Rather than simply initiate an attack and watch it unfold, like in Fire Emblem, you must input attack commands to deal damage. Characters are paired together, usually by series, and move around the grid-based map defeating enemies. Dispatching enemies is incredibly fun, thanks to Project X Zone’s action-focused battle system. Project X Zone strips away some of the more familiar aspects of tactical RPGs, like an overworld map, random battles, and shops, and instead features 40 chapters that flow directly from one to another. The writing is sharp and revels in exposing how ludicrous some of these game tropes are when put in a real-world setting. Dead Rising’s Frank West stops to take a picture of every new female character met, Arthur from Ghosts ‘n Goblins consistently perplexes the cast by walking around in his underwear after taking damage, and pretty much every character is caught off guard by the well-endowed Princess Kaguya Nanbu from Endless Frontier. hack series, haven’t the slightest idea what a Valkyria is, or even struggle to remember which one is Ken and which one is Ryu the Crosspedia has you covered.īeing familiar with the source material has its perks, as Project X Zone has a penchant for poking fun at each and every franchise represented. So don’t fret if you’re foggy on the events of the. Here, I was able to read the origins of characters I wasn’t as familiar with, and understand a little bit more about what they were babbling about. Thankfully, Project X Zone features the rather thorough Crosspedia, a constantly evolving encyclopedia of good and bad guys. Worse than that, the heroes seem content to blindly jump around dimensions without the slightest clue as to what's going on, which at least put them on the same level as me. Before long, things get to the point of absurdity, with constant double-crosses between the expanding roster of villains and no clear motive for any of them. The core story thread is simple enough to latch on to – something called the Portalstone has been stolen and heroes and villains from various franchises suddenly begin jumping through dimensions – but it grows needlessly complex with each new character introduced. As you’d expect, the explanation for how characters from so many different games appear in Project X Zone is not only forced, it’s downright confusing.