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Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
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| Developer(s) | Konami Computer Entertainment Japan |
| Publisher(s) | Konami Computer Entertainment |
| Designer(s) | Shuyo Murata |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Release date(s) | JPN February 13, 2003 NA March 10, 2003 EU September 26, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Action |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Two-player versus |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Mature (M), PEGI: 12+ |
| Media | 1 DVD-ROM |
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (Japanese title Anubis: Zone of the Enders) is a video game that was developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 in 2003. The sequel to Zone of the Enders, the game was produced by, and is closely associated with, Hideo Kojima. The game is based around mecha combat. Most mecha were designed by Yoji Shinkawa, the character and mechanical designer for the Metal Gear Solid series, with the exception of Lloyd and Inhert who were designed by Kazuma Kaneko of Megami Tensei fame.
The sequel picks up where the last game left off. The controls and graphics are improved to enhance the gameplay. Although instead of going city to city like the first installment, the sequel is divided into sections, one after each boss.
A variety of weapons, enemies, and boss battles have been added to the game. The "Special Edition" PAL and NTSC-J versions of the game featured a variety of additions and extras to the game, including new VR Training options, added scenarios, more difficulties, a music video featuring a remixed "Beyond the Bounds" theme, improved anti-aliasing and graphical optimizations, and new Orbital Frames for Versus Mode, among other improvements to the game.
While the previous installment of the series covered themes such as the loss of innocence and the morality of killing, this game featured themes such as camaraderie, duty, vengeance, and mortality.
In a recent GameSpot interview with Kojima, he was asked about a third installment of the game. His response was: "I've been getting questions about that, and I've pretty much counted each one as a demand...I'll be sure to count that one too." An even more recent interview describes Hideo Kojima as saying: "I want to make it, but I'm so busy with MGS4 that I have to focus on that right now." While no confirmations of a third game were made, the possibility of one has been brought to attention many times. Kojima has even stated that he "has an idea for the next Zone of the Enders game", which should please fans fearing that poor sales had put an end to the series.
Contents |
Plot
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The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (September 2007) |
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This video game-related article describes an aspect of the game in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. |
The game begins with Dingo Egret, the protagonist, working at a mining facility on Callisto. His digger soon detects a strange object nearby. Upon closer inspection, he discovers that it is an Orbital Frame named Jehuty. About this time, the facility is attacked by BAHRAM forces. Dingo climbs into Jehuty and engages the attackers. During the battle, Dingo enters the BAHRAM battleship and continues the fight. He is finally subdued by a superior Orbital Frame known as Anubis, controlled by Col. Ridley (Nohman) Hardiman, leader of BAHRAM.
As a prisoner, Dingo is assaulted by Ken Marinaris, a female Orbital Frame runner that Dingo defeated in the previous battle. Nohman arrives moments later and asks Dingo to join him. When Dingo refuses, Nohman shoots him. Nohman orders Ken to dispose of the body.
Instead, Ken has Dingo revived and placed inside Jehuty. When he comes to, she explains that Jehuty is acting as a life-support system, and if he leaves Jehuty, he will die. She then tells him that she is a spy for the UNSF. Dingo escapes with a UNSF prisoner and heads for Mars.
On Mars, Dingo is radioed by Ken, and she explains the situation concerning Nohman, Anubis, Aumaan, and Jehuty. He is then attacked by a white LEV, Vic Viper. The battle goes to a stalemate, at which time the pilot of the Vic Viper is revealed to be Leo Stenbuck, the protagonist of the previous game. He orders Dingo to get out of Jehuty, but when Leo learns the situation, he decides to let Dingo stay in Jehuty. After several battles on Mars, Dingo is attacked by Nephtis, an Orbital Frame controlled by an A.I. program based on Viola's fighting style (another character from the first game). After defeating the A.I., Ken arrives in her Orbital Frame Ardjet; the A.I. then possesses Ardjet, forcing Dingo to disable the Orbital Frame to purge the computer virus. Ken climbs into Jehuty and, together, they seek out Lloyd, a friend of Dingo’s who can upgrade Jehuty, allowing it to stand a chance against Anubis.
After defeating Lloyd in combat, he agrees to upgrade Jehuty. While Jehuty is being upgraded, Lloyd tells Dingo about "Project Aumaan", a giant battle station capable of destroying everything around it, with a possible range of the known universe. Just as Jehuty is fully upgraded, Nohman flies in and attacks Dingo. Dingo is able to escape, but Ken is left behind, and Lloyd is killed.
