Zone of the Enders 2 PS4 4k-edition

With mummyheads it is more after their first gain of aggro. In Canyon and also Crusher you can just blindly 'share your energy with me' at will since they always first dash towards you and then wait a bit, and then they are agressive and never stop.

Don't think we ever talked about this but I haven't delved that deep into their secondary moves (those little zero damage missiles that stagger you) or commander-moves and what they do. I know that teamed up Mummyheads will immediately escape Wisp for example. Any more info on that?

> itagaki
It started as a rumour and later a friendly conversation between Kojima and Itagaki. Itagaki was impressed with ZoE2 and Kojima talked a bit with him wheither or not he'd be interested in directing the third. It didn't go beyond a talk as the whole Itagaki/Tecmo drama happened soon after. Just imagine though.

> BB same person
Honestly, to them you, me, Birdman, SBK, BigVee and 5does are all the same "4channer" probably.

>aggressive and never stop

I think this creates an interesting way of prioritizing them, basically if you don’t make them a high priority right away you end up scrambling to deal with them. But because of their ability to heal you never feel railroaded into blitzing them right away, there’s other ways to take care of them.

>more info on mummyheads

No, but that does raise some interesting questions. Will have to go to the lab and research.

>Itagaki impressed with ZoE2

Based.

>didn’t go beyond just a talk

That’s a shame. Unfortunately I think at this point it’s too late to get a third game, best to let the old boy rest.

>all the same 4channer

Is it that weird that a handful of people on a forum share similar opinions? That board is so strange.

I really can’t beat Nephtis on my no subweapon run, I’ve tried on and off for weeks now and it almost feels like luck. It also gives me a headache with much you get thrown around in that fight haha. Either I need to hang it up for now or try a different run.

I was curious about that fight. I'm currently at Vascillia Spiders on my no-subweapon run. So far it hasn't been too challenging yet but the Nephtis fight is the one I'm dreading the most. Perhaps you can fight on one of the lower or higher floors?

You can grab and hold a Clod by spamming the charge button iirc to at least get a hit in. But that's conjecture on my part I admit. I'll let you know when I reach it. Maybe we can find a strategy together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_fg61kIuLU&feature=youtu.be

Did Nephis 3 without Subweapons. Brutal fight but once I got a tactic down on how to use the Clods it went by pretty fast honestly. Currently stuck in the crusher room getting absolutely demolished by Mummies.

Edit: I am wondering if it is at all possible to do this with Damaged Jehuty. In my analysis of the fights they should all be doable up until the Crusher room, I don't think you can do that without either meter or spirit bombs. The train might also be brutal. Enfin, let's first see if we can get past this run haha!

So there is hope, excellent. I tried rushing the clods after I used lasers but I would always get grabbed, need to work on my timing and spacing. Time to try again.

If you do three hits you can generally cancel it into a grab but it really is hit and miss. The clods really do what they want, managed to get her to 5% HP a few times but got swarmed. I can't get through room 2 without sub weapons right now in the crusher. Absolutely dreadful encounter haha. Might try to sit them out from the top, see if that works.

Wife's been redecorating the house for the last week, pretty intense but we finally hooked up the TV again yesterday. First game I booted up was ZoE2. Just such a fantastic experience can't say anything else about it. Took a break from my NoSub run to pump out a quick Extreme run. 6 deaths, zero saves, SS and S. Pretty sweet!

Died at the most random of places:

- Vic Viper nuked me. Thought I had him in the loop but screwed it up.
- The escort mission for Ken
- Crusher room (of course I did)
- Zakat.
- Zakat, jup, died twice. Just...really need a solid tactic for him I feel. Phase 2 feels totally random at times.
- Microwave Room. I got nuked hard by the beam haha.

That aside, thinking of making the next design on the shop be Jehuty. Such a great design, hope I can make something cool out of it.

Nice work, ironically enough I also booted it up this morning to practice, really want to do a no damage run but I need to really get down some sections like the crusher room. Thankfully we can still block while our meter is out so getting out of danger even with no meter shouldn’t theoretically be hard as long as we don’t get careless.

I noticed something that I should’ve been able to to figure out easily but it never really occurred to me: breaking a guard with comet really stuns the enemy, basically frees them up to a raw grab. Also for mummyheads I’ve been doing one heavy regular shot to cancel their laser and go in for a grab, easy way to take care of them with no meter as long as you’re not surrounded.

I don’t know what it is man but this game just keeps calling me back. When I play other games I just think about this and end up ending my gaming sessions with a quick mission or run through survival on this. This is really like “my game”.

