Title: Zack Zero Developer(s): Crocodile Entertainment Publisher(s): Crocodile Entertainment Release date: 2013-04-29 Regular price: 8,99 € Bundled: Yes Achievements: Yes Cards: Yes Steam user reviews: 66% positive
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Zack Zero
11 hours playtime
14 of 15 achievements
Another game for September’s theme beaten! 
..and only one achievement left to 100% (missed some hidden treasures along the way)
It left me with a mouthful taste of disappointment though :\
Because it has great potential but also many flaws which can easily ruin the experience.
Do not expect some crazy hard game, it’s quite easy instead. It gave me the impression it was made with kids as its main target. Mostly for the (italian) narrator voice but also because there a lot of checkpoints. A LOT. Even during boss-fights. This leads to an overall light experience, which can be a good change from those ultra hard games.
Level design and art style are without a doubt its selling points. Top notch. Colorful and variegated really draws you in.
What could let you down are some occasional bugs and faulty collision detections that may happen during your playthrough.
It also seems crashes are a bit too common. Have a look at the community hub as it has a lot of different solutions; I tried a few and I think it was disabling Steam overlay that did the trick for me.
If you’re lucky and don’t encounter any of the aforementioned problems, you’ll be free to enjoy the variety of the levels while swiftly moving through them thanks to pretty smooth animations. I happened to run into what it looked like frame drops (not sure as, as said, I had Steam overlay disabled) during boss fight with lot of moving objects on screen (be it part of background or stuff to avoid in the foreground) which made it hard to fight and, generally, move. Luckily, it happened like twice in the whole playthrough. :)
What I found to be not good as the rest are:
- camera placement, which sometimes happened to be behind decorative objects who may prevent you to see Zack and/or enemies;
- changing suits, whose input keys doesn’t seem to be as accurate as other keys (at least, if pressed during movements/combos. No problem if you only change suit)
Other small flaws may be found in translation (italian has a couple) and narrator (yup, again. Made me feel like a kid). All this narrator thing could be only a personal matter. Perhaps he voiced also some other kids’ stuff and my brain unconsciously did the connection, so take my words with caution.
Found strange that there were no credits at the end, just a congratz message.. oh, and it clearly announced a sequel but I kind of have low hopes of it seeing the light, sadly :(
Achievement for completing the game may not unlock properly but don’t panic. Last savegame places you to the very end and I read that just a reload may help. Mine unlocked only when I closed the game, after a couple of those reloads.
I give it 7/10 because, after the initial frustration due to crashes, I’ve enjoyed my playthrough and want to encourage you to look beyond those flaws I’ve listed and give it a try. You now know what may expect you and it won’t be difficult to beat.. I think you could end up enjoying it :)
EDIT: Forgot to say that there are between 3 and 4 hours of idling included in that playtime on the right.
That’s all for September!
Theme looked good and initial plan included more games:
Psychonauts: One of the first games I bought, during my first summer sale. Thought I were finally able to play it but I was wrong.
Batman: Arkham City: started time ago and paused it because of higher priority irl stuff. Tried to continue it not so long ago but I had stopped in a mission and I can’t go back, only move forward. Problem is, ahead there are group of mobs with all sort of upgrades and I need time to get accustomed to keys again. I really wanted to unstuck my position, all the more because there’s one achievement who needs you to go and visit Calendar man on a particular day each month for a year, and wanted to try get it in 2017. Oh, well, I guess there’s still time.
Lucius II: liked the first and wanted to try this, even if I read it isn’t on par with its predecessor. Also, this is a sg win.
It will go better next time! =P
Spot-on review! I didn’t have too many crashes that it would’ve bothered me, and because of the frequent checkpoint system they didn’t erase the progress. But that same bug at the end happened to me as well - the last cutscene suddenly ended and took me to that message screen without the end achievement. It popped up when I returned to desktop. :)
I’m starting to think that actually is how they made the end.. sounds strange but I don’t think is impossible =P
Crashes for me stopped when I disabled Steam overlay. Before that they happened all at fixed points, which is whenever that guide-girl introduced a new mechanic of the game.
It does look pretty cool. Like everything, when there’s time. :D
I think you might be right about a sequel, the last blog post on their website was in 2013. :(
You should give it a try :)
As said to Thyreos above, I forgot to put in the post that there are about 3-4 hours of idling which needs to get removed from that playtime.
Yup, it’s a pity.. with more experience they could have delivered us a nice product :(
I love your layout. Got to learn this too!
Nice review
Thanks :)
It’s not that hard..
you can select a part that interests you and then right click -> inspect, or
you can simply right click -> show page code to see everything.
And if you need more options for a certain tag, they are easily googlable :)
I hadn’t heard of Zack Zero, but wow the art looks great to me. Adding it to my wishlist with caution :)
Good choice ;)
I repeat myself but bugs aren’t gamebreaking and seems a solutions for those crashes exists. If you can also bear with the story, which is kind of cliché, I think you’ll enjoy it :)
I got it on Steam at -90% and it also appears in bundles from time to time.
Oh, forgot to say in the post (added now) but the playtime is shorter than what the “badge” says, as there are 3-4 hours of idling.