As with the original Maximo game from nearly two years back now, Army of Zin is part 3D platformer, part 3D hack-and-slash extravaganza. If anything, the balance has shifted towards the combat elements for the sequel: on average, the player can expect to spend three quarters of a level kicking the crap out of everything that moves, and whiling away the other quarter by navigating the often tortuous 3D environments. It’s a gameplay dynamic that’s been doing the rounds for years now, from Deathtrap Dungeon back on the PSone to the new breed of `action-platformer` such as Ratchet & Clank and Jak II. The good news is that Capcom has built on its success with the first game to produce a sequel that comes as close as anything to getting said dynamic just right.

Moving further and further away from being the supposed next-generation update of Ghosts’N’Goblins, Army of Zin picks up where the first Maximo ended, with our plucky hero (that’d be Maximo for the uninitiated) still on a quest to rescue his girlfriend Sophia, aided by the Grim Reaper himself, or Grimm to his friends. This time round, however, it’s not ghosts or goblins you’re fighting, but a relentless army of soul-powered robots who have ransacked a nearby village. Could they lead you to Sophia? Does it matter? You’re a bona fide hero, after all…

At a basic level, what then ensues is an action-packed romp across 20 gorgeous stages, the majority charging you with getting from the start to the finish, usually by destroying a sizeable chunk of the titular army. Throw in a few imaginative boss stages and you have at heart a fairly predictable game. Thankfully, through a great sense of style and an exceptionally fluid control system, Capcom has ensured that while not necessarily surprising, Maximo vs. The Army of Zin is always extremely entertaining.

At all times, Maximo is armed with either a sword or a great big hammer (there are two varieties of each that you’ll stumble across during your quest) and combat consists of using the fascia buttons to initiate a variety of attacks. As with all games of this ilk, it’s how you string together the basic moves that make it fun. Combos are easy to pick up and very intuitive, while the special moves that you acquire along the way are just enough to spice things up a little. Initially it seems that the moves list is a bit lacking, but pretty soon you’ll come to realise just how frantic a game Army of Zin is. In the second half, you can pretty much expect to be dealing with a minimum of three opponents at a time, attacking from all sides. In the fight to survive, you don’t have time to key in complex button sequences, let alone ponder the lack of combos actually available; you’ll just be very grateful that what you do have is so easy to pull off. Battles can go on for minutes at a time as fallen enemies are replaced by fresh blood, but the excitement never wanes: you just keep using all the tricks at Maximo’s disposal to try to keep them away from you for as long as possible.

One of the biggest complaints levelled at the more platform-skewed original title was a ferocious difficulty level. Make no mistake, Army of Zin is a substantial challenge, but Capcom has done its utmost to finely balance all the elements, making the combat in particular perpetually just the right side of fair. Harking back to the days of Ghosts’n’Goblins, Maximo has four levels of armour, each of which adds a small chunk to the overall life bar. Depending on the strength of the enemy, about four hits will destroy a piece of armour, until Maximo is left in his heart-pattern boxer shorts (to begin with, at least). Chests dotted around the environments sometimes contain armour, but more often than not, and here comes the balancing, you’ll be picking up health and armour from fallen enemies. Maximo is also armed with a shield. Unlike last time around, it’s unbreakable here, but the ability to throw it out and use it as an offensive weapon relies upon how full your special bar is, the same special bar that gives you access to your special weapon moves. And again, the items that replenish said bar come occasionally from chests, more often from the spoils of war. Finally, you have the option of transforming into the extremely powerful Grimm, albeit for only a short amount of time, that time dictated by, you guessed it, another special bar replenished in exactly the same way. The beauty of this finely balanced system is that you can always come back from the jaws of defeat thanks to a downed opponent dropping a timely piece of armour. Sure, there are moments when the randomness of item appearance is a little jarring, but in the most part it works well.

