Kids, when you grow up, I want you to be the biggest failure you can be.
Wait. What?
Almost all games are united by one common theme — winning. Whether you’re platforming, spraying bullets, dancing, or cooking, games demand you clear their objectives in the most flawless way possible.
Not Nippon Ichi Software’s Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman. This PSP strategy game has a set of missions and goals that are accomplished through one method alone — failure. It’s a requirement. It’s unavoidable. You must fail to win.
Failing is unexpectedly fun in both Z.H.P.’s gameplay and especially its story. Failing doesn't seem like it's literally the end of the world. Failing is not a phenomenon unique to you — it’s universal. And it’s awesome to have a game that reminds us of that and offers fantastically fun gameplay at the same time.
NIS took dungeon crawling, a traditionally tiresome genre, and made it into something interesting and engaging, which suddenly turned it into a surprise candidate for my portable game of the year.
Z.H.P. begins with you accidentally becoming the Unlosing Ranger and getting ripped to pieces by the final boss, Darkdeath Evilman. Nope, that’s no typo. Your path of failure begins as you fall to the final boss in front of the whole world. Seeing that you’re too weak to save the planet, Z.H.P.’s two resident weirdos, Etranger and Pirohiko, induct you in a grueling hero-training program that spans multiple ingeniously designed, randomly generated dungeons.
The plot.
As with past NIS titles like Disgaea, Z.H.P.’s story spans a handful of chapters. Each mini-episode tackles a modern problem or current world issue — a harsh economy, unemployment, terrorism, bullying, even the Iraq War, and American international politics — and more personal problems everyone relates to — fear, lack of confidence, and despair. Although Z.H.P.’s fictional world is as far away from reality as you can get, the stories are strangely relevant, pointed and poignant.
While you level up the traditional RPG manner — slaying countless minions for experience points — the only way to permanently boost your character's base stats is to fail and die. No matter how much you leveled up, when you get KO'd, you get reset to level one. But failing also means you get stat bonuses for each level you gained, so technically you're reborn at a stronger level one. While you lose a lot from failing, you don't completely start from scratch every time.
Don’t avoid Z.H.P. because you think it will be another JRPG snore-fest of randomly generated dungeons. Each of the chapters is framed within a dungeon that has its own quirk and adds an extra layer of puzzle solving to your training attempts. For example, in the sky dungeon, you have to hold on to balloons and propel yourself from the lowest point on the map to the highest point, where the exit is (pictured above). The combat options, which include regular attacks, special attacks, throwing items/enemies, and more, allow for a lot of creativity and options for taking down gangs of enemies that could easily destroy you.
Some people may not be fans of the long (skippable) cut scenes, but the only thing that detracted from Z.H.P.'s awesomeness to me was the mountains of tutorial text in the game's first half. The background music is wonderful, the voice-acting is good, the controls are easy, and it makes you feel like a winner, even when you fail. If you enjoyed the Disgaea series, then this is a must-get, but Z.H.P. is such a polished, unique title that gamers who don't typically pick up JRPGs or SRPGs will like it as well.