Fighting game fans have this fun habit of just loving fighting games flaws and all. You can find a bunch of seeming ultra niche games and just find someone gushing about how cool it is, how underrated it is, sharing community made guides and scenes of active players around them.
No really they just like and play it with no qualifiers and often no 'guilty' pleasure talk, you can just like stuff. :)
So in the spirit of this Everybody shut up and look at Zero Divide 2!
Zero Divide 2 is the sequel to the better known Zero Divide a 1995 early 3D fighter for Playsation 1. I didn't like the first Zero Divide it was okay not bad.. But Zero divide 2? I had not heard of the sequel until recently. Zero Divide 2 is a great game with one or two unique gameplay hooks.
But as I don't have anyone to play against I'll be treating this a little differently, I'll look at the art, music and gameplay to judge its experience as a game. Make no mistake there is a solid gameplay here, but a lack of modes make it grate on a casual player pretty quickly.
I think fighting games are intended as a player vs player experience even a simple set of mechanics can become intricate, every small detail can be an advantage, it's why seemingly simple fighting games like super street fighter 2 turbos continue to have tournaments. The reality is these games have an extensive meta game making use of intended and uniteneded mechanics like gameplay oversights and glitches and even with all those details you still need to be able to outwit and out play an opponent!
Zero divide 2 is a game that asks a lot of questions like:
What if there was fighting vipers on playstation?
What if we fought in the blue screen of death?
It asks why can't you play as the Scorpion guard in Ehrgeiz?
(At least we got Red Xiii)
Gameplay overview
The gameplay is basically fighting vipers, which in turn is a slightly looser more juggle heavy virtua fighter. You have your punch, kick and guard buttons, and each can be combined to add more moves like guard and punch together being your grab and kick and guard being used for slow heavy strike so be sure to map them to shoulder buttons on pad if you're playing it.
When I say fighting vipers style I really mean it too, It's got those short hops which set up short combo strings and the ground attacks telegraphed by a giant jump, the short punch-punch-kick strings. It even has an armour break mechanic! (which I assume change damage taken but im not really sure). This game would really feel like a Sega game if it were on Saturn (which there actually is a version of in Japan only)
So what's unique then? Ledge grabbing!
When you come close to the side of the stage you'll grab the side and you can shimmy along it, it seems like your invulnerable during this and you get a close and far jump out to help create a nice little mix-up to aid you in successfully escaping form this, this seems like a great way to add balance to the frustrating ring outs you would get with virtua fighter or soul blade.
Some context for 3D movement
Things get a little awkward with the 3D movement option though forward and guard moves you to the foreground and pressing backwards and guard moves you into the background. Yeah very awkward.. This is probably it's jankest 'flaw' it's pretty easy to forget to press forward or backward and guard to move into the foreground or background as no other 3D fighter seems to work like this. After many years of standarised 3D movement inputs (usually up twice or down twice) and it feels worse than it would have at launch, truly a victim of the time-jank continuum
A lot of 3D fighters that were available at this time lacked 3D movement options and a few came out the same year like fighters megamix came out December 96 and has a deciacted button for 3D movement, Tekken 2 lacked universal 3D movement but Tekken 3 was in arcades in Japan and offered the now standard 3D movement in November 96. Zero Divide 2 came out in June 97 so it was likely in development before most games had standardised 3D movement controls.
Fun Fact:
Battle Arena Toshinden did have 3d movement but Toshinden sadly sucks. Alas I am but moth to flame with Toshinden.
Story:
Story is somewhat unique as it's shown by a single long cutscene opened from the menu, this cuscene has stylish 2D art with 90's style cyberpunk imagery and complete with a narrator!
A corporationis made an AI called Eve who was hidden in an XTAL program, if it gains full control it will be able to control everything connected online, presumably resulting in humanities subjgation to this AI. We're a group of hackers controling programs that take the form of robots to fight in the digital world to stop Eve gaining control of all online machines and technology to prevent a Skynet or Lawnmowerman style apocalyse. There's some shades of reboot, the terminater and Tron here, i've always had a soft spot for these kinds of sentient program fights off evil virus stories they're very idealised and I think stories like this captured the imagination of people who were actually excited by technology and futurism in the 60-90s, instead of begrudingly accepting of it like we do now.
