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EDENS ZERO is definitely not on my list of anime/ manga I’d like to see turned into a game. Not out of spite. It’s just that prior to playing the game, I had no idea it even existed. I went into it totally as a blank slate…which was pretty much the best thing.
I had zero expectations to live up to so the game can really sell me on its own merits.
So now that I’ve played the game for quite a bit of time…what do I think of it?
What is EDENS ZERO?
EDENS ZERO is a single player third person action RPG developed and published by Konami. It is available right now on the PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
Our review copy was kindly provided by the super folks over at Konami! Thank you so much!
I’m reviewing this game on three different machines to see if there’s any difference between AMD and NVIDIA GPUs and whether the game plays well on a notebook.
Here are the specs:
Desktop 1 –
– MSI B550M Mortar WIFI
– AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with NZXT Kraken X73 RGB Liquid Cooler
– MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G
– Teamgroup T-Force Dark Z 64GB DDR4 RAM
– Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD
– NZXT C1200 Gold ATX 3.1
– Lian Li LANCOOL III RGB case
Desktop 2 –
– MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
– AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L Core ARGB cooler
– Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB
– G.SKILL Trident Z5 NEO 32GB DDR5-6400 RAM
– Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD
– Corsair RM850x PSU
– Lian Li LANCOOL 207 Digital
Notebook –
MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V
– Intel Core i9 14900HX
– NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
– 32GB DDR5 RAM
– 1TB SSD
The majority of the hardware above has been kindly sponsored by MSI (Desktop 1 and the MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V) and AMD (Desktop 2), and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support!
EDENS ZERO was created by the same dude who created Fairy Tale, Hiro Mashima. If you’re old school, you might know him better as the guy who created Rave Master. While EDENS ZERO doesn’t cross over with either series in the game, Plue (the weird dog thing) appears in the game as fanservice.
In EDENS ZERO, you’re mainly in control of Shiki Granbell, the protagonist. While you get a sizeable roster as you play, I mainly just use Shiki throughout the game.
Plot-wise, Shiki is out to make friends and find Mother, a huge space alien rumored to exist somewhere in the cosmos.
Though his past is unknown, he’s been raised on an island populated by robots. Brought there by the Demon King Ziggy (who Shiki calls Granpa), Shiki is raised in isolation by the Demon King and the robots in the Granbell Kingdom amusement park.
Shiki is taught by Ziggy that having friends is the best thing in life that one can have in life. When B-Cuber (think clout chasers like most Youtubers) Rebecca and her robot cat Happy arrive at Granbell to create content for their channel, they meet up with Shiki.
The robots of the park, led by their leader Castellan, see that Rebecca and Happy are Shiki’s best chance to get off the island. They pretend to become murderous, intent on getting Shiki to leave, and fulfill Ziggy’s wish.
Long story short, Shiki goes off with Rebecca and Happy and that’s the start of their adventures.
The game has two modes of play, Story and Exploration.
Story follows the plot of the series, while Exploration lets you freely roam on Blue Garden and take on optional quests and challenges. It’s here that the bulk of the game takes place, as you work to raise your guild rank by doing optional missions on Blue Garden.
Blue Garden itself is HUGE, with multiple biomes. Desserts, forests, plains…you name it.
Even better, in Exploration mode, you can travel how you please.
Shiki has access to a handful of vehicles to travel on, but he also can fly! It’s awesome! Nothing beats flight in the game. Flying around Blue Garden is the best way to get around, though you’ll still have to play the story mode to unlock content (such as quests and friend recruitment) for it.
EDENS ZERO (the game) does take a few liberties from the anime (and I assume, the manga as well).
Scenes are played out differently in both, though they do share the same general plot. The game sadly doesn’t do a good job telling the story and I got the feeling that there’s a ton of material missing or glossed over even without prior knowledge of the anime or manga.
The arcs in the game can be rather abrupt, with barely explained plotlines. In the beginning especially, important things are barely talked about or expanded upon. It’s like watching a movie, with random parts of it missing.
The basic plotline is there but you get a niggling feeling that there should be more that’s not covered. It’s not until I watched the anime that I realized that the game cut out a lot of content. It doesn’t even explain how Happy became a robot after he died!
It does get better as you play though and there’s always the Library to read up in the Options, but the game should’ve done a better job getting you up to speed.
I mean, it’s a game…there’s no rush! It’s not like an anime episode where you need to meet a set runtime! If anything, the game should be more in-depth than both the manga and anime!
As an action RPG, EDENS ZERO fares better than its plot.
The battles are real time, and they trigger whenever you meet an enemy NPC (who you can see walking around) in the maps. There’s no loading in-between (which is awesome) so you’re immediately thrown into battle as soon as it’s triggered.
In fights, you control only a single character. You can have up to four accompany you at once, but only one in play at a time. You can switch to the reserve members (who are assigned to individual d-pad buttons) at any time in fights, so you’re not really stuck with Shiki.
Despite that, I feel that Shiki is the best to use due to his moves which are a mix of AOE and direct melee damage. The other playable characters are distinctive enough with their own playstyles though, which is another plus point.
