Version 2.8 serves both as an epilogue for the second season of ZZZ as well as the introduction to the third – or, rather, the reasoning to how we find ourselves on the flying island, Roscaelifer. It is a short and sweet patch that is packed with content to quickly tie up some loose ends and open up an ocean of possibilities going forward – but, perhaps, it has forgotten some passengers on the shore.
The protagonists continue their hunt for Ramiel and the W-Engine she stole at the very end of the previous chapter. Feeling personally responsible, Billy aids the Proxies all the while bragging about his awesome upgrade. The recently adopted snake tags along to keep her housing and meal ticket secure.
Together, the two are quite the match made in heaven when it comes to comedic relief moments and witty quips regarding the managers and each other – and for that exact reason I hope we’ll see them team up relatively frequently going forward.
After narrowing down the search results provided by Fairy and totally-not-down-bad sibling, this bright and loud crowd sets off on a quick but strange journey to find the truth.
From the get-go, Zenless Zone Zero goes on the heavy hinting about Ramiel’s true identity – the Proxy recalls a certain Void Hunter of the first generation that completely coincidentally (not) shares Ramiel’s appearance. She also feels out of place in the city, unaware of modern trends, and picks up oldschool flowers to use as her tribute for the departed.
Still, the moment of her coming clean with her real name – Remielle Dan – and what it means is one wrought with tension. Not only what it means for the Proxy and their quest to retrieve the W-Engine at the moment, but also for the world of Zenless altogether.
If one first-gen Void Hunter is alive and taking interest in the matters related to the Helios Academy, could there be more? And the answer is obviously yes, not only did we see Joyous at the end of the co-op Divine Maze event, we also know that both Remielle and Sunbringer survived, and Professor Arche is likely somewhere in Hollow Zero. Plus, the suspicious hulking shadow during the Sarah flashback (that I admittedly attributed to Lieutenant Colonel Dan, which we now know is Remielle).
Before, just having one Void Hunter present and fighting on our side was something to be excited about. Now, with at least two in the same place, but possibly following different goals, the stakes are rising quickly. Add in the fact that TOPS is now getting more heavily involved, such as using the W-Engine to lure out Remielle and now pursuing her through the Hollow, and Season 3 seems like it’s promising some interesting times for the siblings and New Eridu at large.
Unless these matters are dropped as quickly as the Exaltists, of course.
During a brief chat, Remielle reveals the truth beyond just her own identity. She needs the W-Engine to retrieve something that belongs to her – and she promises to bring it to the Proxy siblings once she has no use of it anymore.
However, despite her seeming sincerity, our crowd of misfits decides to follow anyhow – now, it’s more than just Remielle and the W-Engine since the TOPS representatives are swarming the Outer Ring and harassing locals, all seemingly in a bid to intercept Remielle.
The investigation crosses our group’s path with Promeia, who is out there on Krampus’ orders to investigate the TOPS’ Rusty Cliff’s activities. She helps the group to defeat mass-produced mecha Romeuls that are being controlled by Youkai – however, his involvement doesn’t really come up in conversations due to more pressing concerns. It is obviously a plot hook that will extend in the future, when the time comes to face TOPS directly.
The group’s persistence on following Remielle pays off – or is it backfires? – when they beat her to the finish line, get rid of the Anti-Void Hunter mech, and stand face-to-face with what she had been looking for all this time. Unknown to the Proxy at the time, Remielle was seeking her Void Hunter weapon, the mechanical wings Thaumiel.
However, coming into contact with the weapon only accelerated the Proxy’s Ether corruption, causing them to transform into an Ethereal-like creature and attack their friends. It would have likely been over for the entire group if Remielle didn’t intercept Belle (or Wise, if you play as him) in time.
Offering her apologies and extracting the weapon from the Proxy’s body, Remielle refers to the Helios Academy as the source of Proxy’s golden eyes and nightmares, “cause” tied to her and the “effect” tied to the Proxy. In order to cure the Proxy’s condition for good – and to uproot the chronic blight from Helios – the siblings need to venture to Roscaelifer.
