It's hard to overstate how big a mountain Zero Parades: For Dead Spies has to climb. A spiritual successor to the modern classic that is Disco Elysium, with insane baggage and a turbulent development cycle that has seen key figures depart ZA/UM under less-than-desirable circumstances.
Fans turned their backs on the studio, losing faith in whatever project the developer put out next, dismissing Zero Parades not on its merits (or lack thereof) but on principle.
I won't urge you to put those feelings aside if you're inclined to disregard the entire experience without as much as glancing at what it has to offer. What I will say is that Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is an incredible journey that stands on its own against all odds, giving those who enjoyed sinking dozens of hours in the melancholic city of Revachol their money's worth.
Unlike ZA/UM's previous game, where you play as a barely functional, amnesiac cop who is one bad decision away from ending up on the news as a disgraced law enforcer who died from a panic attack, in Zero Parades, you take the role of a highly capable spy named Hershel Wilk, codename Cascade. Granted, when we first meet Hershel, she's past her prime, frozen for the better part of five years, with no recollection of her current assignment, and having to deal with bizarre extenuating circumstances, like a comatose partner. The perfect cherry on top of a cake with many layers of mystery, unanswered questions, and enigmatic forces at play that make the story incredibly engaging, even if those first few hours lack the punch of having characters like Kim Kitsuragi to bounce off of.
Characters have distinct personality traits, motivations, and secrets hiding under layers of coy answers and cryptic rhetoric. The story will be incredibly vague at first, and will seemingly feel like ZA/UM is rehashing the whole nature of Elysium's protagonist's drug-bender-induced amnesia for the sake of convenience. Luckily, Zero Parades gives you a strong, tangible, objective, one that's much more ambitious than solving just a murder, letting you go about it in various ways.
I don't want to spoil how far it goes with its craziness, but let me assure you: if you are afraid that Zero Parades has nothing to say, both in terms of narrative and thematic nuance, you can put those doubts to rest. Sure, most characters don't have the same impact as that first meeting with the obnoxiously iconic Cuno or the stoicism of Kim, but there's a lot to like about the wide variety of personalities you'll come to meet.
At its heart, the writing remains sharp and witty, even if it lacks in the absurdly comedic department. Zero Parades can be funny, the comedy doesn't stem from the Buster Keaton-esque situations you often find yourself in in Disco Elysium, but the dialogue that can occasionally take a sharp turn from overtly serious into the deranged, throwing you for a loop, sometimes risking being too inappropriate for its own right, as it depicts an operant that wrestles with intrusive thoughts while trying to make sense of what she's supposed to be doing.
Those inner thoughts, voiced expertly by Boo Miller, will be an ever-present fixture throughout your adventure that will try to steer you in different directions while interacting with a vast cast of characters around Portofiro. There are 15 total traits divided into three sections: Faculty of Action, Relation, and Intellect. Each encompasses an overall attribute of Hershel as an operant: Action being her physicality and dexterity, Relation is how well she understands people as well as the city itself, and Intellect, which refers to her general wits, deductive skills, and a bit of the esoteric, like how in tune she is with the beyond.
These voices carry a distinct personality, with the outlandish yet rarely helpful Statehood acting as a radical, outspoken mouthpiece for Hershel's more extremist thoughts, being among my favorites. Of course, while these inner voices do tend to lend a hand, they'll often eat away at your character's train of thought, and sometimes will fail automatic skill checks, leading you to more trouble than you could already find yourself in.
Speaking of which, core gameplay revolves around skill checks, with white (repeatable, less impactful) and red (harder, one-time only checks) deciding how you can go about things across Portofiro. Your degree of success will depend on your character's stats. For instance, trying to pull off a task that requires dealing with machines will demand that you have a strong Technoflex level. Certain modifiers can skew the balance in your favor, such as clothing, which comes with unique stats, and a revamped Thoughts system allows you to gain more than just stats boosts this time. All Thoughts now have extra perks beyond boosting skills, but come with caveats that could debuff you if you're not careful.
An example would be the Primitive Accumulation Thought, which grants you a +1 skill potential to Blueprint and Personalism (meaning you can upgrade it beyond the base 5-point system) and the ability to steal money from machines and raid more trash. However, should you choose to earn money in a more honorable way by working side gigs, you'll violate this thought, leading to a 12-hour (luckily, in-game) penalty.
There's more than just your standard roll of the dice in Zero Parades, as more dynamic action sequences will see you try to come up with solutions to a specific problem on the spot. The earliest instance of this much more dramatic engagement comes as you're trying to evade a particularly colorful, mysterious man in a trenchcoat. You'll have the option to face him head-on, trusting your spy instincts to blend in naturally within the chaos of a shopping bazaar and walk past him inadvertently, or take a detour, pick a disguise that will, hopefully, keep you in the clear while looking just a little bit silly in the process.
Death or a game-over screen is not what you should expect on the other side of a failed red-check. In fact, the game will put you in situations that feel unwinnable. There's always the luck of the dice to bless you, even in the direst of situations, but in those cases where you fail, one of the following stats will be affected: Fatigue, Anxiety, and Delirium.
Reaching a breaking point in each will punish you with a permanent stat decrease, so knowing when to push your luck will be key to keeping Hershel sane. Adding to this is the ability to exert yourself. Activating this option during a specific check will let you throw three dice instead of two, picking the two with the highest number. The cost of exerting yourself is expensive, so it'll be up to you to decide if it's worth it or not.
I do have some gripes with this system, and it feels like failure is derivative. You don't actually fail; you'll stumble upon success one way or another. It plays into Hershel wrestling with the fact that, while she's a highly skilled operant, she's far from the spy she once was. But ultimately, the penalty of permanently losing stats can be easily mitigated with external factors like clothing. I had one case where I missed an important red check, which still led me to a satisfactory outcome at the cost of a measly extra Delirium. That's not to say there won't be severe consequences should you fail an important task, but there's no sense of personal urgency for you as a player or Hershel as a character.
Aesthetically, the game tries to recapture the magic of Disco Elysium. ZA/UM didn't try to depart too much from Aleksander Rostov's distinct visual style, despite Rostov being among those who departed the company less than amicably. I don't have an eye educated enough to spot the nuances in styles printed in each game; however, what I'll say is that Portofiro as a locale is gorgeously depicted as this vast, chaotic, down-on-its-luck town that seemingly hides secrets around every tight corner, dimly-lit corridor, or abandoned facility.
The map might be frustrating to use, maybe intended like so by design. Navigating Portofiro early on will feel cumbersome, but the familiarity of each section, nook and cranny will feel reassuring after you spend time immersing yourself in its vast locales, which include an outdoors bazaar, a 'party alley,' a housing complex, and more. It's definitely a character in its own right, just like Revachol was for Disco Elysium.
Ultimately, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies does manage what looked unthinkable: it stands on its own, turbulent development cycle aside. It was never going to completely step out from the monolith that is Disco Elysium, but viewed strictly on its own merits, it emerges as a very intricate, atmospheric espionage RPG.
While the urgency of failure is not as present here, and its early hours lack that impossible lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of what came before, it compensates with strong thematic nuance, great system mechanics, and a gorgeously depicted, incredibly fun to explore town.
Review code provided by the publisher.