Witch uses DoTs (damage over time) and status effect attacks, Rebecca uses machine guns, Weisz uses rifles and turrets…and so forth.
The gameplay mechanics are sound. Gaining XP and leveling up allows you to unlock new perks in the skill tree. From increasing the power to your existing skills, to unlocking new combo moves…the skill tree has it all. Even better, the tree isn’t shared and each character has their own perks and skills to enhance and unlock.
You can also do the same to equipment. Quite a bit into the game, you’ll get the ability to upgrade your equipment, which also unlocks traits (such as damage boost or enhanced defense) that are embedded within them.
There are a decent number of playable characters too, which is great. You’re bound to find a handful that you like, though most of them are ladies.
That’s because, like the anime, EDENS ZERO is full of fanservice.
It’s not as bad or as excessive, but it’s there.
It’s mainly in the form of jiggling breasts, super revealing outfits and some risqué dialogue but that’s it. All things considered, I’d rate the anime to be much more hardcore in the fanservice department, with Shiki feeling up Rebecca (a scene that’s completely missing in the game) and all in just the first episode alone!
Unlike most licensed properties, EDENS ZERO lets you change the appearance of its cast when you equip different clothing. It’s super cool because there are a lot of different equipment in the game.
The game also allows you to have preset looks for your characters despite their equipment, so you can look good despite wearing a mishmash of gear. On the flipside, you need to have at least one piece of the gear in your inventory to unlock its appearance, so you’ll need to buy pretty much everything in-game.
The issue here is that money is pretty tight, unless you purposely go out of your way to pick fights.
The battles in EDENS ZERO are fine but they certainly could be better…much better. That means that sadly, grinding is a must. XP from enemies is low, and you barely get cash too.
Weak player damage, coupled with spongey enemies means fights can take quite a bit.
Run of the mill battles against trash mobs can take some time to complete, even when you’re waaaaaay stronger. Even attacks that look incredibly damaging (like Witch’s fire tornadoes) do laughable damage.
While the battles are different depending on the character used, the basics are still the same.
You can dodge, jump and attack. You can do a special move with RB, trigger a super attack with RT and go into Overdrive mode (move faster, hit harder and able to unleash RB moves without cooldown) with L3 + R3.
Dodging is an issue though.
You’re able to slow down time with a perfect dodge (if you dodge just before you’re hit) and counter but the timing for that seems to be wildly inconsistent. I never got them right despite trying hard. The invincibility frames for these dodges are weird too. Sometimes you can dodge without getting damaged, other times you get tagged.
Fights are problematic in another area too.
Keeping track of the enemies in a battle is a chore because the camera simply can’t keep up with them. Locking on only works well when there’s a single enemy. More than that (which is pretty much every battle) and you have to keep moving the camera to get a good view of enemies.
Not that you’d want a close look at the enemies. Honestly, EDENS ZERO isn’t a looker.
It looks like a PS4 game and runs like a PS3 game. That is to say, the framerate has massive issues, there’s a ton of stuttering and pop-up of objects are extremely prevalent everywhere. That is to say, whenever you’re in Blue Garden.
Taking to the air and flying shows the severe limitations of the engine.
Be prepared for the game (which is relatively stable in Story Mode) to stutter and drop the framerate whenever you pan the camera. Objects like trees and cars just magically pop into view as you near them. It’s a severe disappointment because I love to fly in the game.
It’s not our hardware that’s not powerful enough, it’s the game’s engine that can’t handle it or is in dire need of optimization.
Unfortunately, while Blue Garden is huge, the world is pretty empty.
The landscape is dotted with interesting landmarks (like ruined castles or cool floating structures) but they rarely have anything hidden near them (not even a treasure chest) to make it worth your time to explore. Even the main city itself is rather bare. You can be flying around and see nobody on the streets.
It’s like everybody went to church for mass or something.
It’s clear that the ambitions for EDENS ZERO are higher than its budget. It’s a damn shame honestly, because with some tweaking, this could be a great game. The ingredients are there, but they aren’t mixed properly to produce something truly amazing.
The Bottom Line.
It’d be easy to pile on the hate for EDENS ZERO.
There are a ton of technical issues, the story is butchered rather badly, the gameplay mechanics could be better and the visuals are truly horrendous for a modern title.
However, EDENS ZERO is that rare game that is more than meets the eye.
Contrary to everything it has going against it, the game is actually fun at heart. I enjoyed going around with Shiki and company. The characters are interesting, the plot is fun and the writing is decent. There’s actually a fun game buried in all the jank.
Basic gameplay mechanics are fine and dandy too and each of the characters play differently. It’s enough for me to get enjoyment out of the title. I’m not saying that EDENS ZERO is a great game, but it’s certainly something you should play, if only to see how awesome it could’ve been.
TLDR:
Technical issues and subpar storytelling mar an otherwise fun game.
The Good:
- Equipment shows on characters.
- Female character models are…jiggly.
- Great cast of characters.
- Huge open world to fly around in.
The Bad:
- Story could be much, much better and more cohesive.
- Ugly visuals.
- Technical issues.
- Spongey enemies.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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