Zenless Zone Zero – Version 2.3: Memories of Dreams Bygone leaves the Defense Force and Obol Squad behind and focuses on Spook Shack once more. However, the upcoming Krampus Compliance Agency (and beyond!) has gotten a fair bit of teasing as well, with Banyue, Dialyn and, of course, Zhao and Ye Shunguang making their appearances.
The vibe of the story is quite different when compared to the previous version, focusing on the horror aspect that the Spook Shack is well known for. Ghost stories, mind-reading monsters, miners who had vanished within the Miasma, the tolling of a phantom bell, and a lonely Proxy with unusual abilities trapped in the middle of it all. That is certainly the case of “reality being stranger than fiction” there!
At the first glance, it might look like a filler, but Zenless Zone Zero has mastered the art of starting a seemingly completely unrelated sequence of events and then managing to tie them to the main story. Version 2.3 is another example of that. Sure, Genshin has been doing that for a while, especially with the events such as the latest Ruins Exploration: Fieldwise Center event, but usually you’re able to predict where it’s going to go relatively early – sometimes as soon as the trailer.
Zenless, however? No such thing. So let’s dive in and see what V2.3 has to offer!
The Spook Shack forum members decide to meet up IRL, while the Miasma is receding in the Hollow, allowing miners to visit the previously inaccessible areas rich in the lumite ore – such is the premise of the story, and the explanation behind Lucia’s and Yidhari’s appearances. Banding together with Manato and Lucia, the Proxy jumps into the Hollow to search for the missing workers… but instead finds a ghost town, filled with the dream versions of the missing people, the Drowned Ideals.
At first, our only real connection to the overarching plot is the presence of Krampus, cleaning up Porcelumex’s act that had been lacking for a while. Zhao notes that the TOPS Alliance is already unhappy, between the Ravenlocks and their organ-trading (Echoes of Silver & Hugo storylines), and now Porcelumex further tanking their reputation. Not only were there the human experiments and the alliance with the Exaltists in 2.1, but the truth behind Porcelumex’s deals with Major General Lorenz during the Hollow Zero disaster came to light during V2.2. As Zhao notes, another blunder like that and there will be nothing Krampus or TOPS can do.
So, as the busy bunny she is, Zhao hops on the opportunity to magnanimously help the Proxies and their Spook Shack friends when the news of the missing miners and the weird ghost town get back to her. However, what should have been a quick rescue mission, turns into an entire adventure that involves the Proxies, Lucia, Manato, Zhao, Dialyn, Banyue, and Yidhari, the one at the center of it all.
This way, players can also get used to the Krampus lot before they actually get released, and have a reason for waiting for them besides the cool design during the reveal. That is a better approach than the standard Genshin Liyue Lantern Rite 4-star or, say, Faruzan who are being introduced during the events, or Boothill and Rappa who showed up with no prior mention in HSR.
However, such a large cast and a deep, slightly convoluted story also means that the screentime is largely used for planning or for explanation behind the events. You do learn enough about Lucia, Yidhari and the rest to have an idea of who they are and what they want, but their actual stories are revealed in the TV-schedules. Manato’s story is explored head-on – however, whether this is enough is up for you to decide. To me, it felt like the story didn’t have enough time to explore the trio that is being sold now (Yidhari, Lucia & Manato), because it was busy between the main story and the wink-wink nudge-nudging players towards the new four coming in V2.4 & V2.5.
At the town’s center, we find Yidhari – or the Strawberry Parfait – the missing Spook Shack member and a Proxy in her own right. She has an incredible ability to read Ether’s memories, literally seeing the past before her and even mixing it up with real people which leads to a few comical situations.
When the corruption is strong enough, she can even make this information manifest for others, and this is the reason Sarah abducted her for. Using these powers, Yidhari opened a portal from the Hollow’s past that’s supposed to lead Sarah to the Creator and also manifested the town itself, her own Drowned Ideal that allowed her to witness other people’s stories. That, in turn, bound her to the Hollow, trapping her inside and preventing her from leaving. Of course, the Proxy and her friends from Spook Shack wouldn’t simply leave her there, trapped and alone among the Miasma. It took a few tries and an experimental technology from Krampus, but our heroes were able to lower the levels of corruption in the Hollow, saving the trapped miners and allowing Yidhari to take control of her abilities.
