Hoyoverse Embraced Their Adult Audience - Zenless Zone Zero 

Funfact: the cats have balls in this game

Necrit: "I am not a furry" That is what they all say

I love that zzz is more inclined to slice of life theme as oppose to being on a grand adventure.

Fun fact: the game is based from stuff in 1970's to 90's but the game happens in 2089, so they're technically in the 80's.

“Jiggle physics actually enhance the animations” Necrit 2024

Bro, you forgot to mention the crazy music in this game

"it really takes a while before you come across any meaningful threat" man its just like persona. i love this game

I really prefer these unique animations to the ones in Genshin any day. When you notice your character doing the same poses as a random NPC, it takes you completely out of it.

I love the FAT LITTLE CUTE BAMBOOS in this game lmao, they're just the perfect mascot

Don't look at the moon guys, biggest mistake of my life...

this game has the most satisfying thing in a game ever which is perfectly swapping a character and then clank sound and camera goes black and white, position to make it more heavy and some enemies has multiple attacks its really good

Played HI3 before, then moved to Genshin but not very sticking to it, then experienced the story of HSR, ZZZ is definately my new favorite thing. The art style of the game is so unique compare to previous titles, the story doesnt press hard on the "role-playing power fantasy", making the main character being the "all-mighty hero saving the universe" but actually try to tell a normal story. ZZZ is a huge experiment by Hoyo, and so far i really enjoy it

Necrit truly is my favorite gacha content creator Insane🎉

Sick music, sick gameplay, sick character design and tons of fan service.

So far, I enjoy the chill pacing of this game, listening to the dialogues, watching cutscenes, reading the in-game encyclopedia, and Inter-Knot posts. Honestly, I treat this game like watching an episode of anime/series per day. Gameplay wise, I have no complaint. It's satisfying and fun. * I would also like to add that I've been a fan of Cytus 2 for a long time, and I love how Inter-Knot is similar to Cytus 2's iM-System. If you like this style of storytelling. I recommend you try it out. Cytus 2 story is really great and rich. Although it's a rhythm game.

Funfact the "Constellations" or as they are called in game "Cinemas" C4 to C6 makes the character go half-naked. I swear Hoyoverse is cooking with this game. I've never had so much fun.

2:14 ah yes "Eternals", the enemies of ZZZ is Marvel

Am I crazy or does this game have big original splatoon vibes with the presentation like text, menus, and some of the art style?

Necrit could jump into the Project Moon-verse and reluctantly tries to explain the lore

I hear a lot of people talk about the story starting off slow, and I think there's a common misunderstanding about the actual _genre_ of the story. It's not a high-stakes thriller. It's a slice of life anime. We follow the cast going about their normal day jobs, which just happen to be day jobs that involve a lot of violence. The reason it feels like the stakes and threat aren't ramping up is because, well, they aren't. It's not that kind of story. You see the flashy combat and assume there has to be a grand overarching narrative of subterfuge and conspiracy, but it's really a monster of the week slice of life story with cool fights. Think less Ghost in the Shell and more "violent K-On!!". Through that lens the pacing makes a lot more sense. We're not following a hero's journey, we're following a (relatively) normal person's (relatively) normal day to day life. Sometimes interesting things happen because of the nature of their job, but there's not going to be a traditional three act narrative structure (I'm aware the game has three acts currently, but that's not what I mean; each act in the game is essentially an episode of a show, not an 'act' in the context of a hero's journey narrative structure). TL;DR: It's a slice of life story. We're not saving the world or fighting for freedom. We're doing our day job to keep the lights on. Sometimes things get more intense within an arc, but we shouldn't expect to build up to anything approaching the stakes of a Star Rail climax, because it wouldn't make sense for the tone this story is going for.

I fuckin know it, im still actively playing cyberpunk and when playing this game i got a similar vibe about it, we MC are the hacker/netrunner The Cunning hare are the merc, they got hire from a middle man AKA the fixer to klept a box which have a biochip inside which also have an AI in it. We have the NCPD, factions/gangs,... Feel like a high quality Cyberpunk shitpost to me and i love it

ZZZ was everything i was hoping to get +MORE. I could go on an on about the presentation and how everything just fits together. The tiny snippets of lore here and there has me incredibly invested to wanting to know more about this small section of the remaining world.

I think people are hating on the game way too soon. It's barely out for a week, and it's a live service game. It can grow and get better

You should check out that video where someone did an analysis on Nicole’s milk.

I can't tell you enough how based this game is

Favourite mihoyo game by far, fun combat, great vibes.

