Mind Zero (PC) Review

Mind Zero draws from familiar game and anime plots and elements. It begins like a standard visual novel, with 2D representations of characters placed over backgrounds. These images vary slightly to reflect characters' moods, but on the whole are mostly static. Some animations are present, like falling rain, but they look flat and uninspired. Battles are livelier, with 3D renders of characters and monsters acting out the turn-based action, but for a game on PS Vita and now PC, the models are lacking in detail. Characters are voiced well enough, which is one of the highlights of the game.

Dungeon crawling is first-person, but the dungeons themselves are boring and empty-looking, like a series of flat cubes. The controls are somewhat clunky and it's easy to tell the game wasn't made with PC in mind, but they do get the job done. The visual resolution is small, and forcing it to go full-screen stretches things out and leaves jagged edges, especially around the 2D character cutouts. On the whole, Mind Zero feels like a hasty, low-effort port. This is particularly unfortunate because the game seems hasty and low-effort in the first place; it brings nothing of its own to the table, instead feeling like parts of established games and plots have been cobbled together into something slightly different.