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Post is dead but here's my opinion anyway
Season 1 was a 7/10 by my standards, I'm pretty harsh on most gacha game stories but the format kinda lends them to sucking anyway. 7/10 is very enjoyable. Game's dialogue was fun, goofy, entertaining, game never fell in the trap of just having buttloads of lore just for the sake of it. The Prologue and Chapter 1 established the basics of hollows, proxies, and hollow raiders in an engaging way, whether or not you gave a shit about Vision, Red Fang Gang, Nekomata, etc. Season 1 also had really digestible stories for a single sitting if you wanted to, they weren't too long, and they also had stop points for breaks that the game communicated well.
Talking about Season 1 so much because, Season 2 fails in a lot of ways imo. 6/10 if not a 5/10. Ever since 1.6, every patch had some sob story in it. Not even counting agent stories or event contents (think Trigger's agent story, Yidhari's event, stuff like that for this), all in a row we had Hugo's, Vivian's, Yixuan's, Alice/Yuzuha's, Magus/Isolde's, Lucia's (and even Manato's backstory was meant to be sad), Dialyn/Banyue's... and of course Ye Shunguang's sad backstory with her family in 2.4 leading up into her own situation in 2.5 that's supposed to be really tragic. Seriously, the last patches that had something to say that didnt involve us needing to cry or some shit for the main characters, was Astra Yao before in 1.5, and then the Angels of Delusion in 2.6. Not gonna count Astra Yao's demo since it wasnt tied to main story and Aria's crashout in 2.6 honestly set up for a more wholesome thing pretty quickly. All of the sob stories became so cheap feeling just because the game imo ran out of interesting themes and just defaulted to tragedy porn. I dont think it strengthened the story to have all this shit in there and its certainly not a ZZZ-unique thing. A bunch of gacha games are post-apocalyptic and most of those games write tragedy for their banner characters. ZZZ being a
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>>2032974
ZZZ being a game set in a post-apocalyptic world, that chooses to be bright, and goofy, and not take itself too seriously most of the time, is part of what sets it apart from most gacha slop in a similar setting on paper. Plus, super annoying to see people circlejerk the "ZZZ is a depression game" and glorify how dark it can get is so dumb, so many other adjacent communities do this.
Season 2 also has pace issues. 2.0 wasn't a great character story. I mean that, in terms of following a thread of a character's journey, it is pretty weak. We did get introduced to Failume Heights, Yunkui Summit, Porcelumex, the workers, the hollow, the exaltists as primary enemies, miasma, very well. Yixuan's character is extremely boring in 2.0 though. The connection to her animated short film in the story is so phoned in, but its clearly meant to be important. They have a cutscene in the middle of the bossfight at the end thats supposed to pay it off. Really bad that 2.0 messed things up because it made the overarching drama in 2.1 and 2.2 less fun. Alice/Yuzuha's story was quite good, their dynamic was great. I couldn't really be assed to care about any of what the exaltists were about until Isolde revealed she was the overseer, and she was just puppeting them so she could get revenge on the defense force and porcelumex. That was awesome... could have been better if 2.0 wasnt so mid. Needed more Yixuan characterization, Mevorahk character scenes so juxtaposing that with Isolde in 2.1/2.2 would make a fuller character story... and also the exaltists needed to not sound like and be treate like dumb cartoon villains. They were so uninteresting.
Then Spook Shack in 2.3 just come out of nowhere and have a genuine filler episode. The Drowned Ideals didnt add anything to the grander story other than some random miasma lore. All 2.3 did was show us what happened to Ye Shiyuan.
2.4 lead into 2.5 very well... but 2.5 was way too long. It had some awesome, awesome scenes... but
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>>2032980
It had some awesome, awesome scenes... but dragged on way too long with others and just became so, so repetitive with its themes. Probably the scene that bothered me most (and there were a lot of stinkers) was the argument with Lockspring right before his bossfight, the one where he exposits his flashback sequence. There was NO time for that conversation, wtf were they thinking. Not to mention it was so bland and only loosely connected to Ye Shunguang and Zhao's arcs. It's like the writers' commentary on self sacrifice, a person's value, love, trust, selflessness, ambition, was mostly the same position throughout and they just said the same shit from literally every possible angle, the same conversation between these characters like 10 different ways. 2.5 was fatiguing.
