When someone says the word “Zenith”, I think of a series of TVs that I don’t believe are being made anymore. Zenith is a terrific game that is part science fiction and fantasy, but all RPG.

The issue with Zenith is that the description on Steam doesn’t really fit the game that I actually played. It says that “you won’t need to piece the story together by yourself as if it was a Swedish chair”. However, in this game, it starts off in a very obvious fantasy setting and then a starship shows up. To make it even more complicated, this weird emperor guy shows up along with a lot of side characters that don’t seem to add much to the plot.

What is interesting in this game is that you play a mage, and it clearly meant to be totally satirical. The issue is that it is an R-rated satire going on, with at least the swearing in the dialogue. Much of the satire is based on conventions of what you know from fantasy RPG games, and what is supposed to happen vs. what does happen.

So what is it like? Well, you walk around and kill enemies, and collect gold and armor. Yes, it sounds like any particular fantasy RPG game, and there is even some puzzle solving going on. I found that going through the dungeons was a lot like The Legend of Zelda, with less puzzles and mapping, and more about destroying enemies. I found that there are a lot of enemies and you need a lot of healing potions to get through. At least I did. There was a big boss at the end that took a while for me to defeat.

I want to talk about the graphics. They can be very beautiful at times. Just look at the building in the background there. I wish some of the character animation was given more work. There was a scene where characters are looking around at an object, and these background characters turn their entire bodies. The animation looks rather PS1 vs. the PS4 that I played it on.

On the whole, I would have to recommend this game, which can be purchased on Steam for $14.99