So its Skynet-Digimon-Tron? I'm not 100% sure on the finer details but judging what's going on as such, but going by the name “XTAL" they are either Tatung Einstein computer enthusiasts referencing its its XTAL DOS or big 'ole Aphex Twin fans. Source for image
But seriously, great watch though really puts you in that lawnmower man, pre-y2k techno babble feel of the 90s, id say don't watch it on youtube boot up the game and watch it before your first play really sets the tone and atmosphere ready to kick ro-butt.
The voiceover can be a little hard to understand though, the music feels a bit louder than the voice over and due to the voiceover being by someone who is inexperienced with speaking english by the sound of it. Much better than me trying to speak any language other than english of course!
Okay well lets now were all on the same page for its basics like setting and style lets look at zero divide 2 then shall we?
Finally some details! :
Gameplay is fast and fluid if your familiar with the fighting vipers games or Virtua fighter 1 or 2 youll adapt quickly (expect the 3d movement!). Attacks hit with good visual and sound feeback you never feel like your punches don't hurt the opponent and animation has a satisfying speed with quick attack snapping out and heavies having a solid swing, some sound effects feel a bit too loud espcially the counter hit glass smash sound.
Grabs are a mixed bag these generally look impactful but are often painfully long even normal grab not just command grabs for example nerieds grabs can take 3-4 seconds from start to finish and this feels painfully slow, rounds defaut to 30 seconds as well so that's literally a 1/10th of a round possble length per grab and grabs are frquently needed to break an opponets guard just as they are in all fighting games!
The stages have different sizes and shapes adding a little extra situational awareness of how you'll play. For example stages with walls let you do a wall juggles for extra damage, like fighting vipers and stages without walls increases the risk youll get a ring out and youll find the ledge hanging can become essential, though it's not the deepest it adds its unqiue flavour, a lot of fighters were either full walls or cages or rings which you can be pushed out from causing a loss.
It makes me wonder if stages would be part of this games defining gameplan there are characters like pixel and IO who can quickly move and put pressure on you forcing you towards walls and juggle you for big damage potential, pixel even has a move that can only be used against walls taking away a tool for her on a walless stage like nox's or eve's. On the other hand characters like Tau have long range slow strings that push you back which would make walless stages and sections far more effective for them, and since some characters have projectile attacks this would made stages a part of getting the best out of a character with some stages possbly ruining characters gameplan
Certain stages have a mix of walled sides but not all sides which gives a great balance between risk and reward. On the IOs triangle shaped stage if you get stuck in the corner with only 1 wall behind you I bet some solid pressure could knock you off the nearby edge.
Theres also some bonus stages you unlock by completing the game, one unlockable stage that's really fun is the tiny stage surrounded by walls which is I assume would be frantic and messy with a skilled friend or rival to play against. (Theres no vs CPU mode and the bonus stages arent in the arcade mode!!)
Having played zero divide 2 for about 7 hours in total its flaws are mainly a lack of characters, I found my main immediately its Pixel, she's the best an Iatrogenesis robo-nightmare straight from the depths of hospital hell.
This kinda ruined the discovery part of checking out characters to find one that feels best the roster and with the roster being very small at just 10 characters it feels like the risk that itll happen really likely and couple that with having almost no modes only arcade, 2 player versus, and training.
No CPU versus option this makes the already light content so, so quick to blast through shame as I enjoy looking at it and playing it, but there's already no gameplay hook as a single player game.
With that said there are some fun characters and they do feel unique, for example our crabby boi cancer (like the zodiac sign) seems to be a zoner having mutiple projectiles like rockets homing laser and even he can eve lay a lil exploding mines (its not really effective, I just think they're neat! See above grab gif to see cancers own mines destroy his armour leaving nereid unscathed twice!)
The character archetypes in Zero divide 2:
Zero is our simple snappy hard hitting combos, i suppose like Akira from Virtua fighter a simple 3 hit combo can cause serious damage from him.
Wild 9 has high and low projectiles but i can't really get a feel for his style of play
IO the robo cat girl is exactly what you'd expect a fast striking agile mix-up machine
Nereid is bizzare machine with shoulder mounted drill and a chest drill, aparently they use a stance system but i couldn't get a feel for them, they look cool though our Voldo of the piece
Draco is a caked up robo-dragon
Eos seem to have good tools for countering with at least some moves that catch your attack and punish like geese howard etc..
Tau Has some very long winding up attacks but no projectiles, a physical zoner great for shoving opponents to the edge of stages
Cancer Has a wide variety of projectiles and slower heavy attacks making them feel like a Heavy zoner
Nox uhhh??
Eve glass cannon?
Cygnus is a lover not a fighter
There are a couple of unlockables!
