GAME CLEAR No. 56 -- Maximo Vs. Army of Zin

Maximo Vs. Army of Zin (2003, PS2)

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 8
Publisher: Capcom
Clear Date: 10/15/2021

This was the first of the two games I decided to play and stream for October. That also makes it the first game I’ve ever played through entirely on stream!

That made it a pretty interesting experience. I’m not sure it’s something I want to make a habit of, but as a holiday gimmick it’s not bad. I really enjoy streaming lesser-known games like this one to the tiny audiences I can muster, but a result of running a stream is that I felt like I retained a little less of the game and was less engrossed. A pretty obvious tradeoff, I suppose, but one I had never experienced to such an extent.

This also marks the first game I’ve streamed off of analog video, standard definition hardware. More on that later!

As far as the game itself goes, I thought it was a really strong action platformer! I now wish I had played it closer to my playthrough of the original Maximo so I could better compare them, but I also don’t really feel like revisiting the original right now (lol). Having said that, I do have some vague memory of Maximo 1. My general feeling is that while the first game may have captured the Halloween, Ghosts’n Goblins spirit a little better than its successor, Maximo Vs. Army of Zin makes great strides in terms of gameplay. They’re in the same general league, and I wouldn’t argue with anyone’s preference for one over the other.

But let me talk about those two things a bit more: setting and gameplay.

The premise of the game is that a vast robot army (the eponymous Army of Zin) that was thought to have been locked away forever is back! Maximo is still searching for his love interest Sophia from the first game. His buddy Grim (who gave him a second lease on life in the first game) approaches him saying he hasn’t had any new souls to harvest in some time. Fortunately for Maximo, that includes Sophia. He tells him that the reason is that the aforementioned robot army runs on the souls of dead humans. He offers to team up with Maximo in order to take down the Army of Zin. In return, he promises to help Maximo continue his search for the presumably alive Sophia.

The reason this game felt slightly less Halloween-appropriate than I had hoped is that the resulting enemies and settings are mostly mechanical in nature. That is by no means a bad thing, it’s just slightly less appropriate for my intended stream theme. Nevertheless, one of your allies is literally the Grim Reaper, so that’s gotta count for something.

Anyway, that’s my little gripe about the game’s basic premise.

The gameplay, though, is a good bit better if my memory serves me well.

It’s got a real, solid third-person action thing going on. It even tries to do a little Devil May Cry combo counter thing in the top right corner, but it’s not quite sophisticated enough for that to work well. Nevertheless, Maximo does have some good, basic hack-and-slash moves that feel great to mash over and over. He also finds a handful of different weapons throughout the game to mix things up, and he can buy new moves, shields, and boxer shorts from NPCs throughout the game. This gives the game a bit more of a living feel than the original, and Maximo also retains all of his new weapons and shields after dying, which is a nice concession.

And that’s not the only such concession. The game is just generally easier than the first. I got a lot less frustrated and generally just died less. It probably helps that I was playing on Normal instead of Hard difficulty for streaming purposes, but the first game didn’t have any difficulty options that I’m aware of anyway. But beyond that, health and armor pickups seemed more abundant, and the same could be purchased from NPCs for a bit of Maximo’s coins. This is simply a more welcoming Maximo experience.

One place the difficult was still ample and the challenge still rewarding was the game’s boss fights. They are numerous and interesting, and they work well with Maximo’s limited moveset. They are more about solving the puzzle of patterns and weaknesses than going ham with sophisticated combos. A highlight for sure.

I just had a really good time with the game, man. It’s good.

Anyway, I promised more on the topic of streaming SD content. I did so with the help of the RetroTINK 2x-Pro. It’s a great little device, and it got the job done just fine for me. Its intended purpose was originally just to allow display of analog video on digital-only displays, but it works perfectly fine with my Razer Ripsaw HD (lol) capture card. It looks like at the time of this writing, they’ve come out with a new (and expensive) 5x Pro. I’m sure it’s just great if you’ve got the money to spend, but if not, this considerably cheaper option is worth a look!