Never forget about they show the characters fully naked in Mindscape Cinema

I had trouble explaining the overview of the game to my friends and Necrit helped me lol

The jiggle physics aren’t annoying because it isn’t solely confined to female characters, the males jiggle too. The hair jiggles, THE BOXES JIGGLE EVERYTHING JIGGLES AND BOUNCES AND ITS GLORIOUS.

Love the deep dive into the game! I've been playing it nonstop since release when I didn't expect to get into it. The only note I have is that proxies aren't hackers, they're guides that direct agents through the hollows. The main character duo, Phaethon, is the only proxy in existence that can link with a bangboo. Every other proxy is there in the hollow physically with the agents.

Welcome to Gacha Hell Komrade

OMG necrit you forgot how banger the game's music are

Awesome and comprehensive review Necrit, ur style rly shines no matter the game and hope u continue ur reviews along with other variety content. Also funny how you mention ZZZ features mechanics and concepts from rougelike games with this other user in the comment section telling with me otherwise. Truly showed how that guy has no experience in such games as I've played plenty myself from my first best one being Enter the Gungeon, Slay the spire, Dead cells, etc. Which essentially helps me vibe with ZZZ more.

One of the coolest things is the weapon cores. You can easily identify for which the core is meant to be used on (i.e. the Housekeeper core is meant to be used on Corin, and the design of it really shows)

This video taught me the tv system better than the game itself…

A proxy is more like a guide or navigator rather than a hacker. They just collect data like a netrunner to find the best route, but we quickly get an AI to do that work for us.

I really want to know who they hired the due to character animations. All the character animations are super slick. Like I'm genuinely impressed by how good it actually is

Necrit talking 5 minutes about varieties in character movement when all he means is "bobs are jiggling"

This is what videogames should strive for... not the gacha but the polish of Zenless

"Everything is interactive" Yup! Even the TV at the login screen!

ZZZ's Lore is pretty wild as it unfolds. The video of the legendary figures alone could lead to a lot of fun stuff in the future, plus the Lost Items from Hollow Zero are such a neat way to tell stories (and make it feel rewarding to hunt Lore stuff!)

Let's not forget about Billy. Not only ladies, but his trailer has some fanservice-y, fun animations when the focus is on on his butt. Not to mention suggestive conversation between his guns!

Very in depth video and the meaning behind the TVs properly explained.

I've been LOVING Zenless. Determined to keep it F2P though, but I'll get Ellen one day!

13:00 u can only do more chain attack if the daze meter is still full (usually boss/elite enemy) or u happen to hit an enemy that still have their daze meter full.

Necrit: I'm not a fairy Also his live stream avatar 😺

Ok that bunny in the basket W-engine still shook me to this day lol

Combat just reminds me of HI3. Only both more and less complicated. I mean I know some HI3 fans will say ZZZ is easier but it mostly depends on what valks you run some were just slap ult and win valks then you had Fu Hua who was the more technical of the roster, who was more a traditional fighting game character. Admittedly I was only in HI3 part one and dropped off during part 2. Dammit! Did everyone get Lycaon but me? He is all I need to completely my Victoria Housekeeping.

Imo If someone reach lvl 34 organically , without whaling then theyre likely addicted. The amount of exp you need between 30 - 34 and with only doing exploration & combat mission that involves tv will imo test you whether you really like the game or not. Whether you appreciate a lot of tv mechanic gameplay during that exp grind or not. After that the real grind slowly starts. Now that you've say it, I actually realize zzz actually trying to help by introducing grind modes way later, it helps us grind efficiently especially not waste energy through low lvl artifacts like you've said 😂. Also smoother way of storytelling, not just unlock a bunch of system after a single to a couple story telling scene.

Gatcha is not a game genre, it's a monetization tatic. Sorry to be blunt about it, but it is important.

The animated movements during the cutscenes heavily reminds me of arcane.

First video I've seen of yours, you definitely earned a sub! Came here for ZZZ, but stayed for the Necrit! 🔥 Seriously, the preentation of your video and the layout of each topic was just so entertaining! I've been playing the game since launch but I learned a lot from this video.

ZZZ is on the same level as Sesame Street.

Well the jiggle physic is already in Hoyo's blood since Honkai Impact 3rd

21:31 my bro i have a little game to introduce to you called Dead Or Alive.

Billy kid is super dopamine inducing, his dash + auto produces samira ult and I am getting high off it. His ult is Bullet storm

1:06 it actually has a lot of similarities to HI3rd

Here the thing I don't listen to players reviews that spend 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or maybe 6 hours or over... Or hell even a day 1, 2, 3 days of their playthrough... For me I need more than that.... Don't get me wrong, I love your video Necrit!