There's a lot of things I feel that contribute to this game being so easy to pick up. Especially it being mechanically easy to grasp, but there's always something to experiment with or make you go "oh yeah, what if I....". Like what you noted about using a regular heavy shot, never thought about that, let me try that. That and it is pretty short without any filler.

I still want to go back to MGS2 for instance but anything post-Harrier just makes me groan.

Did you beat Nephis yet on NoSub?

That’s definitely part of why I like it so much, I’m drawn to games that are easy to understand and pick up. Not to sound like a jaded old man but games have just got out of control to me, there’s so much going on in a lot of games without them having legitimate substance.

>MGS2 post-Harrier
Yeah, I’ve always thought of that fight as the dividing line in the game, since after that is mostly action, set pieces, and some weird non-core gameplay(though I do love the little bit of sneaking on the connecting bridge when it’s falling apart, wish we would have got more of that). MGS1 has the same problem after the first Sniper Wolf fight. This is partially why I hold 3 in such high regard even compared to 2, it’s basically just core gameplay the entire way through, with a lot of variety in the level design and scenarios.

>Nephtis no sub
I’ve tried it a couple times since my initial week of failure and still can’t get it. I’ll probably just have to steal your strat wholesale haha.

There was a picture going around on the web of the status screen of that upcoming Avenger game with the comment "I'm getting tired just looking at this". I am having more and more respect for games like Killer is Dead these days as a result. Just one weapon, a few subweapons, have fun.

> connecting bridge sneak
Not sure which part you mean?

> MGS3
One day..

> no sub nephis
No sweat. Maybe I can steal your crusherroom strat. I'm running out of ideas (or hope) haha.

>getting tired of looking at this
I’m completely in that boat. I don’t inherently hate upgrade systems or whatever but games just take it too far and use “progression” as a means of getting attention from casuals. More and more games are also gating basic functions behind upgrade trees and it just feels artificial. This is why I’m always booting up ZoE2, Vanquish, MGS, etc. Just no bullshit, I can get right into deep and satisfying gameplay.

>connecting bridge sneak
Where it’s falling apart and there are two enemies on a bridge slightly above you, along with that guard inside the building behind all those windows while you run along the panels that fall down.

>crusher room strat
I’ll have to really get one down first haha. That room is wild, small environment with clods as well as ranged enemies, deadly environmental hazard, elaborate compositions. It’s really the true gauntlet in the game imo.

Edit: you mentioned KiD: what a great game. Very underrated, part of why I loved it is exactly for the reason you described, a simple to understand game where you can just pick it up and have fun. It’s got plenty of its own personality to boot.

Managed to beat the crusher room, both ones and also Inherit. The crusherrooms were lamed to to an insane degree, they're on my channel. I abused using LockonLaser to get a lockon the Cellar from far away so I could just spiritbomb it. Worked really well.

Stuck at the battleships now, not sure how to handle this area without Homing Missiles.

Excellent. Yeah I hadn’t even thought about the battleship section, homing missiles wreck that part so hard I don’t even imagine it without them.

I might have to use the speedrun strategy I feel. Fighting even a raptor while the ships are firing at you is suicide it seems. My biggest fear is Zakat. Once I beat him I'm home free I feel (though Anubis without Zeroshift will be interesting to say the least).

Almost had a succesful run. Think I have the strategy down. You have to immediately dash towards the last ship and fight them all from behind, slowly remove their turrets and be safe while fighting reinforcements. They got a few lucky hits in which nuked me at the last ship, should be doable.

Do you just avoid the enemies until you get that last ship? Sounds like it could work.

I think tonight I’ll start practicing for my no damage run. I’ll start on very hard and go from there. I don’t see any issues coming up until the cyclops’ show up. Taper shouldn’t be bad since he can be used as bait. With Vic Viper I need worry about the ring attack but usually a diagonal dash does the trick. The mars valley I’ll just have be super aggressive with the mummyheads and rush them before they get their lasers off. The train might be annoying though, that and the Nephtis battle will be the first major hurdles probably. Should be fun.

There are no enemies until you kill the first ship or touch the third(?), so you can just dash ahead. Technically you could destroy all their turrets first but honestly that's just such a waste of time going back and forth. I should nail it tomorrow.

> no damage
Think you'll be fine. The Cyclops fight isn't too bad thanks to empowered poles and sniping with spirit bomb in those little chambers (you can just wait outside the door). For Vic I always use the grab loop.

I think the train will be the first hurdle yeah thanks to the homing flame-shots of the second to last carriage. With subs Nephis shouldn't be that big of a deal I feel. Though I'm sure Crevace will break your soul if you're not careful. Good luck!