After finishihng arcade hold select and press any button to select new colour swaps for characters
2 secret characters are unlocked by beating the game on hard, they seem to be joke characters, one a small circular cat called neco and the other is a cat head on top of a body in flat black colours
I assume it's a nod to Kabuki theater, characters on stage that were invisible in the play would dress all in black.
Complete the game on easy medium and hard unlocks Extra stages, they are only for vs and training making the arcade mode feel more repetitve than it has to sadly!
(The extra stages are delightfully style too, there is a satge where fight on top of a bowl of ramen where rings out drop you into the soup! Another has you fighting in a giant recycle bin, and the last one has the rediculus disco lighting and the giant gameplay mirrored in the background!)
Artstyle and visual design
The art almost feels 'generic' but it buffer overflows back into unique territory because no one usually goes so 'generic', the result is it's creating a perfect computer-techno 90s design document only matched by reboot (1994) the first fully computer generated cartoon. I honestly love the designs of each characters, espcially Tau (A scorpion!), Cancer (a Crabby boi) and Pixel (A nurse bot), Eos even has a nice Owl motif
The art style results in lots of cool stages like the blue screen of death arena, the hospital hell stage with its vapourwave persceptive grid and of course the weird computer eden of the boss Eves stage and a bonus stage with a big old frame buffer mirror stage with gratuitous lights over floor, take that tekken 2 Devil mirror!
The world of zero divide 2 seems inspired by the love for the high quality render art and digital art that emerged towards the late 80s and early 90s. That sort of art thatd be on the front of popular computing magazines, Computer graphics world or an amiga magazine
Its got a look that so concentrated in its mid 90s style it almost looks like a modern game inspired by the era like a vaporwave fighting game, it really shines with all the enhancements a good ps1 emulator can offer such as 1080p internal resolution and PGXP which is as youve likely guessed how the footage is made. Its no slouch on real hardware too being in the ps1 high resolution mode giving a sharp image quality and holding its snappy 60fps gameplay.
To clarify I dont have a CRT any more to get an accurate experience from my ps1, thats fine and even showing at native res emulation isnt 100% accurate to what a CRT would look like, so let's just enjoy some enhancements its fun, games like this are supposed to be that.
So as you can guess I love this art style it's iconic and screams '90s', while being new to me I only just found about this game since there were few videos about it. But just wait for the music section!!
*Pause* for dramatic effect
The music section
This music slaps hard (Yes, I mixed goes hard and slaps but it was necessary to convery how much it slaps and how hard it goes) it has a fun synth 80s style infused with synthpop and prog rock influence which is fun for a mid 90s game. But that's underselling it really.
One song called “The absolute” from Eve's stage sounds like The black mages (a Final Fantasy prog rock covers band with Nobuo Uematsu) All of these songs these take infulence from the prog rock acts like king crimson, Emerson, Lake + Palmer and Rush if you havent heard The black mages oh god please listen to the 1st or second relase!. I feel like the music transcends the game at times.
There are songs soaking in 80s Goth music like “Mirror Image” God it's all so good, also unlike a lot of fighting game soundtracks there multiple sections to a song that you likely won't hear unless youre vibing in training mode with full on solos. Most songs are complete songs with verses, bridges and instrument guitar solos the sound track album is basically an entire 90s prog rock album by itself.
And “Threshold” the story songs instrumental is so tight then that cool drop 1:20 in
Oh, oh and the song “chaos” from Tau stage starts weird intricately with unsettled instruments swapping style and a constant call and response just fast enough that it really feels unstable, eventually changing time signatures between sections, like I say full on prog rock style.
One of the most frustrating parts fo the soundtrack is that some songs start off very slow before the main sections and solo's would have started you're already past that stage, Pixel's stage hospital hell's theme “Isolation” has this problem
That also contributes to the feeling that the music transcends the game its clearly designed as an authentic prog rock album not a fighting game with short rounds. I bet a round based song section like in street fighter third strike would have made this more suitable a style like imgaine setting best of 5 and its the final round and the solo for a sick prog rock album plays as you fight for the ultimate glory itd slap, it'd slapsohard
Character select song “Break Out” has an Ultra-synth Phantasy star online title vibe, it's like this soundtrack was made for me specifically. Heck “Misundertanding” has a primus style slaps bass riff popping off while prog rock chords go wild. Soundtrack is so.Damn.GOOD.
I left the OST on while writing and even noticed some melty blood composer Raito style tracks like Fascination.