Before leaving the Hollow, she managed to show us a vision of Sarah and Ye Shiyuan, working together. This is the thing with these two, both operate on the “ends justify the means” principle, but we have no idea what these “ends” are besides seeking out the Creator. What then? Is it an Ethereal or something else? What does Sarah want to do? No answers just yet, and at this point I won’t even be too surprised if we never get them at all, with Sarah being beated or driven away and the Exaltists collapsing with nothing to show for it.
While in the town, Manato also had to deal with his own Drowned Ideal, while Lucia finally got closure for her father, a Captain of the Defense Force that went missing during the Hollow Zero disaster.
Her TV Schedule allows you to learn more about Yidhari’s past through a wacky control an Ethereal mini-game. If you needed a reminder of TOPS being pure evil, this is one of them. What would it mean for our playable Krampus trio, since they’re all associated with TOPS? No idea just yet, let’s wait for Versions 2.4 & 2.5 to find out! Meanwhile, Lucia’s targets the more mysterious and unapproachable side of the Hollows, one of the godlike Ethereals: Night Horror, explaining the past of her tribe and her own peculiar behavior.
One thing is certain, with every new version, Hollows turn from a natural (or perhaps human-created) phenomenon into something almost magical in nature. They are no longer black hole-like chaotic spaces filled with the corruptive Ether energy, but rather living things. The same can be said about the Ethereals – back in 1.x, Nineveh and the rest were seen as a natural catastrophe and monsters to defeat, but now we have the Ethereals that can communicate with people, hold onto their sentience a while like the Wandering Hunter, and more. At the moment, my overall impression from this change is negative – more on that below – but it remains to be seen how the developers continue to address it in the future.
Between versions 1.3 (Yanagi & Lighter release) & 1.7 (Viv & Hugo release), Zenless Zone Zero had been hands-down my favorite gacha – not only among the HoYoverse projects, but also when compared to others. And, admittedly, I’m not much taken by Season 2 between the intentionally stunted character development, abandoning technology to bring forth borderline magic, the overabundance of tropes, and overall disappearing unique identity of the game.
Let’s quickly go over these one-by-one, starting with the loss of identity as it is related to other points closely.
When it was released, ZZZ boasted a highly unique style that you’d recognize anywhere. A retro-futuristic look reminiscent of the 90’s – arcades, video stores, payphones, you name it.
Not only that, but it was highly unusual to have the two fully-voiced protagonists who coexist and interact with each other and the game’s characters at the same time. Moreover, sharing a secret identity and not only having no combat capabilities, but also avoiding moving out personally to deal with troubles. All of the above made ZZZ stand out, especially when you throw in the varied cast: Thirens, Androids and Intelligent Constructs, humans, clones, all from different walks of life and with different backgrounds.
Over time, the game started moving away from a lot of things that made it unique. Come Version 2.0, every single character we’ve met – with the very glaring exception of Seth – knows about the protagonists’ illegal activities and the Big Dark Secret of being Phaethon, some are even aware of their connection to the largely reviled Carole Arna. Not only that, but the protagonists have also opened their chakras with the secret Yixuan training technique and can now directly enter the Hollows and dispel Miasma- a couple more expansions, and we might actually be able to take them to battle, too.
On a similar note, the game is abandoning its down-to-earth, almost-all-tech approach to move closer to magic-like flashy abilities. It started with Miyabi, but between her and Astra Yao it was still lowkey-enough to be ignored. Yixuan was already a bit hard to accept despite the whole “You guys, she’s totally just controlling Ether!”, but Lucia is literally summoning Ethereals from a book. Yes, there’s a backstory there, with the Night Horror and the control rod, and they’re actually illusions (until they’re not), but you can’t dismiss the visuals that clash with pretty much everything and everyone.
Now, the last but certainly not the least points in this list: overuse of tropes and stunted character development.
I have mentioned the ZZZ developers embracing the same backstories and tribulations for characters in my previous impressions bit for V2.2, but it didn’t stop there. What made Harumasa, Anby and Soldier-11 stand out so much at the time was that their stories were not the norm for ZZZ Season 1. But S2 has gotten very comfortable with slapping the “dead family” and “human experiments!” labels on every other character, sometime at the same time.
