Here is a game that features some very basic visuals, very basic combat structure and a plot that cannot possibly be cohesive since it involves the worlds of Space Channel 5 and Street Fighter together. And it’s the characters that people remember from those original games that are the entirety of this game. We’re talking about over 200 characters in total, such is the scale of the game. For people who aren’t aware of the game, it takes characters from a huge number of SEGA, Capcom and Bandai Namco franchises and throws them together into conflict with other famous names. But fundamentally most of those games are good quality games, and when they’re not (Mario Sports Mix, for instance), they don’t tend to be engaging games despite the license.īut Project X Zone, based entirely on the demo and what I’ve seen and read of the game, manages to get away with being a reasonably average tactics RPG by virtue of its characters.

We’ve seen character crossovers before in popular games, of course – Nintendo are experts at it, with franchises such as Smash Brothers, Mario Sports and Fortune Street (Boom Street for the US) all resting heavily on an assortment of Nintendo characters coming together to share in an activity for gamers to enjoy. Useless name aside, this is a game worth paying attention to because it perfectly demonstrates the value of the clever application of characters in building a compelling game experience.

Last week a demo popped on to the 3DS eShop download store for Project X Zone.

Free download x zone game