ZZZ is the best Hoyo game and I'm tired of pretending it's not.

Gacha games are incredibly predatory and you should 100% not play them if you're susceptible to FOMO or gambling addiction. This post is not an endorsement of gacha systems or in-game gambling, please don't pay any money ever to a gacha game, it is insanely not worth it, plus you will deprive yourself of the greatest pleasure of all gacha game players: being able to tack "ftp btw" at the end of every single post you make about the game.

That one mug with the eyes on it

I love this little googly-eyed mug here at the tea shop.

I also think our cute cashier here has a striking design, like a lot of the NPCs all across New Eridu. She happens to be unique, but even the non-unique NPCs around town have very specific senses of style, and you start to recognize some named people as you wander the streets.

Hot take: this phone game legitimately has a more convincingly real and weird population than Cyberpunk 2077 did, at least at launch, at least to me. The illusion of an actual place with an actual culture is pretty convincing and immersive. To me there’s just so many tiny details, and the way the world stretches beyond the space you can see and touch reminds me of some of the best single player games of the PS2 era and almost serves as a prompt to get my imagination going. Things are where they should be, but not in the video-gamey way where there’s some mass-produced clutter on every street corner. Even though the areas you can explore are small, they feel convincing, like a small slice of a real place.

Pictured: Cute beach date. :3

Pictured: The least sexy NPC in ZZZ.

There’s a sense of unity in ZZZ’s setting and design that isn’t matched even by other, more technically impressive games. To me, the game doesn’t feel like it came out of a corporate production with hundreds or even thousands of artists and designers working on it (even though it did, of course). It retains an impressive level of cohesion and thoughtfulness while benefiting from the high level of scale and polish that only raw manpower can deliver.

The coffee cup with the eyes on it feels like the perfect detail that grounds and authenticates this game world, but it’s only one example in a sea of thousands of tiny, authentic details just like it--all of which feel like they belong and give you a sense of a world that stretches beyond the confines of the game's levels. I love the setting of ZZZ and the vibes it gives me.

GAMEPLAY IN MY GOONER GAME!?!?! HOW DARE YOU!

Saying you like Zenless Zone Zero for the setting, the story, or the gameplay is a bit like saying you read Playboy for the articles. It feels like you maybe missed the point by not starting off talking about all the hot jiggly anime babes. And look, the only reason I'm talking about it is because I think the game is just goonery enough that I can get away with it. Genshin could never.

But I do think the focus on the generous, jiggly butts the game is known for has taken some of the focus off other things the game does pretty well. Like it's a pretty fun game.

There is a lot of depth to the game, and I think it's got a lot going on under the hood. Miyabi, for example, has a lot of long animations that offer quick-swap opportunities, while Yixuan feels almost like a which-way book with how many directions you can take her in at any given time in a fight. Both characters are easy to use and hard to master because it feels like there's a lot of room for optimization and expression in how you play, and I think that's a great way to handle a game like this. On a basic level the combat is pretty easy, but you can definitely see that a skilled player knows what they're doing, and you're rewarded for learning new tech with higher ranks and better clear times, as well as the simple joy of just being able to style on your enemies.

Bite down...

It is true that changes to some combat elements since version 1.0, like retooling the ultimate system, have improved the game a lot since then, but combat in ZZZ was never really bad. It was always one of the game's strongest points, and most of the changes to combat have actually improved the team-building and investment aspects of the game more than directly improving the core combat experience itself. I say this because I've see people use the fact that ZZZ has received a lot of combat changes to suggest the game was or is bad, and I don't really think that's true.

The combat is also just striking in terms of visuals and animations. It’s fast and precise but not too demanding or too hard on a basic level. There are lots of interesting abilities and the characters all feel distinct while still having clearly defined classes and elements. It’s just really well done and it feels super good to play.

