The time honoured tradition of Sakura runs like an invisible golden thread through Japanese society. Meaning Cherry Tree blossom, Sakura is a celebration of the fleeting nature of life. As a symbolic flower of the spring, the Cherry Tree’s two week blossom signifies a time of renewal after which the blossoms drop to the ground and wither, falling like snow with the ebb and flow of the wind. And with their death, life’s unending cycle begins once again. This profound belief which simultaneously accepts the inevitably to death, and releases any fear of it, lies at the heart of Zanki Zero: Last Beginning.
Hailing from Spike Chunsoft, the studio that brought us Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a challenging and thought provoking dungeon crawling, first person survival horror set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world. And you don’t get many of those on the PS$. The game is based around the adventures of eight characters who wake up on a deserted island with no memories of who they are and how they got there. As the game unfolds an on old CRT TV featuring two very strange cartoon characters called Sho and Mirai reveals to them that the world has ended and they are the last survivors of mankind. Except that’s not entirely true. You see, our cast of eight are already dead and they are in fact clones. And in the tradition of sakura, our heroes have a life cycle of just 13 days before they succumb to the clutches of death. But, again calling on Sakura, after they die they are reborn as infants, age at an accelerated rate and die once again.
Sho and Mirai offer our characters a tiny glimmer of hope by telling them that they can extend their deaths by retrieving pieces of a machine called the Extend Machine. The pieces of course are in dangerous dungeons filled with deadly creatures, brain taxing puzzles and fiendish traps.
Each one of our eight characters embodies one of the seven deadly sins and as they journey through their own individual dungeons we get to learn the dark secrets of their lives and extremely disturbing events that have shaped their destinies.
If you’ve ever played Danganronpa, you’ll instantly recognise the dark and often disturbing adult themes playing out in front of you.
Oh, and yes, you have spotted it. There are eight characters and seven deadly sins. This slight but intentional mismatch leaves open the suggestion that one of your characters may not be who they appear to be and could in fact be working against the group. This added element of suspicion and intrigue heightens the tension in Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, encouraging the player to try and work out who the real enemy is in the game. Excellent.
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning also includes a hefty amount of micro managing from the get go. You’ll have to keep your eyes on your characters stress levels, health, fitness and even the need to go to the bathroom. Forget to answer the call of nature in time and you’ll have an embarrassing accident that will leave your character even more stressed, vulnerable to attack and less effective in combat.
Speaking of combat, this was easily the easiest part of Zanki Zero: Last Beginning You effectively have up to four characters in your party. During battles, you can either attack one at a time or charge in all at once. There’s a cool down meter which means you have to wait for it to recharge before you can attack again. The formulae is a simple one; attack, back off while your meter recharges and then attack again. Despite the simple nature of the combat system, you will die often as your characters improve their abilities and skills. But as we mentioned earlier, dying is very much a part of life in Zanki Zero: Last Beginning. As long as one of your party is still alive, the dead characters can be reborn again, often with improved abilities that will make them more resistant to whatever killed them the last time around.
Thankfully Spike Chunsoft have included the option to change the difficulty setting mid game. So, should you die too often you can turn down the heat a little and work your way through the game focusing on the graphic novel story telling elements rather than the combat and resource management.
Graphically Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is easily on par with the very best of any of the Danganronpa games. The characters are all well realised and each of the locations are unique and memorable.
Although comparisons between Zanki Zero: Last Beginning and Danganronpa are inevitable, this is not entirely a bad thing. Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a very mature, challenging and often thought provoking adventure that encourages the player to question their own ideas of right and wrong, life and death. By embracing the notion that life is a fleeting moment, and death is part of an unending cycle, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning is a reminder that even the most cruel suffering can have mysterious value. And life, even on the edge of death, can be beautiful. Go buy.
