Project X Zone

• 1. Introduction

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  Project X Zone, pronounced "Project Cross Zone," is a tactical role-playing game that asked a simple but audacious question: what would happen if sixty characters from three rival Japanese video game companies were dropped into the same story? Developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Nintendo 3DS, it brought together heroes and villains from Namco Bandai, Capcom, and Sega under one cartridge. The game released on the 11th of October 2012 in Japan, with North America and Europe following in summer 2013. What followed was a reception that confounded expectations at almost every turn. Critics were split. Sales in the West blew past what Bandai Namco had anticipated by more than ten times. And the game itself, with its chaotic crossover premise and deliberately frantic combat, left players asking whether sheer spectacle could carry a game even when the story behind it made very little sense.

• 2. Sixty Characters, Three Companies

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  Jin Kazama and Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken share a battlefield with Ryu and Ken Masters from Street Fighter. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine from Resident Evil fight alongside Akira Yuki and Pai Chan from Virtua Fighter. The roster of Project X Zone spans twenty pair units and twenty solo units, drawing from titles as varied as Mega Man X, Darkstalkers, Valkyria Chronicles III, Sakura Wars, Dead Rising, Space Channel 5, and the .hack series. Each friendly pair unit is built from two characters who fight together, and a third solo unit can be brought in once per battle for additional assistance. The overseas versions of the game carried the exact same character roster as the original Japanese release, which was a deliberate choice to preserve the crossover's scope across all regions. The sheer breadth of franchises on display was itself the pitch. For players who had grown up with any one of these series, seeing their favourite character standing next to a figure from a completely different game world carried a pull that no amount of mechanical depth could quite replicate.

• 3. The Cross Active Battle System

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  Pressing the A button in combination with the Circle Pad triggers up to five basic attack combos, which is how the Cross Active Battle System puts the player in control of each engagement. Unlike its predecessor Namco x Capcom, units in Project X Zone can move freely within their range on the field map, with no penalty for opening treasure chests or breaking destructible objects before attacking. Support Attack lets a player call in a nearby ally mid-fight. Cross Hit freezes the target during simultaneous strikes from multiple units, and Critical Hits can be triggered by connecting the next attack just before the enemy touches the ground after the first blow. Damage dealt through Cross Hits fills the Cross Power gauge, which can charge as high as 150 percent of its normal capacity. That surplus energy can then be spent on special attacks or defensive moves out on the map. The game includes fifteen save slots, along with a quick save option and a soft reset command available during intermissions. IGN's Scott Thompson gave the game an 8 out of 10, writing that the battle system makes repetition "not just tolerable, but enjoyable," even while acknowledging that the chapters follow the same formula slavishly.

• 4. A Crossover Built in 2D

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  Namco Bandai conceived of Project X Zone as a "dream crossover" and brought Capcom and Sega into the project from the start. Character designs began as 3D models before being converted into SD pixel art, a process that grounded the game visually in the traditions of sprite-based fighting games. The development team made a specific decision to animate notable character attacks in 2D space in order to preserve how those moves looked in their original source games. The game was first teased on the official website before being revealed in the April 2012 issue of Famitsu. Two theme songs bookend the experience: the opening, "Wing Wanderer," and the ending, "GALAXY," both performed by Yoko Takahashi. The opening movie was produced by animation studio Trigger, a new studio at the time and founded by Hiroyuki Imaishi and other former Gainax employees. Animator Akira Amemiya directed the opening sequence. On the 22nd of September 2012, Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada revealed on Twitter that he had personally proposed the game's localization, noting the matter had not yet been decided but that he would keep pushing for it.

• 5. Getting It West

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  Namco Bandai Games announced on the 21st of January 2013 that Project X Zone would release in North America, Europe, and Australasia during summer 2013. The English versions of the game kept the Japanese voice performances, following the approach previously used for Otomedius Excellent. The vocals for the opening theme were removed from the Western release for legal reasons, and some additional music tracks were either removed or replaced under the same constraint. North America received the game on the 25th of June 2013; Europe followed on the 5th of July 2013. On the 1st of May 2016, the game was delisted from both the North American and European eShops, ending its digital availability in those regions. The Western launch had already done something unexpected by that point. The game sold more than 85,539 units in its first week in Japan. In the West, it sold more than ten times what Bandai Namco had projected, placed among the twenty best-selling games in the United Kingdom at debut, and ranked among the best-selling 3DS titles in the United States. Worldwide, Bandai Namco confirmed sales passed 400,000 copies.

• 6. Mixed Praise, Real Fans

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  Project X Zone earned a score of 70 out of 100 on Metacritic, a figure that captures the split running through its critical reception. GameRevolution gave it 3.5 out of 5, describing it as "a tactical, humorous, preposterous romp through the best hits of video games" and noting that the cascade of character cameos and the absurd hit counts per battle would make "any hardcore fan smile." GamesRadar was sharper in its critique, giving the game a 2 out of 5 and arguing that, given the quality of other RPGs available on the 3DS at the same time, recommending Project X Zone over those alternatives would be "almost unconscionable." Despite that, Kotaku's Mike Fahey included the game in his top ten games of 2013. The following year, the same outlet included it among the twelve best games on the 3DS. The sequel, Project X Zone 2, arrived in Japan in November 2015 and reached North America and Europe in February 2016, suggesting that the appetite for more crossover chaos had not disappeared.