With a cast of over 60 feature characters from dozens of different Namco, Sega and Capcom franchises, it’s no wonder that fan service is such an important aspect to the Project X Zone experience. There’s no shortage of neat moments for these characters to build cross-dimensional relationships with one another. There’s also more than enough tag-team action to show off everyone’s combat prowess. As great as it is to hit those marks, it clearly came at a cost, as there are other aspects of this strategy RPG that are sorely lacking.
Due to the mischief of some villains, the real world is in trouble. Characters from different universes are magically showing up in the same place and their lives are immediately put in danger by robots, zombies and other evildoers. The first hour of the game tries so hard to introduce many of these characters while trying to justify how they all came together, yet it comes off as a nonsensical mess. Once you get past the prologue, it settles into a comfortable rhythm that’s conducive for funny character interactions, though it’s core plot is far from riveting.
You may get more out of the moment-to-moment character interactions that happen throughout. There’s no shortage of in-jokes and references to each character’s roots. For instance, Ryu and Ken allude the time that they crossed paths with Jin Kazama in Street Fighter X Tekken. I also love how basically every picture Frank West takes of a scantily clad female is flagged as erotica as a nod to Dead Rising. As a Capcom nerd, I got a lot of satisfaction out of watching those characters on screen. However, I didn’t get anything from the characters I didn’t recognize, as they’re also steeped in referential material. Mileage will vary based on your familiarity of the source material.
Project X Zone shines brightest when your characters are wrecking shop on their unfortunate opposition. At that point, between two and five of your characters lay a beating on a hapless foe. The actual buttons you press during these sequences are minimal, though there’s a surprising amount of nuance to it. You’ll need to be very mindful of your input timing, the sequence in which you execute moves, the supporting characters available to you in that fight and your super meter. In an odd way, it kind of plays like a rudimentary version of Marvel vs. Capcom, which I’m all for.
That said, this combat system does have its flaws. The biggest of which is a sheer dearth of available moves for each pairing. You will see the same animations a lot, which can grow old quickly. Your squads will learn a few more moves as they go, though they’re few and far between. More moves would have gone a long way towards alleviating this problem. While you can invest in mastering every nuance of the combat system, it’s not necessary to make it through. On top of that, it’s very easy to play the game in an unoptimized manner, as it does a horrible job of teaching you how to do anything. As such, it can be very easy to play it through by mashing buttons and still make it through most encounters just win most of the time.
Beyond the fights, the holes in its gameplay become more apparent. For a turn-based strategy RPG, there’s very little in the way of strategy involved. For one, the predetermined turn order forces you to play as specific characters. Without being able to jump between squads, there isn’t a way to focus your efforts. There are no terrain advantages to leverage, which makes character placement mostly a moot point. Mission variety is virtually non-existent as well. On top of all of that, you’re managing a giant squad of super-powered characters with all of the items you’ll ever need facing off against a mostly weak group of cannon fodder save for a small group of key villains. Most of your time will be spent grinding through nameless zombies, robots and other assorted creatures.
Despite Project X Zone falling short on its potential at virtually every step, its combat was interesting enough for me to stick with it to the bitter end. Those battles really scratched that fighting game itch for me. It also doesn’t hurt to see dozens of my favourite characters across different publishers work together in a rare adventure. Unless those two points sound greatly appealing to you, your lasting impression of it will likely be one filled with disappointment.
In Third Person 
Great review. I really wanted to like this game, but the later levels just dragged on forever. Like you say, for a strategy RPG it was severely lacking strategy.