Dingo meets up with Leo again, and they travel to where Aumaan is kept. Once there, Dingo and Leo do battle with Nohman (or so they think). In the middle of the battle, Leo is attacked by the real Nohman, and Dingo realizes that Ken is in the Orbital Frame that they were initially fighting. Nohman flees the facility and attempts to destroy it. Ken tells Dingo and Leo that Aumaan is actually on Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. The three manage to escape, and Dingo and Leo travel to Phobos.
On Phobos, Dingo does battle with Nohman again, this time destroying Anubis. Before his death, however, Nohman activates Aumaan. While Leo tries to slow Aumaan’s detonation at the core, Dingo throws a piece of Nohman’s Orbital Frame at the core, causing Aumaan to explode. Dingo and Leo manage to escape Phobos before the moon explodes.
Characters
- Dingo Egret
- Dingo is a miner on Jupiter's satellite Callisto. A former member of BAHRAM, Dingo disappeared after his unit was wiped out in a UNSF ambush. He passes his days as an ice miner around Jupiter's moons, until he finds the hidden Orbital Frame Jehuty.
- Just as he finds the Frame, BAHRAM does as well, and attacks the mining operation to retrieve it. Dingo activates Jehuty and takes it into battle, wiping out the BAHRAM drones and driving off Ardjet. He infiltrates the BAHRAM battleship, but is defeated by Anubis and Nephtis. Outside of their orbital frames, Nohman tries to get him to join him once more, but Dingo refuses and Nohman shoots him. The gun shot wounds destroy his heart and lungs.
- Dingo wakes up two months later in the cockpit of Jehuty, hard-wired into its life-support system. Ken Marinaris, claiming to be a UNSF spy, asks him to help the UNSF stop BAHRAM. He is voiced by Peter Barto in English and by Kazuhiko Inoue in Japanese
- Nohman
- Colonel of BAHRAM. His real name is Ridley Hardiman. He pursues the project of completing "Aumaan" -- the invincible military fortress to secure the victory of BAHRAM. He is the frame runner who pilots "Anubis". He is the main antagonist in the game.
- In truth, Nohman has no desire to liberate or conquer Mars. His ultimate plan is to destroy humanity, and the entire solar system with it. Aumaan is just the weapon to do that. He is voiced by Roger L. Jackson in English and by Jurota Kosugi in Japanese.
- Ken Marinaris
- Ken Marinaris is an Orbital Frame runner who claims to be a spy for the UNSF. She pilots the Orbital Frame Ardjet, and is the first to battle against Dingo and Jehuty on Callisto. When Dingo is seriously wounded by Nohman, Ken revives him and hides his body. As the BAHRAM fleet returns to Mars, she has him wired into Jehuty's systems, and convinces him to help her fight against BAHRAM.
- In actuality, Ken is no spy, she is in fact a normal BAHRAM runner, but found herself disagreeing with Nohman's motives and methods. She is voiced by Renee Hewitt in English and by Satsuki Yukino in Japanese.
- Leo Stenbuck
- The main character of the previous game. Leo Stenbuck was a boy living on Antillia, a space colony orbiting the planet Jupiter, when an attack on the colony by BAHRAM leaves most of his friends dead and himself accidentally in the cockpit of the Orbital Frame Jehuty. Leo found himself having to fight his way across the colony to the safety of the waiting UNSF ship "Atlantis", doing a lot of growing up on the way as well as forming a unique bond with Jehuty's onboard computer A.D.A.
- Two years later, Leo is still fighting for the UNSF, this time in the cockpit of the prototype LEV Vic Viper. Fighting a year long skirmish against Bahram with the crew of the Atlantis, Leo has endured much but come out an immensely strong hearted young man, his will matched only by his incredible prodigy level piloting skill which has further been honed. Upon realizing the UNSF intends with finality to send the Jehuty to Mars in order to self-destruct with the military fortress Aumaan (XY.. as stated at the cliff hanger of the previous game), Leo alters the course of the Urenbeck Catapult (a form of near light speed travel in the Zone of the Enders universe.) to send Jehuty to the ice covered Jupiter moon of Callisto, intending to hide it among the Metatron mines present on the moon. He then intended to use the rather powerful Vic Viper to fight against BAHRAM and Aumaan itself. He is surprised and angered to find Dingo with Jehuty on Mars, and quickly attacks him in an attempt to retrieve his old Frame believing Dingo to be an agent of BAHRAM. He is voiced by Remy Le Boeuf, who also voiced him in the first game in English, and by Kenichi Suzumura in Japanese.
