Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

Really nice visuals, great atmosphere, and an interesting story, but unfortunately the gameplay is pretty weak — it feels like a failed attempt to mix a DRPG with survival mechanics.

As someone who likes the first-person dungeon crawler genre, I definitely recommend this. Nothing is missable, the atmosphere hits just right and exploration feels great. I personally liked the story and its characters, too. However, combat feels clunky, puzzles are sometimes very confusing and there isn't much quality of life on the micro-management side of things. Especially item management can be hell if you enjoy hoarding. 100% achievement completion boils down to grinding all different types of deaths with all characters, which is a very grindy (yet min-max-able) chore.

I usually don't write reviews before I finish the game, but I wanted to get this one in before the 80% off sale wraps up. I just finished chapter 2, and I've been really impressed with the story and characters. So far, it's been super charming. It also gets really, really dark. Something interesting is that the game seems to judge the morality of the characters with a resolute, but kind of flimsy conclusion, despite the rightness/wrongness of their actions being really debatable. It makes me [b]so mad[/b], but I feel like they're doing it on purpose, and that actually makes the story more fun to play through.

Time travel survival horror base building rpg. It's fucking weird, but the story is good and unique is definitely nice.