Slave Zero X

A quarter-century ago, there was this game called Slave Zero for the Dreamcast ... and the critics hated it. It was the kind of game that had a lot of potential, yet squandered all of it with bad gameplay and levels that were an absolute chore to fight through. Now comes Slave Zero X, a side-scrolling beat ‘em up set in the same dystopian world as that 1999 Dreamcast game. This is a chance for a new developer to come along and actually improve the much-maligned franchise’s reputation. Does it do that? Spoiler: It does not. Trust me, we have a lot to go over in this review of Slave Zero X.

No, this is not a side-scrolling demake of the Dreamcast title, but rather a prequel set just a few years before the events of that game. It’s a futuristic dystopia where living machines known as slaves control Megacity with an iron fist, making life for everyday citizens miserable. But Shou has a plan to end the suffering and take back the city, but it requires some outside-the-box thinking. By merging with a stolen slave prototype unit, Shou hopes to have the power and strength to defeat the Sovereign Khan once and for all, setting up the events of that 1999 game.

Although a bit on the silly side, the story is actually the best part of this hack ‘n slash brawler. The game is filled with cheesy voice acting and over-the-top boss characters that feel like they were plucked straight out of he 1990s. In fact, that’s where a lot of this game feels like it came from. Using a 2.5D perspective, this is a side-scroller where 2D characters fight through a bunch of low-res 3D stages. The whole thing reminds me of the kind of game you might have seen on the PlayStation in 1996.

Honestly, that premise won me over. Sure, the 2D characters didn’t exactly look natural in the 3D world, but the spirit was there and at first glance it reminded me of Strider 2 and other classic action games from that era. I was ready for a good throwback game, and you don’t see a lot of games like this on the market anymore. Between the story, the dystopian level designs and the cool bosses, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Slave Zero X.

Boy was that a mistake, because this game is awful. It’s the kind of bad that leaves you mad and frustrated. Not because the game is too hard (though the difficulty is definitely a problem), but rather because it’s obvious that a lot of time and effort went into crafting this world and the bosses that control it. It also has intriguing gameplay mechanics that are deep and require players to do more than simply button mash. Even the enemy designs are pretty cool, especially in the second half, when more of the horror elements start to creep in. All of this should have worked. But it doesn’t. Not at all.

Instead of teaching you the mechanics as you play, this is the kind of game that expects you to memorize several pages of complicated instructions before you even have a chance to control the character. That might be fine if you’re playing Pac-Man and the only thing you need to know is how to navigate around a simple maze, but this is a game filled with mechanics and moves that aren’t immediately obvious to the player. And it’s not like you can pause the game and revisit these poorly written instructions, because those pages are only found at the start of the game. This left me with so many gameplay questions as I played the game, both big and small. I eventually just bit the bullet and started the game over again, figuring that maybe the pages of instructions would make more sense having played the game. That helped, but the game’s vagueness still left me in the dark when it came to what I could and couldn’t do.

And it’s not like the game eases you in and gently ramps up the difficult. Oh no. This is one of those games that throws you into the deep end and hopes you know how to swim. One of the most challenging opponents is this mini-boss character who you’re introduced to early on. This is the type of character that takes about a thousand hits to kill, while all of his attacks do significant damage to the player. He’s the type of character where he’s still incredibly challenging even after you’ve maxed out all of your stats, so you can imagine how helpless you feel when you’ve barely had enough time to upgrade one or two things. And did I mention that he shows up a lot? Not only is he a mini-boss on the train in the second stage, but he shows up again just a few minutes later, in the exact same level, now with a dog. There isn’t even a save point between the two fights, so if you have to start the stage over for whatever reason, you’ll have to fight him twice. And then multiple times in every level going forward. I’m serious, he’s used almost like a speed bump. Just when the game is becoming too much fun, here comes that one mini-boss that keep you frustrated.

Hey, remember when I mentioned starting the level over again? Well, you’re going to have to do that. A LOT! I cannot stress this enough, but Slave Zero X is quite possibly the most broken game I’ve ever reviewed. So broken, in fact, that there were multiple points where I was convinced that I wouldn’t be albe to beat the game. Not because it was too difficult, but rather because it kept crashing on me. And it’s not just that the game crashes constantly, but rather that every time it crashes you lose more and more money and progress. There was one crash where I lost at least 45 minutes of progress, going from $45,000 in spending money all the way down to a few hundred.

One of the most consistent ways to crash the game was to use the shop to buy anything. I would say that the game crashed about 80% of the time I tried to upgrade my character, often robbing me of the money I was trying to use on said upgrades. Let me tell you, if there was an 80% chance you would get into a crash every time you drove, you would never get into a car. So you can understand why I was hording $45,000. I was simply too scared to actually spend the cash on upgrades, which in turn made every aspect of this game more challenging.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the game starts to crash outside of the upgrade shop. The truth is, I could create an hour-long video that is nothing more than the game crashing on me, it happened that much. In fact, the game crashed so many times that I started to see errors that I’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if Slave Zero X had to invent new crash screens just to keep us on our toes.

And when it’s not crashing, it’s breaking in a lot of other terrible ways. I routinely ran into the problem where I would get stuck outside of the environment and not have a way back in. The only thing I could do was run around and see sides of the level that were supposed to be off limits. One of the weirdest bugs happened when I tried to continue from the checkpoint, only to have the game think I beat the level and then not let me proceed. I couldn’t leave the “mission complete” screen and had to reset the game and start the level from the start.

This is one of those games where it’s so broken that it overshadows everything else. In those fleeting moments where it’s not crashing on me, I had a good time hacking and slashing. But the moment I start to have actual fun with Slave Zero X, the game breaks. It’s never able to build any momentum, because there’s always something getting in the way of a good time. And that’s a shame, because I wanted to like it’s 32-bit style, the cool dystopian world building, the colorful bosses and even the beat ‘em up gameplay. All of this should have come together to create a game that improves on the much-maligned original and restores the Slave Zero name. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I would rather play that terrible Dreamcast game.