I may have to do the no damage run in short bursts. Getting hit by one stray bullet and having to restart is annoying. I am up to Taper now and it really hasn’t been bad(I’m playing on VH though). Will probably bounce back between this run and practicing segments on Extreme.

Why are you doing it on VH?

Wanted to practice and work my way up. Felt going straight into Extreme might be too much but I’ll probably just start over now because so far VH isn’t bad aside from just slip-ups that become annoying to restart on.

VH is a weird setting for me since it isn't too different from Extreme outside of one move from Zakat and some damage values. At least off the top of my head.

That said. Beat ZoE2 Extreme No Subweapons! Most of the fights are on my channel for those that want to check them out.

Somehow managed to get Zakat on my first attempt. Other fights were a lot worse though. The Bahram airships still took quite a few attempts, final attempt was nearly 20 minutes in length, brutal. Crevass was just pure luck. Can't say anything else. Managed to constantly get metatron in that attempt for heals and enemies didn't resist my grabs as much. Tactic was to stay close to allied frames so they'd use their grenade spread.

Anubis was pretty easy, but the final boss was pure luck I felt whether he'd give me a favourable pattern.

All in all, really brutal run that also taught me a lot. Not going to attempt it with Damaged Jehuty though, not interested in that. Will probably take a break from the title again, maybe play some Death Stranding.

Congrats man! It seems like every really difficult section is in the second half of the game. Is this a world first? Now I’m motivated to actually finish it myself...

>Death Stranding
Is VH coming to console?

Thanks Infinity :)

Yeah I'm pretty sure this is a world first. That said I do think it would've been done a lot sooner had this game had more players. Even finding a decent run online without day-1 strategies is pretty hard.

> Death Stranding VH
Not that I know of at this time. Think they are focussing on patching the PC version first (ton of bugs). That said VH is just a statbump sadly. Which is pretty dull in a game filled with OHKO strats. Was talking with SBK about the game and we both agreed it could really use more 'dungeons' like you have just before the 'giant' boss. Not constantly, just a few here and there, streamlined lineair adventures.

Also, elements play too little a role (heavy wind, freeze, sunshine etc) despite being in the game. Think this game could really benefit from being less openworld.

That said I reccommend the run btw, it's a lot of fun and a good challenge. The second you reach Nephis 3 (where you were at) it turns to pure hell though. Nephis3 is difficult. The escort after is difficult. The city is absolutely brutal even if you rush to the Cellar. The Crushers will crush you. Inherit is no joke. Bahram ships take ages. Zakat is Zakat. Crevass is luck. The section with V2 Jehuty is insanely difficult without ZS. Anubis is Anubis. Final boss is a massive dick.

It's just hard fight after hard fight. As noted, I won't be doing it with Damaged Jehuty, just cannot imagine doing this without SpiritBomb abuse.

Might be interesting to do a full guide of the game, detailing every strat. That said, I know myself. I'll never finish it haha.

I had a feeling that Nephtis 3 would start the gauntlet of insanity until the end of the game. The city and crusher rooms are literally two of my favorite scenarios in the entire genre, I’m hoping this run doesn’t make me hate them haha.

>V2 Jehuty without ZS
I hadn’t thought of this, that part is typically one of the easier ones in the second half of the game. I’m honestly most worried about Inherit...hate that fight.

I wish had more time to play. Haven’t been able to do anything except a little AC the last few days. What do you think about a no metatron run, or some variant of it?

Inherit isn't that bad since he doesn't change much I feel. The first phase is a bit more annoying without Decoy though. Phase 2 is the same for me. Still don't have a clue what to do when he says "there" and just carpet bombs you with F Mines.

> City
I just rushed towards the exit immediately and nuked the Cellar.

> Crusher
You can check my videos, they'll make you laugh and cry in how I tackle them haha. So much cheese....

> No Metatron run
Hm, I remain unconvinced. Think solo-subweapon runs might be a fun alternative. Or just play for fun :)

Nice work Roy. You really went all out with this game. I can look at forgiving some of your gaming sins. Might create a point system for you.

Did some checking, also on Bilibili, it's a world-first, so "yay me"!


> I am forgiven
Mother of god.

But yeah fantastic game, love the subweapons, the mobility, the pacing - not a lot out there quite like it.

Hey guess who started a No Subweapon run with Damaged Jehuty? :D

Just beat Vic Viper, so far so good, pretty challenging and fun. Absolutely murdered the Cellar Room on my first try. Super funny to realize how much trouble that room gave me initially.