About the adult audience part: Did you see the "box art" back when the game hadn't released in HoyoPlay? It was a shot of Nicole where the camera was looking from beneath her, evidently highlighting her "assets".

Honestly, the two characters you specifically showed for the "jiggle phisics/fanservice" segment: Grace and Nicole, there are honestly some pretty good reasons for their more fanservice-y animations. Nicole is the easy one to understand. She is both a stereotype, and a subversion of that stereotype. She's the "Meangirl" from all the schooll dramas, who is quite bossy, always being pushy, always trying to get her way,....but *also* is caring for not just her own circle, but most innocent around/adjecent to that circle. The fanservice-y movements add to the "i want to appear cute for the junior barrista so he gives me a discount" vibe, while every interaction where a character isn't ragging on her for how much she is trying to cut costs where she can, you see an actually intresting and (mostly) caring person under the persona. STORY SPOILERS FOR ANYONE NOT YET STARTING CHAPTER TWO Grace, as the tech Whizz at BeloBog industries is responsible for the machinery they use, which includes 3 autonomous construction craft that are pretty ether resistant, used for in hollow construction (you see what their basic chassy looks like in this video as well, she is sitting on top of one during the animation segment). Through some method i don't yet know, Grace used some leftover code from a misterious "him" (who at the point i am at the story, is not specified), which granted the construction rigs conchous thought and Critical thinking....useful when not always being able to work with cordinators or living beings, as ether corruption makes a constant staff kind of impossible. This all ended with the rigs sustaining ether damage, and gaining free will. When you go to start chapter two, you're being contracted by belobog to guide them to the machines within a hollow. The immidiate words used by Grace to discribe the bots are "kids", meaning she considers all sentient machinery designed by her, and used by belobog, to be her children. (Weird? A bit. Excentric? Yeah. Kind of understandable? Probably.) What i was getting at with all that, is she is a moderately motherly figure,....an overly controlling, but still caring one none the less. The mission focusing on the Boreing machine, Greta, shows this by Grace immidiately being confronted by the idea "what if the demo rig is just....going through a rebellious phase? Like a newly created, **teen aged** inteligence would.", and immidiately swapping into protective mother mode, then when it shows it is protecting a building it fell in love with, she is in awe of her devotion! (While everyone else braces for a fight against a chainsaw the size of a Truck). I know it's mostly for fanservice, but it can't just be me who sees her little hipsway/defesive positions when standing.....to me she screams "Currently adapting mother" energy to me. But those are just my two cents.

This game gives me massive persona old and new vibes with the music/ aesthetic and the Void zones where we fight monsters it’s fun! I like it so far

I like how you can somewhat predict if get the character base on the song, if you get a female S character, you can hear a female sing the song and if you get a male S character you get the guy singing.

I *love* the monitor system and think it's a brilliant storytelling device. IMO what trips many players up is that it's an abstraction device rather than a literal story device, but if you pay attention to the lore of Hollows you can figure out why presenting them literally would be almost impossible. I think it's easy (especially if you're skipping the story stuff) to think of New Eridu as being like a zoo. You have the main pathways for visitors (the City areas) and then the Hollows are like the wild animal enclosures. Sometimes Proxies and Agents/Raiders or other people have to go into the lion pen to do something and hope they don't get mauled by the lions while they're in there. But that's not how it works. Zoos are fixed spaces, the lion pen is always the same size and same place and the gates in and out are always where they're supposed to be. Hollows are NOT a fixed spatial reality. They grow and shrink, something can be a solid wall one minute and a door the next, everything is constantly changing. Carrot data is basically a map that's by definition temporary because the space inside the Hollow will change and and a whole new survey will be needed. Besides the puzzles and story games Necrit mentioned, the monitor system gives a way to represent the constantly changing layout of a Hollow in an abstract way. That's the reason the groups available monitors keep changing. The lit up monitors are the various spaces within the Hollow that exist at that given moment, while the blacked out monitors are empty dead space where that part of the city *could* be, but isn't. When you use, say, the catapult thing or the vortexes to jump from one batch of monitors to another, inside the Hollow you are transported to a whole other part of the city. It could be 50 feet from where you started, or it could be four blocks away. One monitor could represent a single building or half a kilometer of train tracks. How do you show that literally? I mean, if you walked outside your front door and suddenly found yourself transported four blocks from your house, you'd know because you know the area you live in and those four blocks of streets. Players don't have the entire Hollow memorized, constantly shifting the characters' location in a more literal way would be difficult because the players don't know the relationship between where they were and where they ended up - it's all new territory to them. It's MUCH easier to portray an unstable landscape with the monitor system imo than it would be to have the game constantly generate new environments as the Hollow space shifts and changes. You just have to remember that they're not LITERALLY TVs, and the whole thing is an abstract representation of what's happening in the Hollow (until you get to the fights which always stay in one small area). I think the closest we get in the game to literally portraying what being in the Hollows is like (at least for me so far) is the animated cut scene with Zhu Yuan and Qingyi jumping through all the rifts to escape the thugs. They're bouncing around the whole city, starting in one place and ending up on a roof or in an alley or on a construction crane. Travelling through the Hollow is probably always like that. The monitor system is basically the other side of that dynamic from the Phaethon's perspective, representing how a Proxy can remotely guide the team. And speaking of Proxies, remember the Hollows habit of constantly changing is why you need them in the first place. Nicole says it right in the very first story mission - without a Proxy and Carrot data to guide you, you'll (usually) end up trapped in a Hollow forever and corrupted because the borders, entrances, and exist of the Hollow keep changing. The monitor system is, imo, a genius way of simplifying all that to keep the stories moving. They don't keep you from the fighting parts, they abstract the complex spatial dynamics involved to get you from fight to fight more quickly and smoothly.

