Zeon 1.0.0

Whenever I browse the Play Store and see an icon with fancifully drawn anime characters I look the other way. Why? Because I'm full of prejudice. When I see game footage masked by artwork in the screenshots section I immediately sniff disillusion. So was the case with Zeon, although this time I had to take a look.

To no surprise, it failed to impress. So much that I had to write about it! In Zeon you play the role of a character that has fallen in battle against some generic evil personage. You awake as the resurrected form of that character and begin your quest. I did not bother with the story (because the broken English was making me nauseous) but I did catch a few glimpses of dialog where they mention the Guilty Lord. I don't know if the guy was born guilty or he managed to acquire this title more recently. Suspecting that the evil personage and the Guilty Lord are one and the same, I could understand this. My character is a highly sexualized ice mage, so killing her in the prologue is enough to make him guilty in my books. Anyway, story wise, you go about meeting new characters, doing chores and participating in scripted dialog sequences.

Gameplay-wise, I was really amazed on how a game can be so devoid of actual gameplay. Especially for posing as a story driven MMORPG. To summarize, your character has an auto pilot that is used by default to move from point to point. You 'talk' to a character, then tap the button to move to the destination. You wait for the chore to be completed (which is either collecting stuff or fighting something) and go back to get the 'reward'. What's amazing is that you actually do these things by tapping a single button a few times. The game asks absolutely nothing from you. Even combat is fully automated and against enemies who re-spawn continuously, only attack if attacked first and never chase you. Mobs are also completely harmless so there's no need to watch you health for the most part. I'm aware that things might change once you get to higher level areas, but still, what's the point of going through this mindless romp until you do? Is my patience being tested for some reason?

I honestly should stop here, because I can't see why anyone would be interested in playing this while there are better interactive novels out there. But hey, if you're interested I can continue telling you that I did not understand most of the concepts that come in Zeon. I have played MMO's before, don't get me wrong, but the abundance of buttons, gems and all that stuff really made me focus on advancing the already boring narrative, in the hope of getting to a point where all these would become relevant to my experience. I abandoned Zeon before there was a chance of that.

So if you are tempted o try this weird breed of online past time app, be my guest. There are some nice looking models in there and pretty decent looking scenery. But there's no substance to Zeon. However one thing I did find rather interesting is the symbol found in this last screenshot in relation to the game's title. I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.