The absolute ennui of TV mode

Image credit: https://x.com/Rukotaro

When ZZZ launched, it launched with the infamous TV mode, which is where you control a little bangboo icon and move around a small dungeon-like level. This mode has largely been excised from the game, and with good reason...this mode sucked. There were some good ideas mixed in occasionally, and certainly there were a few puzzles that showed that clever use of this mode could have been very interesting, but frankly, even the best TV mode levels were barely tolerable. The TV mode was slow, incredibly boring to look at and play, and delivered story content with these long, annoying periods of watching character portraits move back and forth between TVs while you tried to stay awake.

Some parts of the Belebog arc were genuinely so boring that my mind started wandering while I was watching these icons of Grace and Koleda move around without my input for what felt like minutes on end, spouting exposition that could have been a few text boxes in one the game’s visual novel style scenes instead. It was really bad.

The second Hoyoverse announced they were moving away from TV mode, a lot of TV mode defenders popped up and started to talk about how much they loved it. And to you guys, I say: go play minesweeper or something if you’re looking for tile-based puzzles and leave the rest of us out of it. Minesweeper might be too fast-paced and action-packed for a ZZZ TV mode junkie.

The TV mode is still present to some extent and players can opt-in to it if they want to, and I’m sure some of the side content requires it still. But for the most part, it’s been removed from the game and I think that’s a good thing.

I swear I play this big-tiddy waifu gooner game for the plot.

There's a scene where Koleda is piloting a backhoe like it’s a freaking Eva and giving us a promotional talk about her construction machinery while desperately fighting off a powerful enemy, capped off with her finally being able to trust in her late father’s love again. The scene of Koleda shouting the mech’s name as she impales the enemy robot on a conveniently pointy monument is silly and earnest at the same time.

Get in the fucking robot.

There's a lot of great moments and scenes in ZZZ: Caesar’s final ride at the end of chapter 4, Miyabi losing control of her cursed blade in chapter 5, the entire season 1 epilogue. The most recent patch, 2.1 had one of the best stories so far in the game! Though 2.0 did drop the ball a bit, I think.

ZZZ is effortlessly cool and intentionally fun and silly, yet always so earnest that it’s constantly able to earn and then reward your genuine emotional investment. But even when it's seemingly at odds with itself, it doesn't whiplash you back and forth between funny and serious stuff, it's just sort of always doing both a lot of the time. I really admire this kind of storytelling and it's something I try to do in my games, too, though obviously not as well.

It's not a perfect story by any means. That said, I think the writers have approached the story here with the same clear vision and eye for authenticity that they’ve created the setting with, and the disparate pieces of the story, like the setting, come together to create something good and interesting.

But it's not all good, right? So what's the catch?

Of course, beyond the gacha-isms that drag every game of this style down, ZZZ does have some additional problems I should point out.

Pictured: The oldest character in the game, canonically.

For one, they have a nasty habit of making their, we'll call them "short characters," just as jiggly as everyone else. While they are typically less sexualized, official images and artwork of the character Piper, who is well of-age in the game's lore, could likely get you arrested in Australia. Cute and, again we'll say "short," tiger-girl Jufufu also has an ass that never quits just as much as the more full-bodied ladies, and she tends to stick it out a lot at the camera. Your girlfriend will walk during the half-second in her skill rotation when she's sticking her bouncy, clapping ass out at the screen, and she will leave you (your gf, Fufu will never leave you, probably). I really wish that Hoyo just didn't do that with these smaller ladies even if the game's lore insists they're all fully grown. You will not win the argument with your aghast girlfriend by saying "umm, ackshully, Piper is 47 years old and a mother of three in the game's lore."

There's also a scene in the game where Fufu looks at the camera and literally says "I'm not a kid, I'm just short," like she's in a hostage video, to ensure your guilt-free gooning. But maybe we shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place, Hoyo.

Fufu's gigantic clapping ass is actually the main character in this game.