Yixuan? Dead sister. Alice? Dead father. Yuzuha – orphan & human experiments by TOPS. Manato – orphan. Seed – dead father (Seed Sr.) and a part of human experiments of the Helios Academy. Orphie – part of the human experiments of the Defense Force. Lucia – dead father. Yidhari – dead parents & also a part of the human experiments by TOPS (admittedly, by her own parents in order to save her life). Ye Shiyuan & Ye Shunguang – orphans (revealed during the latest livestream for V2.4).
Where are the Zhu Yuans and Seths of Season 2, characters with happy stories and living, close-knit families? I’ll even take just the living families if they’re jerks and not close to the characters at all, such as the case with Lucy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that Zenless Zone Zero has the dark and gritty lore behind the colorful and frequently over-exaggerated style. But you don’t have to put all of your eggs into a single basket. A character can have a messed up past without involving Hollow Zero, losing family members, or being a subject of human experimentation – sometimes all at once.
Just look at Hugo and Vivian, both having dark pasts and the traumas that left deep, bleeding marks on them, but not following in the same well-explored path. If anything, his family is a big part of why he’s turned out the way he is for Hugo.
Is it a tradition for 1 or 2 characters to survive in a squad that I’m unaware of?
Now, onto the last, but probably the most frustrating point: the denied character development. Admittedly, this has started back in Season 1 with Soldier-11 and the Echoes of Silver storyline. Poor Harin had been catching the story strays from the very beginning. Not only was she the only character of Obol Squad released, but she also did not get any significant development until V1.6, so much so that she was the only Agent to sit out the all-hands-on-deck approach of V1.4. You couldn’t even max her friendship until later patches as well!
Echoes of Silver and its treatment of her was lowkey infuriating. What a way to reveal the character’s past and present, only to completely deny the future by literally making her forget the events of the story and having the Proxies continuously lie to her about it. But that was alright, I thought, obviously this is the story that the developers want to tell in the Obol patch, right? Right?..
Yeah, about that. Come Version 2.2, the aforementioned Obol patch, and things have actually managed to get worse. Soldier-11 had absolutely no relevance in the patch about her own group and next to no interactions with other characters, making it feel like she doesn’t even belong in the squad. She also doesn’t work with them particularly well gameplay-wise anyway.
But if that wasn’t enough, we got a story about how lying to preserve the limbo is bad, and this kind of protection is toxic… except it was about Seed. Meanwhile, Obol Squad continues meeting with Soldier 0: Anby while Harin is away, literally sneaking around and lying while preaching how bad and damaging that is.
However, Harin is not the only character that had her story randomly cropped off. There’s also the aforementioned Seth who remains the only character unaware of Belle’s and Wise’s secret identity through the order issued by his elder brother.
And then there’s Yixuan. Since her very introduction, her character revolved around three major plot points. The larger Suibian Temple, Failume Heights & Waifei Peninsula storyline that the Proxies are actively participating in, but also two personal arcs: her sister, Yijiang, and the Qingming Sword, the cursed blade that brought calamity but also saved her life and the lives of countless others.
At the very end of the Version 2.0, the Exaltists manage to steal the High Preceptor’s memories and use them to create the Miasmic Fiend boss that haunts Anomaly-less players in Deadly Assault. Pretty much everyone out there expected a confrontation between the two, after all, Yijiang was so important to Yixuan, certainly fighting an Ethereal made in her image would mean something?
No. No, it does not. When the Miasmic Fiend chases after Yuzuha, Alice & co in Version 2.1, Yixuan jumps into action, nukes it within 3 seconds, and then vaguely but serenely notes something about “bringing it peace”. So much for the Exaltists’ plot of bringing the sister back. No wonder the cult has never known much success and will likely completely fall apart now that Isolde is gone and Sarah is in charge of the stragglers.
Note that both Seth and Yixuan still have a chance to receive this character development in the future. For our lynx Thiren, it will likely be related to the release of his brother as a playable agent or an introduction as an important NPC at some point. As for Yixuan, the Qingming Sword is still out there, and will receive more attention when we get to the stories of Ye Shiyuan and Ye Shunguang. Perhaps, that would bring Yijiang back to the spotlight a bit as well.
When it comes to Soldier 11: Harin, I admittedly don’t have much hope anymore unless she receives a separate 5-star version like Anby did, which is quite the fat chance for a standard character—especially with the announced buffs.