Also, Ye Shunguang's softcore romance. I don't like it when these damn gacha games try to tell me the player that I'm so awesome and the character's love me after knowing me for less than a week lol. Obviously thats supposed to be appealing but from a story perspective, with what these games depict, it is very very rarely warranted. Close, respected friends with Ye Shunguang I could envision, but the girlfriend angle the game was trying to push was so annoying.
Last sad, big thing about Season 2. The other factions outside of Yunkui Summit were not implemented well in the final act sotospeak, 2.5's big climactic moment. Why didn't Spook Shack, the scrappy, Cunning Hares-like troupe of myth-searching, legend hunting, Scooby Doo-ass goobers help Ye Shiyuan find the device that temporarily saved Ye Shunguang (also it was PUSSY of the game to save her immediately after we lose her, all that buildup of impending tragedy just to suffer it was like 5 minutes lmfao)? Why didn't Obol Squad come in with the Defense Force to lead the final push against the Exaltist remnant in the hollow, while Yunkui Summit were the main ones aiding the evacuation with generic Defense Force soldiers staying behind
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>>2032984
Why didn't Obol Squad come in with the Defense Force to lead the final push against the Exaltist remnant in the hollow, while Yunkui Summit were the main ones aiding the evacuation with generic Defense Force soldiers staying behind with that? Would have been so easy to write this in a more encompassing way than just making them all do the same thing one after another with each other, back to back, then combat sequences. Granted, Obol fighting alongside Isolde's miasma projection was fucking awesome, that made me personally happy.
Season 2 never made me skip, but I did have to take breaks because the story annoyed me or bored me so many times. Season 1 did not do that, even though 1.4 was pretty rushed from a story perspective imo (should have been the latter half of a 2-parter) and also is overrated as fuck. Bringer was a cartoon villain and Sarah became a silly zealot starting in that patch too. Anyway, Season 2 is a 5/10 or a 6/10 on a generous day.
Season 2 Epilogue has been so much more enjoyable though, 2.6-2.8 alone might be a 8/10 so far for me. Season 1's strength's, with good budget, honed writing chops from the game hitting its stride by this point... and Cissia. Holy shit I love Cissia. I would give her a home and also lots of babies
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>>2027153
I should say one last thing here, 5/10 up through 8/10, for a gacha game, is very generous. Most other gachas games I've played don't get me invested at all and I end up skipping. The average I'd give for the lot of them is 3/10 or less. So these are generous scores from me... my 9/10s and 10/10s would be a select few anime movies I've seen, regular movies, some great books if we're counting those as stories here. I do think ZZZ overall is stellar for a gacha game story, if only for it's chops in presentation. I do not give a shit if after reading 10 hours of boring lore presented blandly if X character is totally the saddest, deepest character evarrrr!!! boo fucking hoo. Bonus points for just telling me this garbage in a 30 minute long "woe is me" scene with a flashback monologue instead of organically getting characterization across through significant events and situations happening in the story (AKA show dont tell). And then the obligatory suck-up to the MC. Storytelling is even more important than the story content itself if we're being honest
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>>2027153
this game quite possibly got the biggest downgrade ever since launch in the history of all gaming
started off as a simple slice-of-life set in a post-apocalyptic world with dangerous hollows, mc does some shady illegal stuff, agents rely on mc for navigation, and that was it
it was a unique setting, but also flawlessly executed
it made sense for the story and plot to remain simple and include casual themes instead of expanding more on the "sad" background element
there was a perfect contrast established already
it was like the mcs and other characters had already accepted their new life alongside the existence of hollows
then they start introducing elements that completely ruin this unique setting, and it has never recovered from that, but i guess it attracted the audience that loves dramatic story-telling, twists and turns, and endless waves of powergaps to keep things exciting
in the end, the game simply lost its identity
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>>2027153
>Now that Season 2 is over how would you rate it?
I would say Season 2 was better than it gets rated, but unfortunately because of the legally mandated not china arc it was dragged down considerably. It looks like they're slowly trying to work back to Season 1 but some of that magic is forever lost. I still don't understand why they got rid of the waterkuma. The guy was a loli obsessed pedo but he basically created the look that got people interested in ZZZ in the first place.
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