Man, you’re leaving me in the dust here. I suck at this game now compared to you haha.

Was too lazy to give them names yet, but here's the Cellar Room. Starts rought but eases up pretty fast.

> leaving you in the dust
Consider the dust an inspiration to catch up Jokes aside, you taught me a ton man, forever grateful for making me hooked on this title.

>pole for pest control
Clever. Guess that’s the way to do it with no lock on lasers.

>charging all poles
A man of culture, I see. Just barely doesn’t OHKO mummyheads, makes me sad everytime. Notice a good bit of damage from dashing into the cellar while carrying the pole, great detail. Great performance as usual man.

>inspiration to catch up
Booting the game up as we speak! Haha.

>hooked on the title
Always glad to get someone into this masterpiece. Truly the most under appreciated game in the genre imo, which is shocking given whose name is attached to it.

I really love the battleship section and the way it progresses.

1st ship: just small turrets
2nd ship: small turrets plus the those pillars shoot beams
3rd ship: turrets and beams plus raptors and mummyheads, have to start watching for ships behind you
4th and 5th ships: all of the above plus reinforcements

What a great set piece. I remember this section chugging on the PS2 back in the day and really blowing me away with its scale. It’s also interesting because it’s probably the hardest area in the game to utilize collisions. Also also, never realized you could grab poles off of the ships after destroying their exteriors. Always learn something new.

It's funny you should mention the pillars, as I only just found that out myself too! Mentioned it to SBK and he noted he was half surprised there wasn't a poster of a gravure model hidden somewhere in those ships knowing Kojima.

One thing I also want to call out is that the little turrets get shields starting at ship 4, meaning homing lasers won't work on them. It's such a little detail but worth noting. It's also interesting how the stage scales with difficulty. On Normal the ships never cover up, and per difficulty more and more cover their core if you get close.

I know you can sometimes kill more than one ship with a single Vector Canon but never got consistent at it. You?

> OHKO mummy with pole
I get that, on the other hand, it does make for a neat little balance with spirit bomb. The latter is a huge commitment, would be weird if this is suddenly an OHKO. Also makes it easy to set them up to heal others.

>turrets get shields starting at ship 4
Excellent. This game never fails to amaze.

>kill more than one ship with a single VC blast
Never pulled it off. Actually I never really even really attempted to use VC at all in normal fights either.

>pole and spirit bomb balance
Definitely, it’s the right choice. But the side of me that just wants to win gets mad seeing that tiny sliver of health left haha.

Been doing a gauntlet only run(all normals and grabs are allowed, just no other sub weapons). Really seeing and noticing things I didn’t before. Cyclops lack the ability to close in on you quickly but they have quick dodges that let them sidestep gauntlet. Hitting spiders at certain angles(knocking them onto a different surface) kills them in one hit. On the train, just using gauntlet for one collision “kills” the enemies(they fall behind the train).

This game is amazing.

> Vector Canon
You can toy around with it, but honestly in most cases where you can use it a spirit bomb would also suffice since you need to be the sole focus. I did manage to get one off during the Taper Cellar once. Just let him tank away and VC'd the Cellar on NG+ which was hilarious haha. If you can tank the damage I think you might be able to VC Ardjet and some other bosses that aren't too agressive. Would be cool to do a VC only run haha (would suggest Naked Jehuty).

> train gauntlet
Always loved that. Wish there were more gimmicks like that through the game, its mechanics are ripe for wall-tricks, but we only have one electrified wall and one train-wall. Would've loved to see more (spikes, goo, bounce etc).

> gauntlet spiders into the ground
My goto strat for Vasci-spiders, easiest SS rank.

I managed to beat the left-section of the Canyon with Damaged Jehuty without sub-weapons, but honestly, I give up on the right-section. I managed to reach the final fight once by pure chance but couldn't controle the engagement.

I saved and quit, only to then remember that the Canyon section doesn't have savepoints in between, only checkpoints. So I have to do the left-side again. Honestly, no thanks.

The biggest problem with the right-section is the mines and trap-lasers. Without any type of ranged projectile it is really hard to kill the key-bearers. In the final cellar section I had to kill the Mummys regularly (no charge or weapons) so that they'd convert to Raptors. It's absolutely brutal. I might give it another try in the future, but for now I stop the run here.

You've done well Roy.

Sounds a little like my Knack 2 no upgrade, smallest size run. Got to one of the game's tougher fights and it just wasn't possible, though one of my pals suspects that fight may be on a timer. The more you kill the more tougher enemies appear. Might be possible to avoid the first wave until time out if that's the case. Need to confirm.

