I don’t think anyone here hates ZoE, it’s more of a matter of us wanting the game to be better than it was. They have an interesting setup, and a few problems prevent the game from realizing its full potential. Hideo Kojima making a mecha game should be better than what we’ve gotten from the first two ZoEs.

I’d be frothing at the mouth for a third ZoE, especially because a lot could be done with the universe they developed in the first two games and the Game Boy Advance side story. And if you liked or loved the Zone of the Enders games, I won’t tell anyone they’re wrong for liking it–they did a lot of things right, and if it’s your kind of game, more power to you! It’s just that it has these few little wrinkles that prevent it from being the game I feel it should be, and even if the games are generally well-regarded we still want to foster a discussion. My personal evaluation of Cacophanus is that he doesn’t feel a need to rate popular games on a scale of 8 to 10 while proving he can be critical on “safe” games, which other Internet reviewers–who, in their defense, are often under pressure from editors and advertisers–so he’s going to call it like he sees it, and if people don’t agree with him, then that’s an opportunity for an interesting discussion.

Cacophanus also doesn’t play games like you and I, as humans, might–he draws games into his massive jaws, masticates them until they’re broken down into their individual ingredients, and then a stomach of fire and hydrochloric acid boils the game down to an essential soup. What people will miss on a single playthrough is permanently burned into his retinas.

Konami haven’t said quite how much they’ll be changing the game–the way they were talking about the new Fox Engine made it sound like they might be changing some things around in the HD updates–but “Jehuty in 1080p” is still going to be glorious even if they don’t work on some of the control mechanics.