Regarding the thing for TV gameplay and Conversations with backgrounds, hoyo is trying to fix a huge issue with their games exponentially growing in size one update after the other, i believe Genshin is pretty deadlocked in this issue and will just keep growing forever, ZZZ will keep growing in size but it's really effective size because the updates will probably add a lot more content to the game proportional to the update size than the other 2 games, this is why the exploration is kept at minimum in ZZZ with attempts to add meaning of it in order to not look cheap, it is a creative approach imo because when other games reach 100 GB in size they will feel like having only 20GB worth of content but with ZZZ a 100 GB of size will sound like a 70 or 80 GBs of content, what i love about hoyo is their attempts to approach new problems and refine them rather than just creating cheap modified copies of systems from other games.

currently im on that point where there's nothing to do

I call this game Retropunk because for how much it takes from Cyberpunk, it also holds back on a lot of the thematics of that genre. Instead this games opts for something futuristic but still retains 80s retro vibes

I'll be honest, after playing this game for a while, i feel like im finally getting rid of star rail.

you're tecnically wrong about the tvs part. From what the game explains the mc takes control of eous or whatever the main bangboo is called and you're going tru the hollows with your party. Id say the cameras is either fairy, or your brother/sister pov

thank you Necripookie for making this making video

Playing the story feels like playing an anime. Im very into it, im at chapter 3 since yesterday, cant wait to play it today :D

Whenever I hear "Target new audience" The first thing I remember was "Modern Audiences." I mean this game looks modern as well.

It did capture a little bit of an existing audience, by wich i mean: I personally got interested because i heard the gameplay is more like what i was used to from Honkai Impact 3rd

The comics, animations and TV parts all feel abit too disconnected from the Gameplay part of the Game

Imagine Necrit discovering Project Moon

the tv being for a specific audience-- ME IT'S ME! definitely one of my fav parts of zenless. i was worried when i heard the complaints in beta but the way they get so creative with it in later side quests got me hooked. it wasn't necessary but i finished the 99 infinite abyss one at my own pace. that would've been a fun procedurally generated rouge-like mode. definitely not for everyone though. i just wish they advertised it as such and not a combat heavy game.

The rogue-like game genre is over-rated or maybe just outdated yet ZZZ's core gameplay is just that, the TVs. It will be interesting to see how well they can implantment those up-coming changes. It must be harder than making a brand new game.

You can't buy bangboo currency but you can use the currency to buy bangboo pulls.

few errors i noticed. 1 the Weapons of this game are called W-engines not Cores, 2 the artifacts or gatcha items that you need to pull for are Drive disks and id say yeah they are given later because of that common knowledge, 3 the Bangboo Pulls are unique in all of their other games in the fact that there is no 50/50 AT ALL the one you select to get? is 100% guaranteed, if you pull ANY S rank bangboo in a 10 pull even if all 10 are S rank (lucky little ****) its all the same bangboo the only ones you cant guarantee are the B and A rank pulls. 4 ethereals are the Main enemy of this game with some human rebels and gang members and one fun fact i just found out. at Howls dog news stand. if you click the news articles on page 2 it actually gives more stuff to read on that article.

I’m not a furry… but if you made a character look that sick.

