Impressions: Zeno Clash

It looks stunning, but how has the first-person melee game shaped up?

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By Nathan Davis on 2 May, 2009

Now that it’s out in the wild, I’ve recently been spending time playing through Zeno Clash, and I must admit that I’m rather enjoying it. This single-player, first-person action title has proven to be indulgingly unusual. Although a game not without its flaws, developer ACE Team went out of the way to create a weird and otherworldly experience, and I feel it succeeded.

In a nutshell, you play as Ghat. He previously discovered a nasty secret which caused him to do something dreadful to his parental figure, a creepy bird beast known as Father-Mother. He’s now running away from his large and newly blood-thirsty family – a female friend, Deadra, decides to accompany him. Featuring a dark twist, the tale and how it’s told through various flashbacks is surprisingly entertaining. An epic saga clearly wasn’t the goal, as it’s a personal story. What would’ve really given the story a boost, however, is better character development, as I did feel let down by the unfortunate lack thereof.

Although a number of deranged personalities are briefly introduced – known as The Corwid of the Free – I haven’t a clue about any of Ghat’s family or even his companion, the apparently shallow Deadra. We do learn a little about Ghat, though. Along the way, he reveals to Deadra his history as one of the Corwid. As he tells his stories, you get to relive all the various fights he’s been in, and each tale draws closer to that nefarious moment with Father-Mother.

Melee combat mechanics are introduced early on by Ghat falling unconscious and reliving his training with a particular Corwid. Unfortunately, this training mode doesn’t feature much training. At first, you’re allowed to practise a move twice, but this fast becomes once. In fact, the new move is often all you can do when told to try it, so it’s very easy to accidentally pull it off by mere button mashing. Not a huge problem, but I’d suggest writing down the moves for early reference.

Once you have them memorised, however, it becomes very rewarding. The combat is nothing like a fast-paced fighter and more of a deliberate, bloody punch fest, where dodging and counter-attacking are among your most useful abilities. The unusual combat style requires a degree of not only fighting finesse, but strategy. It’s a wise idea, for example, to keep your closest assailant between you and the other fighters, because most of the time you’ll be taking on three or more. You can also try to line them up and punch one into another (or many) – the effect involves a noticeably awesome lack of a certain law of conservation.

While fighting, you have the ability to lock onto an opponent. This forces your aim directly at them and is necessary to perform certain moves. By default, the game will automatically do this for you, but I’d suggest turning that off as it tends to make it very difficult to target opponents behind you or even simply break off in order to run to a more strategic location. Aside from fists, Ghat can pick up individual guns or bows, but it won’t stay equipped for long due to the nature of the game – you can either drop it or watch it be punched out of your hands. Speaking of which, hands are ultimately your weapons of choice, although conveniently placed hammers are necessary to down the bigger opponents.

Fantastically, Zeno Clash is the only melee-focused game I’m aware of that allows you to take a coffee break mid-fight without hitting pause. Once you’ve stunned an opponent, you can approach and kneel them down to introduce them to your knee a few times – but before you begin the greetings, you can take a long breather. Other opponents will just prance around you, and this allows your in-game energy to return, that which you eat up rather quickly on pretty much any manoeuvre.

In terms of aesthetics, the game’s surreal design is very unique, and never fails to induce plenty of ‘what were they smoking’ moments – I particularly like the crossbow that uses shrunken heads as projectiles. For the world’s environment, there’s no real room for exploration as the paths are linearly set, but this is perfectly suited to the fighting style of gameplay it offers. The wonderfully ominous music is the icing on the visual cake.

Overall, the game comes together for one curiously eccentric experience – my main let down is really the lack of multiplayer. To be fair, though, it was never planned in the first place, due to the lack of resources. What it does feature is the aptly-named challenge mode. Here, you battle your way up a hierarchy of enemies in a bid to produce a fast time. You can consequently compare these scores with any of your Steam friends – not exactly recompense, but it’s something.

There’s a disheartening mindset surrounding independent games and that’s their expected low price point. Charge above ten bucks and you’re probably going to get some panties in a knot – Zeno Clash is going for US$20, so it’s a point of contention in some circles. What bugs me is that it’s not generally an issue when publisher-backed titles charge out the wazoo, in comparison, for their often tediously drawn-out experiences, but when it comes to independent projects that offer a faster ride, this odd idea of inherently less relative value lingers around.

Having traversed a fascinatingly bizarre world for five hours through a genre-bending fantasy brawler with a twisted back story, I can assure you that it’s worth all US$4 per hour. Trivial nuisances aside, it’s a fine example of an inventive and landmark take on the first-person game. As a linear single-player title, it might not be overly replayable for the story, but the game does provide room for improving your combat skills, as it is certainly difficult to master on the harder levels. In addition, ACE has promised downloadable content. Ultimately, I highly recommend Zeno Clash to anyone up for trying out something unconventional and quite a bit unhinged.

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