The Zone of the Enders HD Collection hit retail shelves last week, harkening back to the golden days of the PlayStation 2 – all the more so for the demo disc it includes with a fresh look at Platinum Games’ spin-off from the Metal Gear franchise.
The short demo offers a different trip from the one appearing at E3 earlier this year, beginning with a new optional VR tutorial, which attempts to ensure players get familiar with the game’s blade mode before stepping into the game proper.
Holding down the left trigger on the 360 controller, the right analog stick can be rotated to see the angle of a potential slice, engaged by letting go of the analog stick for a precise single strike. This proves useful for slicing cardboard enemies in training, but in the field, getting Zen with hitting the analog stick repeatedly to unleash a fury of slices comes in handy for quickly dispatching the Gekko’s that appear.