- Viola A.I.
- An Artificial Intelligence based on the battle abilities and thought patterns of Viola, a BAHRAM officer who died fighting against Leo and Jehuty during the incident on Antillia. She almost never speaks, and seems to have been programmed with a hatred or obsession with Jehuty. Many of her lines are repeats of the original Viola's in the first games, consolidating the fact that she is, as Dingo would describe, "a vengeful ghost".
- A.D.A.
- The AI built into Jehuty. Before the battles on Antillia, A.D.A. was cold and mostly emotionless, but quickly warmed up to her young pilot, who was a great influence on her. She is helpful to both Leo and Dingo, and will often help them in battle by managing Jehuty's weapons.
- A.D.A. cares a lot for Leo, a fact that Dingo often teases her about. In return, she teases him about his interactions with Ken Marinaris.
- When Jehuty was captured by the UNSF, A.D.A. was given a single directive: To make her way into the fortress Aumaan, and destroy it by self-destructing Jehuty. Leo hid Jehuty on Callisto in an attempt to prevent her from doing so.
- Lloyd
- Runner who pilots Inhert. A BAHRAM scientist who conducts research on Orbital Frames. He's worked with Dingo when Dingo was a BAHRAM test pilot. While having doubts about BAHRAM's dictatorship, he does serve BAHRAM loyally. He has the key to filling in the gap between the performances of Jehuty and Anubis. Lloyd, along with Inhert, was designed by Kazuma Kaneko, of the Megami Tensei fame [1]. He is voiced by J.S. Gilbert in English, and by Osamu Saka in Japanese.
- Taper
- A UNSF soldier who somehow finds his way onto BAHRAM's battleship. Ken tries to have Dingo use him as a contact with the UNSF. Once reunited with his squad on Mars he, along with Dingo and Leo, lead an attack on the BAHRAM super-fortress of Aumaan. Taper is a loyal soldier, but is probably too panic-prone for his own good. He is voiced by Matt Chavez in English and by Jin Horikawa in Japanese.
Zoradius
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
Zoradius is an unlockable 3D remake of the original Gradius arcade video game found in Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. It can be found in the battle against Vic Viper, or by replaying the fight as an Extra mission, then pausing the game an entering a variation of the Konami code.
In Zoradius, the player uses the Vic Viper in fighter mode, flying through a tunnel and shooting down various non-humanoid enemies from the game to gather powerups to increase the Viper's firepower and shields. Roughly halfway through the stage, the player has to fight through an area full of ring-shooting Moai heads, also a staple of the Gradius series. The game ends in a Boss fight against the Train boss, also from the main game.
Soundtrack
| ANUBIS Zone of the Enders Original Soundtrack | |||||
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| Soundtrack by Zone of the Enders | |||||
| Released | March 19, 2003 | ||||
| Genre | Electronica, J-pop | ||||
| Length | 68:43 | ||||
| Label | Konami Music Entertainment | ||||
| Producer | Konami Music Entertainment | ||||
| Zone of the Enders chronology | |||||
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The soundtrack to Zone of the Enders:The 2nd Runner was released March 19, 2003 on the album ANUBIS Zone of the Enders Original Soundtrack by Konami Music Entertainment. The album was composed by the same artists as the previous album, Norihiko Hibino (日比野 則彦?), Maki Kirioka (桐岡麻季?), Akihiro Honda (本田晃弘?), Toshiyuki Kakuta (角田利之?) and Shuichi Kobori (小堀修一?).
The game's theme song, "Beyond the Bounds," was composed by Maki Kirioka and performed by Maki Kimura. (Lyrics) A remix of the song, titled "Beyond the Bounds (Mitsuto Suzuki 020203 Mix feat.Sana)" also included on the soundtrack, is played during a music video extra in the PAL and NTSC-J "Special Edition" versions of the game, and appears on Pop'n Music 8.
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Reception
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The game was praised by some players for its beautiful visuals and graphics, fast and intense boss battles, and excellent controls. The game received positive reviews from game sites, though its short length and awkward dialogue (due to poor software localization) have been criticized.
External links
- Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner - Konami Official Site
- Zone of the Enders: The Unofficial site - Unofficial Zone of the Enders site. Contains various information on Zone of the Enders media.*
- Bahram-Headquarters - Die einzige ZOE HP Deutschlands. Noch neu und in der Testphase.
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 6 January 2009, at 05:26.
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