Thankfully, Velina and Norma were just about to offer the same thing and extend their invitations. They also drop the lore bomb on the siblings by revealing that not only is Sunbringer alive, but Remielle had tried to assassinate her and is now being hunted as a criminal.
Just like that, siblings are caught in the middle of a conspiracy… again. There is no saying what Sunbringer and her group are pursuing in Roscaelifer, but it was enough to make the Void Hunter into an enemy of Remielle. On the other hand, we also have no idea what it is that she, herself, is looking for now that she has Thaumiel back. Up to this point, the Proxies had no reason to oppose her – would she be as magnanimous if their search for truth puts them on the opposing sides?
Simultaneously, Belle and Wise rightfully do not trust the TOPS and Krampus, and are wary of Velina and Norma. And when the truth of Roscaelifer becomes known to PubSec and others, what will they do?
The plot thickens. I hope HoYoverse keeps this sense of not knowing whom to trust going for a while, with everyone having their own goals and agendas and not being shy to use the Proxies. But simultaneously I expect that it will all come down to good people misunderstanding one another or someone being corrupted/controlled, and Belle and Wise making friends with everyone regardless.
Compared to Version 1.7 – the last version of the first season – Version 2.8 does a much better job setting up the coming events and characters. Not only did we have a chance to interact with Remielle, Norma and Velina, the game also made progress on personal reasons for them to take part in Season 3 beyond “the Mayor asked”. Additionally, it set up the conflict between Sunbringer and Roscaelifer vs Remielle, while hammering in that the TOPS Alliance is not to be trusted.
Compared to Yixuan that served as our introductory character in Season 1 leading to Season 2, Remielle seems to be much more integral to the plot. She has ties to the Helios Academy and the Proxies personally (the cause and effect conversation), there’s something going on between her and Sunbringer that brought them to blows, and finally she’s being hunted by TOPS for one reason or another.
Not to mention, she is an actual Void Hunter from the first generation, and likely possesses not only unique abilities, but also unique knowledge that could have been largely lost. Overall, the mystery, suspense and hype regarding her feel to be on a whole different level compared to Yixuan and the rest of the Suibian Temple until the arrival of Ye Shunguang.
On the other hand, there are characters that had to pay the price for all that screentime going to Remielle – similar to how Dialyn and Banyue got their own quests cut to give more exposure to Ye Shunguang. And these characters are Promeia and Starlight Billy.
Billy has his lengthy stint with the Cunning Hares that works in his favor. He’s been through the thick and thin with the Proxy, and does not really need any extra time for players to fall in love with him – he’s already a beloved character as is.
However, this new form of his didn’t really get all that much attention beyond “Check out this awesome move!~” – sure, there was the conversation between him and Lighter regarding his past as the Reaper and the Champion of Calydon, but that is really all it amounted to. The idea of Billy leaving his darker past behind to become a different person with a different life is a compelling one, but it would have struck harder if we got a chance to actually see that past, like with Promeia and her time in the Sweepers.
Speaking of Promeia, this is the character that got criminally underutilized. Despite having taken part in a couple of patches back-to-back, she got less time and attention than certain NPCs like Damien. She could have truly benefited from having an Agent Story of her own, not about her relationship with Cissia, maybe not even about Sweepers at all – but about her and Krampus.
Normally, I’d shrug and say something like “Well, maybe Dialyn, Banyue and Promeia will get more involved in the future, when we get introduced to their Boss and Phoenix, and Krampus is sure to get more attention”. However, I’d already put my trust in Soldier-11 involvement with the supposed Obol patch and was left burned. So face value it is, and it doesn’t look good, especially with the Proxies moving away to a different region that is closed off from the larger world.
I’m also interested to see how HoYoverse will handle both Remielle and Sunbringer when the time comes. At the very end of the patch, the game has already started hinting that perhaps Lady Sunbringer is not what we imagine her to be, character-wise. But I still think it is a shame HoYo abandoned old Remielle and Sunbringer designs for the updated gacha-fied but generic versions.