You forgot to mention how after getting the 4th to 6th copy of the same character and after you activate their cinema or something they get less clothes👀

A cool and level analysis of the game - you have great oratory! This should be the standard for people wanting a clear impression of the game :)

they most be paying good he be glazeing it

Hoyoverse games are so popular in Asia and china

4:02 Actually I found that to be a strong point at first. Sure it took a while to find a proper threat all the way up until the Dead End Butcher, but given how epic the combat was in those early stages when I first soaked in the animations, it made me feel like a badass from the jump. That was something that hooked me early on, and it was a very encouraging feeling when I was still learning the flow of the game.

Necrit forgot about music... or maybe at this point it's not even worth mentioning since it's a hoyoverse game, duh it has amazing music

Necrit not beating the allegations with that S rank pull 🤣

I like how the MCs feels so natural in their positions while being different characters

Also, the inter-knot thing is on *point* with the internet (in some places) I just started playing recently and there was a post about someone complaining about graffiti, and then the commentors literally just say "nah, fudge that we're going to find the street you live on" lmaoo

They embraced the cute and funny 😭

The jiggles have actually been nerfed since the first CBT. Nicole was even more bouncy and suggestive back then.

5 minutes in, and the way he talks about "artifacts" and farming them like I am supposed to be already totally familiar with the concept and how it works made me realize I'm not the target audience for this video at all.

I genuinely enjoy and love the art they went with for ZZZ, it's so lively and over the top but in a good way !

20:26 no, the best example is when you unlock c6 grace. With every copy of a character you unlock you also unlock a bit of their art. And if you get 7 graces she is basically naked with her feet shoved to the camera

Honestly, ZZZ made my return to Genshin impossible. I fell in love with Ellen and i know i'll love her for long, if my taste in characters is anything to go by.

Billy gives me the Ryan Reynolds vibes I love it!

All of Mihoyo's games have slow-burn starts. This lets you learn the basic mechanics and how the characters work without anything big, like the Honkiaverse cosmology, to distract you. I'm pretty sure everyone would've gone 'WTF?!' if the introductory chapters of _Honkai Impact 3rd_ dropped _Kyoden_ on them, even though that's basically _HI3_ 's backstory too. And _GGZ_ has multiple Samsaras to its story, just in case you thought doing it once was enough. _HI3_ starts around Chapter 5. _Genshin_ starts in Liyue or Inazuma, depending on your perspective. _Honkai: Star Rail_ starts in Penacony or Belobog. The new dev team for _ZZZ_ is just following the company pattern. They've also said their intent with _ZZZ_ is to make it more daily-lives and lower-scale, not save-the-world. We're dealing with Hollows and the companies, corporations, and organizations that want to control their resources. We also play as Proxies, who can't fight, so all the action is through Hollow Raiders. The story is bound to be more personal and granular. The devs also gave _ZZZ_ a low barrier to entry, yet a high skill ceiling, and made it a brawler-ARPG with roguelike gameplay. Taking all that into account, it's already a very enjoyable game, at least for me. I know there are lots of people who say they find it boring and one-note, and since they're not digging for hidden combos and techniques on their own, it may be solid to say that the game's not designed for them. No game is for everyone, and Mihoyo knows this. That's why they refuse to rest on their laurels and allow prior successes to carry them. I'm still gonna check out their farming game and their open world MMORPG when they came out, because I know I can expect great quality and fun from them. And I also enjoyed 'Captain's Ranch Tail' in _HI3_ , which is how Mihoyo beta tested the farming game concept. Lots of people enjoyed that event, so Mihoyo can expect that to go well. Thinking about it, Mihoyo loves to test what comes next in the games they already have live. They tested open world systems in _HI3_ , expanding and changing them each time. Certain game modes and events in _Genshin_ and _HI3_ had turn-based combat to a degree for _HSR_ . And _ZZZ_ 's combat system is ripped directly from _HI3_ and given a fresh coat of paint. As to the roguelike, they've had that since _HI3_ , and has been iterated as Spiral Abyss in _Genshin_ and Simulated Universe and Memory of Chaos in _HSR_ . You want to predict what might be next for Mihoyo, you have to look at the original modes they bring to their various games, usually events and endgame ones. Abyss, Memorial Arena, Universal Mirage, Elysian Realm. All represented to a varying degree in games after _HI3_ .

I really agree on the animation part. I used to dislike instance based games but ZZZ's animation really carry this game, besides the combat of course. The characters feel so alive

3 months until FGO let's GOOO

Ehrm, akshually the monsters are called ethereals, not eternals ☝🤓

21:14 this line is one of a kind