The game also has problems with pacing; in a lot of story missions you'll spend a lot of time doing things that don't end up mattering at all, which is a weird choice. Like 90% of the major story beats feel like they happen in the last 10% of every arc, and this can leave a lot of ZZZ's story arcs feeling somehow both rushed and like it takes forever for anything significant to happen. There are fantastic and well-told arcs too, but a lot of the ones that are pretty good end up mostly being let down by weird pacing issues. And most of these arcs are released all at once (so far only one arc in the game was split between two updates), so this isn't because of the game's episodic updates. It's just written that way on purpose for some reason.

ZZZ is also at its best when it's conforming to an episodic structure. Arcs like 2.0's storyline that are more about establishing an overarching plot tend to suffer from a severe case of not really going anywhere; 2.0 felt like it spun its wheels for hours. There are different types of stories in ZZZ, as well: main stories, special episodes, and character stories. Of these, the main stories are actually the most likely to feel like they aren't going anywhere or aren't paced well. Most of the character stories are fine if sometimes a little melodramatic, and the special episodes often rock, imo.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of the endgame content. Every endgame mode in ZZZ is a little weird. Some feel really tuned around whales, some feel like they focus more on player skill and game knowledge, and still others feel weirdly easy. Changing the way ultimate abilities work really shifted how these game modes feel to play, and I think that led to these modes feeling kinda strange. It's good that they all feel different, and they do feel like they test different things--there's a boss DPS mode against invincible bosses where you compete to deal the highest possible damage without getting hit, an apex mode of mixed boss and mook content that mostly lets you win if you have the latest character(s), there's the battle tower which specifically rewards higher skilled play, and then there's a rogue-like dungeon crawler mode with various sub-modes that's generally a lot of fun.

The mix of modes and how odd some of them can feel in terms of balance compared to the others sort of makes the game feel a bit scattered and like it's not always testing the same skills even when you're using the same characters and fighting similar enemies, and that's probably not good? But it's also kind of nice in a way to have a variety of modes that feel like you can be good at one and not at the others. In a lot of gacha games, everything turns into a one-dimensional timed DPS check, and that's not a problem here. But I do feel like the highest tier of endgame content in ZZZ could use a rework.

Pictured: My bully.

ZZZ does have some problems with powercreep, but I actually think they're doing okay. They have buffed one character directly so far, but for the most part they've managed to create different types of characters even in the same character class, so it's rare that the premium S-rank characters directly powercreep each other. In the one instance that did definitely happen, where a character named Ellen was powercrept by a character named Hugo, but they buffed Ellen in the next update to bring her more in line with Hugo while still being generally weaker in most content. Their willingness to buff characters, and the way they did it (they didn't just buff her numbers, they redesigned her kit to be more fun and easier to play with recent supports) makes me confident that ZZZ will be able to keep the train on the tracks even as they release at least two new S-ranks per update, which is a crazy pace.

I recommend ZZZ (with some caveats)

If a 3D action game is up your alley and gacha is something you can deal with (or ignore), I think you can have an absolute blast with ZZZ. You have to be ready for the modern gacha-isms: the battle passes, the 50/50 banners, the expensive-ass skins, the constant progression grind loop, etc. But if that doesn't turn you off, or if you're burned out on the other gacha games out there, I think this one is my current favorite in the genre, and it's been my fave for quite a while, so give it a try. Also, I don't know if you saw the video I embedded but, ahem, that's like, right up my alley so I'll be pulling for her. Ahem.

If you don't really want to see me review or recommend non-porn games, don't sweat it too much as I don't think this'll be a regular thing. I might do an occasional review of a game I'm just playing the shit out of, but I mostly plan to stick to adult games. On the other hand, if you like or prefer this, let me know, maybe I'll do more if there's interest.

If you've been wondering, no, I can't say "ftp btw" anymore...

But look guys, I mean, come on! You can hear Yixuan's tights rubbing together when she walks in this outfit!!!! How was I supposed to not buy this skin??? I'm mortal, ok? I have weaknesses too, okay?!? I'm only human!1!! I'm not made of stone! Don't look at me like that!!