resource management involved. Not bad. Not great.

Good Jrpg with a lot of things to do and very fun to play. Good story and characters