To be honest the soundtrack does transcends the game, the games still worth playing of course but you can just stick on the soundtrack and treat it as a prog rock album and still enjoy it for what it is. If i havent sold you on giving the soundtrack a listen im just not sure we can be friends /j
Key takeaway:
This game overall is sadly a little average overall and suffers from a small roster compared to other fighters at the time but honestly an early 3d fighting game being an ‘average‘ game by modern standards is far more than most achieved. The moveslist can feel a little small probably on par with Tekken 2s but every character has solid combo strings launcher, command grabs and some even have projectile attacks like grenades, bullets and the crab robot cancer can lay short fused mine!
The real problem i have is struggling to meaningfully engage with this game, the lack of single player modes and lack of any real community wiki's or information make this game feel insurmountable, sure some of that is a me problem but ive tried my best to engage with zero divide 2 on its own terms. Interesting things keep happening, sometimes ill interupt an enemies move in a way that feel like a reversal but i dont know which moves these are i dont know which moves it works on, the controls have some things that i just cant figure out. When i hold up and guard What does the glowing charge do? I dont know it doesnt give you armour it doesnt give you extra damage when i checked in training it doesn't seem to do anything i can tell.
Does the charge increase damage to armour? because sometimes my armour will explode recving basic combo strings but with no obvious consistency.
In fighting vipers theres easy to see feedback on screen, armour is represented as a small figure and when your armour indicator flashes it mean a heavy charged move will break the armour part but in Zero Divide 2 theres no feedback.
So faced with this i think to myself 'i'll look up the manual there was a pal release so there's an english manual online somewhere right?' well no there isn't. I couldn't find one and i can't spend the extortionate price that this game's PAL terriotry release fetches.
(There are detailed strategy guides you can buy but they are of course japanese only and no scans or pdf are on web archive).
This is all to say I really tried to engage with this beyond the surface because theres clearly more here, there are fighting games that ive played and because ive missed key details of its system id come away feeling the game was shallow or brutally hard, a great example is last bronx.
Last Bronx:
Last bronx is a sega 3D fighter you deal very high damage akin to samurai shodown, that means little mistakes like starting a punch-kick string and getting guarded mean you will get punished brutally, the thing is you can actually cancel attack strings and some recovery frames too.
To play last bronx correctly you need to fake out heavy moves and guard cancel them and mix in jabs and quick attacks, sometimes canceling them too, once you have you opponent recognising a pattern you get aggresive and catch them off guard you only need one solid hit for a juggle that might only be 2 or 3 hits but that can be 75% of their health. I didn't know about that for years id give it another try only to find out later that guard canceling moves was the way to actually fight in Last Bronx, this means it's a far more satisfying game against players in ways the arcade mode simply could not provide!
When you can see it, you can feel it but you can't control it, having unique mechanics is very frustrating. Ultimately I can't engage with Zero Divide 2 any futher. I like to play it as a fun simple 3d fighter, i see that reviewers at the time felt the same they savaged this as being 'outdated', as 'looking worse than zero divde's 1st game to achieve 60fps' and i dont think its entirely fair there is a more complex game than it first appears and the day someone with more energy more passion and patience figures out more ill be more than happy to try again.
This experience made me greatful that so many fighting games have comminuty wiki's and places like mizzumi that share lots of details that aren't obvious or aren't explained in game or in manuals. They take hundred of hours if not more of people playing practicing and then teaching that to others to fast track them up to their speed and i just think that's wonderful, in an age that feels ruthlessly isolating knowing some guy just fucking loves this game and wants you to as well and enable you and many others by giving you the fruit of their labour. A rare piece of community amoung an endless sludge of grifters trying to isolate you and incite hate and division.
In short fighting fans have this fun habit of just loving fighting games, flaws and all, I just don't have that skill so im extremely grateful they share it for everyone to get that step up!
The fate of Zero Divide 2 (and the 3D fighter genre)
As far as why zero divide 2 failed its not entirely its own fault, plenty of stinkers flooded the market but unlike the 2d fighting genre explosion a few years earlier very few caught on enough to stick around and enter a redemption arc which has left the 3d fighter market pretty much all bandai namco's now with soul calibur and tekken so much so that Katsuhiro Harada has asked Sega to make more virtua fighter, after the relaunch of virtua fighter 5. (This was written before the anouncement of a new virtua fighter)
So Zero Divide 2 got lost in a sea of worse games and couldnt stand up to tekken 3 and faded into the ether. Its still damn fun if a seemingly simple and sadly playing like a Sega 3d fighter style probably didnt help. Sega struggled to nail what they wanted outside of Virtua Fighter leaving both fighting vipers and last bronx behind. This sucks its probably a bit more fun that fighting vipers for me striking a balance bewteen fighting vipers and virua fighter and has a giant cat head character unlockable before Neco Arc.