Here's the video of Canyon-Left with Damaged Jehuty without Subweapons:




One thing I might try is just brute force the Right Side and then just use subweapons for the left since I've already cleared it once. Should at least allow me to witness the rest of the game and see how that holds up. But we'll see. Currently resting with some Death Stranding.

>you’ve done well Roy
Agreed. The work you’ve done here brings a tear to my eye.

Right side canyon is pretty tough playing normally and I can’t imagine that cellar room under Damaged condition. Have a feeling the train and crusher rooms would be pretty insane too.

>witness the rest of the game
Good idea.

> Right side canyon is pretty tough playing normally and I can’t imagine that cellar room under Damaged condition.

Honestly that room isn't too bad. You have to quickly demote the Mummys into Raptors, after that it is just a matter of smartly using the containers as a bomb against the cellar. I screwed up the two times I got there though and killed the Mummys, forcing a respawn and everything went to shit. Getting to the room is infinitely more difficult thanks to those laser-tags that bind you. I couldn't scrounge up enough shields to destroy them all safely and the mines are especially troublesome. I don't really know how to deal with them. Any tips?

Wife fell asleep on top of me while watching a film, so decided to turn the movie off and just play some Zone of the Enders haha, it was the only game installed on the PS4 that didn't require a disc and wasn't Nioh 2.

Decided to do an Extreme run without saves, when I'd die I'd wake her up. Managed to get pretty darn far, farther than I thought considering how rusty I was. Got to the Viola fight in the Canyon, she murdered me. 

Of all the fights she's the only one that I still don't have a fullproof plan for. I managed to beat her after using Gauntlet as she's about to charge at you, but those homing projectiles really feel like RNG at times when it comes to breaking your shield. Hmm.

Afterwards we had dinner and I finished up the run, total rank was SS with 3 deaths, 0 saves, SS on Spiders and S on Aumann. 2 deaths were against Viola in the Canyon, the third was Inherit (Zakat was very passive this time and I managed to Vector Cannon him even...).

Still one of the best action games ever made.

Ah, so my ZoE2 senses were tingling after all.

>wife fell asleep
Happens too often to me. I usually use this time to play games she’s clearly not interested in watching(which is most of my favorite games).

>extreme no saves
I’ve been wondering what kind of runs to do lately, this is an idea. Was thinking of doing specific load out runs, like I do with Vanquish.

>homing projectiles
Doesn’t throwing a plate at her when she does this work well? That’s what I’ve always done.

>one of the best action games ever made
While also being one of the most underappreciated. Still looking for another game that combines grabs/collisions with amazing subweapons like this does. My one wish for this game would be better bosses, a lot of them feel like glorified tutorials.

> throw the shield
Not a bad idea, I'll give it a go. My tactic so far was to dash underneath the fireballs and use the shield to block her dash. Then do a regular combo, ending with homing-lasers to force a block, to then do gauntlet. Works fine, but the dash-underneath part is very hit and miss.

> bosses
The more I play them, the more I like them. You can still use a lot of creative sub-weapons on them. The first few bosses aren't that great though I admit. But I like how Decoy works on Viola AI for example or how Gauntlet forces Inherit to teleport.

> runs
Extreme no saves is very challenging. I only did it once by acident as you might recall, haven't been able to replicate it since.

> more appreciation for the game
I'm working on it.

Went back into the lab and found a few new things (how is it that this game has so much stuff). This is all relating to the Nephis fight in the canyon.

I've tried to avoid her fireballs consistently, didn't work. I managed to i.frame them though. What I did was align myself to the side placements that have 5 shields. When she'd shoot I'd grab one for i.frames and then dash and throw for more i.frames. It is EXTREMELY difficult though, not nearly as consistent as I'd like. So I ditched this effort.

I've tried using Phalanx, no sigar. I've tried dodging under them, nope. Over them, nope, too risky. A lot of these functions, like using Gauntlet when she's about to fire, or throw a shield, it works 60% of the time, which is too dangerous for a 0/0 run I feel. She can at times just dash to the other side of the stage and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Ironically, the best thing I've found is to dodge to the left (her right) at the last instance while holding a shield.

Did found a longer combo against her. You do SSSS, the final hit sends her flying, then dash towards her once and do SSSF (F=finisher), it's a full combo. It will at least speed the fight up.

>how is it that this game has so much stuff

Because it was one of the games I pressured you into playing and everything I recommend is gold.

>no sigar

Is this some kind of laser?

Do you have any recommendations for this fight Birdman? You played the game quite a bit in the past as I recall, any data?

Don't remember a thing.