As great as the combat is (and in case that point hasn’t sunk in yet, it really, really is), a predictably limited number of enemies means that Army of Zin would quickly become repetitive were it not for a number of other factors. As with the first game, a good deal of Maximo’s time is spent tortuously avoiding gaping chasms, deftly leaping from one conveniently placed ledge to another. It’s classic platform fun, but unlike other recent examples of the genre that have put far too much tender loving care into the combat neglecting to make the jumping puzzles anything approaching fair, death by misjudged jump in Army of Zin is almost always the fault of a hasty player holding the joypad. Certainly there are levels where the almost relentless platforming begins to get a bit tiresome as the tension ratchets up with each successive jump, but the whole process always comes to an end at just the right moment, before throwing you back into another welcome dose of mindless carnage.

The other central element of Army of Zin, and the one that represents arguably the most intriguing change from the previous game, is the introduction of villagers to be saved. At a couple of points in each level, Maximo will hear screams from damsels in distress or gruff pleas from beleaguered lesser warriors, each begging to be saved from certain death at the hands of evil robots. The system works very well, because rather than simply forgetting their current objective upon spying you, enemies will often prioritise the person you’re trying to save, adding a real element of tension as you try to get there in time and prevent sometimes multiple opponents from striking down that all too frail maiden! True, nothing inherently bad happens if you fail to despatch their assailants, but you'll be missing out on some hefty bonuses. Play the part of knight in shining armour (or heart-shaped boxer shorts, as the case may be), however, and you’ll either be handsomely rewarded gold, health or armour, or be offered the chance to use the gold you’ve accumulated to purchase items. These merchants offer the obligatory health and armour upgrades, extremely valuable extra continues, special bar power ups, but more intriguingly, upgrades to your weapons, shield and boxer shorts. This adds another neat twist to the not-so-simple Maximo formula. Do you opt for the new special move for your sword, or start adding powers to your hammer? Or perhaps a more powerful shield would come in useful? Or maybe those nifty treasure hunter boxer shorts would be worth the investment? Uncovering every secret, defeating every enemy and collecting every piece of loose gold probably still wouldn’t give you enough money to buy every upgrade in the game (bearing in mind that even the most skilled player will need health and pricey continues every now and then), and so some tough choices will have to be made. You’ll never find your progress blocked because you don’t have a certain upgrade, but the choice does add a fascinating extra string to Army of Zin’s already plentifully stocked bow.

Technically, Army of Zin is as impressive as we’ve all come to expect Capcom’s output to be these days. The characters, if a little low on variety, all look like cartoon caricatures brought to life, and the environments, if a bit predictable in style, make a nonetheless fitting backdrop to the action. There’s also barely any traces of slowdown, particularly striking given just how many enemies Maximo often finds himself contending with in the latter stages of the game. Rendered cutscenes are well made, and the character voices (handily in English) are just the right side of hammy to work in context. Throw in a handy rundown at the end of each stage of how you’ve fared (number of innocents saved, enemies defeated, chests opened, secrets discovered, etc) and a MASTERED rating to work towards by finding absolutely everything on a stage, plus some interesting art and movie galleries to be unlocked, and you have a very solid, well produced gaming package with plenty of incentive for replayability, just what you’d expect from Capcom.

You’ll perhaps have noticed that, nearing the end of the review, barely any criticisms have surfaced. That’s because criticisms are hard to find for such an endlessly entertaining game. True, a dedicated player could probably finish the game relatively thoroughly in a weekend, but it’d be a very fun weekend doing so, and the considerable challenge posed by the last couple of stages would probably hold things up for a little while at least. And true, at times it can err just a little on the wrong side of frustrating, but perseverance will always win out sooner or later. In the end, games like Maximo vs. The Army of Zin are inherently refreshing. There’s nothing new, nothing particularly flashy or clever, but what is there is simply so much fun, it feels wrong to complain. And with an almost non-existent Japanese language barrier, there really is no excuse for PS2 owners to not indulge in one of the most enjoyable games of the year.