There is a half sequel half redesigned game on Saturn based on this game too, it's got one major advantage dodging has got its own button but it's a Japan only release, while I dont like the redesign of the characters its a pretty complete package and probably worth look at some time too.
I just wish they hadnt nerfed the nurse robot pixels design hard. Worth mentioning the presentation between rounds is fantastic on the Saturn zero divide showing you working your way u through the network like the tower in early Mortal Kombat games.
I keep wondering if a zero divide 3 had happened if it would have had its own tekken 3 moment, where everything thats a little unclear gets sharpened, refined and polished into it's most distilled and confident form. I'd feel less bitter about this if the 3D fighter genre hadn't died out, 3d is used to aid 2.5D games for the most part. There are no bloody roars, there are no zero divides there are no experimental buriki one's or KOF maximum impacts there are some interesting indie 3d fighters like Schwarzerblitz on steam but the 'triple A' space is clearly done with them.
Big franchises like Dead or Alive have started leaning so heavily into giant DLC bundles and its 'sex appeal' that people dont care to play it even though its gameplay is unique and well-designed and this is quite rightly made worse by changing attitudes to women portrayed in video games, the game starts to feel a little sleazy or like the fighting game is an afterthought.
Seriously DOA has the potential for mass appeal if they just put the simple high speed striking and counter holds to catch out predictable moves front and centre in its marketing its some much easier to pick up and play than virtua fighter soul calibur and to a lesser extent tekken
Mortal Kombat went 2d again after trying 3d for a few years, rival schools is missing in action, there no more plasma sword's to observe the majesty of Zelkin, no wu tang taste the pain, no fighters destiny. Worst of all bloody roar which I love particular 2 and Primal fury were stylish and fun sadly failed to capture attention and failed.
So my review for zero divide 2 is play it, but try to play with friends! I can tell its good better than most reviwers felt at the time and I couldnt see any sort of community online for it, so there's the potentinal for skilled and pateint players to discover so much more hidden beneath the surface.
There is a Duckstation netplay fork that uses rollback net code! so online is pretty reliable same goes for any PS1 fighters. I just know there more here and maybe if more peple play it we'll truly find out if there a good game or a great game here.
Its a nice visual spectacle thanks to enhanced 3d emulation with solid sega style fighting and a few hooks to keep it unique, sadly let down by a lack of single player longevity and poorly understood mechanics. I came, I vibed and onward to the next obscurity. Thank you for shutting up and looking at zero divdie 2!
I've been Caret^Azerty serving you the things that make you go ^^!!Home page
(At least we got Red Xiii)
When I say fighting vipers style I really mean it too, It's got those short hops which set up short combo strings and the ground attacks telegraphed by a giant jump, the short punch-punch-kick strings. It even has an armour break mechanic! (which I assume change damage taken but im not really sure). This game would really feel like a Sega game if it were on Saturn (which there actually is a version of in Japan only)
Source for image
But seriously, great watch though really puts you in that lawnmower man, pre-y2k techno babble feel of the 90s, id say don't watch it on youtube boot up the game and watch it before your first play really sets the tone and atmosphere ready to kick ro-butt.
The voiceover can be a little hard to understand though, the music feels a bit louder than the voice over and due to the voiceover being by someone who is inexperienced with speaking english by the sound of it. Much better than me trying to speak any language other than english of course!
Okay well lets now were all on the same page for its basics like setting and style lets look at zero divide 2 then shall we?
The stages have different sizes and shapes adding a little extra situational awareness of how you'll play. For example stages with walls let you do a wall juggles for extra damage, like fighting vipers and stages without walls increases the risk youll get a ring out and youll find the ledge hanging can become essential, though it's not the deepest it adds its unqiue flavour, a lot of fighters were either full walls or cages or rings which you can be pushed out from causing a loss.
So as you can guess I love this art style it's iconic and screams '90s', while being new to me I only just found about this game since there were few videos about it. But just wait for the music section!!
There is a half sequel half redesigned game on Saturn based on this game too, it's got one major advantage dodging has got its own button but it's a Japan only release, while I dont like the redesign of the characters its a pretty complete package and probably worth look at some time too.
