About this bullshit I'm doing...- Z.O.E. The Second Runner

Personal Story

So, one day, me and the John Fu decide we're going to stop putting off playing Z.O.E. That it's high time that we play the sequel to a very fun game. Well, it's really fucking hard and we have a lot of trouble with it. We end up giving up at the second boss who is the first runner and the main character of the first game. He has two forms, a flying motherfucker and a mech form (a.k.a. Orbital Frame). You can only damage the mech form, but the flying form shot out a lot of shit at us. We couldn't survive long enough most times to fight the mech form.

The fact that you fight the first runner, I always thought that was kinda cool. Albeit this kid didn't have to fucking fight you like he did, but he sincerely thought you were an enemy so who blames him.

I always thought about that and so when I saw Z.O.E. 2 for 7 bucks, I picked it up.

Nothing's changed. The same two problems John Fu and I had back then I have now.

Real shit

Z.O.E. requires you to think fast. Not only think fast, but perceive fast. In less than a second, you have to attack, figure out what your attack did, and figure out what to do next. Not so uncommon, right? Z.O.E. 2's as fast as Ninja gaiden but with a lot more flashy lights, and the flashy lights are really really distracting. It's easy is Z.O.E. 2 to button-smash square twice and suddenly be slammed up against a wall with half-health barely understanding what just happened. As far as you know it sounded like you were hitting something, the controller was vibrating but that could have meant a hit too. I don't know if the fact that the stimulus you get in fighting is hard to discern represents a design flaw. It does make the game harder.

And speaking of design flaws, let me tell you about some ridiculous shit to exemplify a video game standard that I despise. That standard is condition-based damage-dealing. Ok, so you are Dingo Egret in your Orbital Frame. The orbital frame of the chick you're working for has been taken over by a battle A.I.. In order to remove the battle A.I. from the chick's orbital frame, you must grab the orbital frame. Unfortunately, you can only grab the orbital frame after crossing swords which takes a shitload of timing. Of course, she's not always ready to cross swords. You have a limited number of chances to cross swords with her and a certain amount of times you must cross swords with her in order for her to fall back stunned so you can grab and delete her. If you succeed or fail, she will then move on to her attacking stage where she either tries to hit you with a super energy beam or throws little exploding shits at you. Do this over and over again because it will take some fucking time on normal difficulty. Worse yet, be sure to not fuck up and actually hit the other orbital frame because that will eventually kill her and cause you to lose. Don't take hits yourself because you'll lose that way too. And don't leave that crazy bitch in the orbital frame alone because the a.i. will shock the pilot and that will do damage to the orbital frame and you will lose. Do you understand yet how difficult this is?

Condition-based damage-dealing is bullshit. It's that shit in Ocarina of Time where you waited for the spider thing to drop from the ceiling, turn it's back, so you could hit it once, and then it turned around again, so you had to wait again. It's really really boring to have to wait to hit, and especially in cases when motherfuckers can hit you all they want. It's most difficult because you never have to do it just once. You have to keep doing it until the other thing is dead, and I hate that. This part of Z.O.E. may be stretching me harder than anything I've played in a long while, but it's annoying and I lose patience with it very easily.

It's in every game. There are always good times and bad times to attack. Ninja gaiden had a softer version though. You could still attack bosses in the middle of their attacks, it just wasn't advisable. I prefer softer versions like this because it's quicker and there's less waiting around.

I think I can do this thing...

Ok, so I did that thing. Now I'm stuck on a similar battle where I very rarely have chances to do battle, and I'm just very very slowly wearing down the boss' health. Another part of gaming I hate is when difficulty increases solely by enemy health increases. It's not harder now, it just takes longer.

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lyndon BJ