Your memory won’t let you down here, that’s for sure.Zenonia 5: Wheel of Destiny was released in 2013, and Zenonia S: Rifts In Time was released in 2015. All the same, it is a very familiar experience. In the end, Zenonia 2: Lost Memories is a well-formulated RPG with mostly responsive and thoughtful controls. On occasions, the grind is very noticeable, while at others, your button-mashing instincts kick in and you forget yourself long enough for it to be genuinely enjoyable. These aren’t an integral part of the game, mind, since most of your time in Zenonia 2: Lost Memories is spent bashing monsters and levelling-up. There are a few social networking-esque gimmicks thrown in for good measure, too, like the ability to swap items or money with another player. Newcomers to the genre might be a tad overwhelmed, though, as there is no set tutorial as such - just a few basics are explained, and you are left to figure out the finer details for yourself. Those with little or no experience of Zenonia but with tens of hours under their belt playing similar titles will get to grips with the hack ‘n’ slash combat and the equipment-tweaking menus soon enough. A string of successful lunges and slashes will naturally produce a combo, while other abilities can be mapped to a palette at the bottom of the touchscreen.Īlthough these work fairly well, it might have been a better idea to map some of them to the other PlayStation buttons, since pulling your thumb from X button to screen to hit or heal can get a little panicky if you mis-tap even once.Īpart from that, the Xperia Play is obviously well-suited to the simplified action JRPG format. The D-pad controls movement and the X button determines attacks. The controls of the Xperia Play lend themselves well to the game, however, making the fighting and exploring that bit more enjoyable.
On the one hand, this sense of being left behind by the trio of protagonists is interesting in terms of narrative, but on the other hand, the rote quests of ‘kill ten whatevers’ or vague instructions to ‘investigate that there dungeon’ leave you feeling slightly extraneous to the main plot. You’re usually sent off on your own, making the story feel like you’re an extra constantly on the periphery.įor example, Zenonia 2: Lost Memories often lumps you with an unimaginative fetch quest while your 'friends' proceed to the next dungeon without you.
The character designs remain devoutly rooted in Japanimation, with the standard issue giant scythes and impossible hairstyles on show.įrom the outset, you play as one of four characters: two are ranged attackers – a gunwoman and a magic-user - while the other two are close combat melee specialists.Īlthough this opens up a few individual perspectives, the game doesn’t take full advantage of having four people supposedly questing together. The game retains the series’s familiar Japanese anime look, including its colourful Zelda-like backgrounds and maps. Scientists call this ‘body memory’, and it’s something Zenonia 2: Lost Memories induces almost immediately - not necessarily in a bad way. Our fingers and eyes do all the work and we barely have to think. Yet, for some reason, when someone puts a trivial old RPG in front of we seasoned gamers, we know exactly what to do. We’ll forget our mother’s birthdays and our loved one’s anniversaries, we’ll forget the faces of friends long gone, and we’ll forget what we had for dinner yesterday (or is that just me?).