When you hear that a new anime video game is set to come out, many anime fans start to wonder and question whether or not it will be good. Since the early 2000s, anime-inspired video games have become pretty common. In the early 2000s, games focusing on Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, Naruto, or Digimon seemed to do the best when it came to sales and overall quality of game.
As time has passed and new anime have emerged, the overall quality of Anime-inspired video games has dropped significantly. Will the latest anime game, Edens Zero, exceed expectations, or is it better to save your money for other recent anime titles like Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2? Let’s find out in our Edens Zero review!
Edens Zero
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: PC (Steam) (Windows), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S
Release Date: July 15th, 2025
Players: 1
Price: $59.99
When I first heard that an Edens Zero game would be coming out, I was fairly excited. As an avid lover of Fairy Tail and an enjoyer of Rave Master, checking out the Edens Zero game seemed like a no-brainer. Previously, we had enjoyed FAIRY TAIL 2 when we reviewed it in December, and had enjoyed the first season of the show when it came to Netflix.
Edens Zero, the game, covers the events of the first season and part of the 2nd season. At the beginning of the game, the player is shown pivotal moments throughout the show, which are the different boss fights within the game.
The tutorial fight only gives you a brief glimpse of what the game has to offer, but it still gives you a bit of a challenge. After the tutorial, we are shown more epic fights before time is rewinded and we find ourselves at the beginning of the story.
Chapters within the game can feel rather long, especially due to the game’s strong focus on level grinding using mobs throughout the world. Mobs that you kill offer very little experience, given how boring the fights are. In fact, you will lose more by grinding experience than you gain due to burning items (money), time, and sanity.
If you choose to push through to the boss fights or important moments, you will have to fight the battles under-leveled; in these circumstances, it will feel like you are whacking a pool noodle off your enemy. Even if you are a level below or the same level, the fight will still take a good bit of time to complete.
The game has no varying difficulty settings, so you will just need to get good or power through levels and fights. Even if you grind out a ton of experience and bypass the level cap of the boss, you will have a challenge at hand.
The fights themselves feel rather unsatisfying. Whether you are playing a ranged or close-up fighter, it feels like you are just button-mashing, trying to deal as much damage as possible. Once you have started a combination attack, you are unable to dodge incoming attacks.
The game does not have a block feature, so you will have to dodge like a maniac. If you time your dodge properly, the game will slow down, and you will have the chance to counterattack; if the dodged attack is far away, you will need to find a nearby enemy to hit or miss out on a damaging strike.
Rather than building a perfect team that you use all at once like other RPGs, players need to rotate between party members to take on different types of enemies. If a party member faints, you can switch to a different party member.
Although the story for Edens Zero is fairly enjoyable by itself, the game cuts out some beloved moments from the show. Additionally, despite offering multiple languages in the game’s menu, the game is only subbed with the game’s audio being only in Japanese.
While the first season is dubbed in multiple languages, the second season is not, putting the developers between a rock and a hard place. The game gives players the ability to read the dialog in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Whether or not you have a controller plugged in, the game will try to force you to use a controller. You can remap the controller’s bindings in order to give you your own personalized experience.
Additionally, you can remap the keyboard and mouse layout to modify the experience. When playing on the keyboard and mouse, you will rarely use the mouse while fighting.
At the end of the day, Edens Zero is a hack ‘n slash game that attempts to be an RPG that makes you want to watch the anime, rather than suffer through the wet pool noodle fights.
Grinding experience in the game feels like you are watching paint try where you are at the controls, but all you can do is watch as you only gain a little bit of experience each time.
Even when you beat enemies of a higher level, it still feels like the game is trying to hold you back in order to extend the overall play time. Skills on the skill tree are locked behind an item called Ether Source; each character has their own Ether Source item, and you must complete a ton of side quests in order to unlock them. This is yet another element of the game forcing you to grind even more.
The game has a beautiful overworld, but outside of fetch quests and grinding, it feels rather underutilized. Why did the developers need to make the world so big? Was it just to show off the flying mechanic they put in the game (Dragon Ball Z), or pull out a giant motorcycle to drive across the land?
While Edens Zero is a fun anime romp, at the end of the day it might feel lacking a bit. That is – unless you want to explore a mob-infused world where you get attacked from out of nowhere, and make a few friends along the way.
Small issues aside, Edens Zero is a faithful take on Hiro Mashima’s classic space adventure series. Honestly, if you are looking for a game to eat up some of your time and want to experience the story of Edens Zero, then pick up the game.
Edens Zero was reviewed on a PC using a code provided by Konami. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Edens Zero is now available on PC (Steam) (Windows), PlayStation, and Xbox Series X|S.
