Projects
The Zone of the Enders series came about for a few reasons...
The main one was it was used by Kojima's team to test the capabilities of the Playstation 2, the result of testing to see what the console could be capable of for Metal Gear Solid 2, the team created a side production originally called "Project ZOE" The idea was to create a mech game that would be popular outside of Japan, where sadly up until this point their hasn't been one to coax Western gamers. To achieve this Kojima went ahead writing a story about the characters and space colony that is loosely based on the ideas of Policenauts.
The mechanics of the game took the longest to create but the end result was a quick paced game with lots of action. To this point games like this were usually slow and dull.
The end result was a highly involving game, with a highly entertaining gameplay. to sell it in higher numbers Kojima sneakily added a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2, this greatly increased the number of games sold, but in a way got the market to try it before putting it down.
In a side project at the time of the games release in Japan, Konami allowed the Sunrise company to create a short film based on the Deimos incident. This was sold in high numbers in Japan and as part of the Gold ZOE premium Package.
With the sucess of the original game, Sunrise went on to create the Dolores'i series based just after the events of the game and the characters from the Deimos event. and with assistance from the Kojima team an RPG called "Testament" was created for the Game Boy Advance.
After the release of Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima saw that their was demand for a sequel, but people were surgesting improvements... The idea for the sequal to be done in Cel Shading came once again from MGS2 with the testing of the method on a Mei Ling model.
With the new game in a more cartoon look of CG and the Cel Shading for the in game graphics. the story was continued on for the end of ZOE with the story of finding Aumann, with advice from the fans the speed of the Mech's was hugely increased and the method of weapons use was greatly improved to have a sub charging bar.
The end result was a game even more involving than the first outing, highly entertaining to play & watch, with a long life span, with the extra missions and new improved verse mode.
At the moment Kojima is deciding to make Zone of the Enders 3 but when theirs man power...
