Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Review - A True Espionage RPG Experience

Years after the release of Disco Elysium and the controversial situations that followed it due to the layoff of key personnel from it, studio ZA/UM is now releasing Zero Parades: For Dead Spies on PC. Using the narrative RPG framework, the new title changes the detective angle to one of espionage in a world of clashing political forces.

Back in Action

In Zero Parades, players assume the role of CASCADE, a spy agent whose real name is Hershel. Working for the Opera, she was previously decommissioned, but is now back in action with a new assignment. The problem is that things start going downhill from minute zero, leaving her in a precarious situation to fulfill her objective.

It’s up to the player to figure out what to do by interacting with the many people who are active in Portofiro, and more specifically the Quisach district. The place is home to many unique individuals, each with their own life situations and allegiances, which the player can learn more about.

As a spy, CASCADE will have to mingle with the people, observing them with caution and using opportunities as she sees fit. This may lead to many interactions born out of interest and players can be more honest or cunningly deceive people for the sake of whatever goals they have in mind.

As a narrative experience, a major part of the game revolves around reading what is said by characters and the narration. Though different characters have different tones to what they say, there’s a lot of conspiratorial talk akin to a CODEC conversation in the Metal Gear series. Characters often have a lot to say about specific passions of theirs as well as some political views which skew into prejudice.

That’s not to say that the town itself isn’t huge and filled with interesting spots to explore along with all the reading, however. Quisach is a giant area filled with discoveries at every corner. It’s also filled with places that feel very eroded and dirty in a way that helps establish the tone of the world and the narrative.

The Tools of the Trade

When it comes to RPG systems, it’s important to keep in mind that your character has a variety of skills at her disposal, each of which may come in handy in different situations. The first step of the game is choosing one of various masks, which determines your tendencies within the faculties of Action, Relation and Intellect. It’s possible to either pick one of the pre-made ones or create your own custom variety.

Skills in the action faculty are those tied to reflex, reaction and a more physical state. These will be helpful in situations that demand strength. Meanwhile, Relation is all about interpersonal knowledge and behavior management, making it often useful to understand and manipulate others. Finally, Intellect is about brain power, with all of its skills dealing with different forms of knowledge about the world that can be useful when confronted with very specific things that would appear indecipherable to a layperson.

Exploration and interaction sometimes hangs on rolling dice for skill checks like in a tabletop RPG. The more skill points someone has in the specific skill required, the easier it will be to pull it off, but luck is a major factor in it as well. Normally, two dice are used, but it’s also possible to exert yourself, adding another one at a penalty to one of the game’s three gauges.

Instead of traditional health points, there are three bars that work like a sanity gauge, each of which is tied to one of the faculties. Abusing your conditions too much and getting fatigued, anxious or delirious will affect your performance and, if the gauge reaches its maximum value, the player will even have to choose one skill to lose a level.

Learning how to pace yourself and rest when necessary is a fundamental strategy. It’s less about survival and more about trying to reach an optimal solution to many situations with your limited skills while avoiding debilitation. This is the case even for the dramatic encounters, which are the game’s very rare turn-based battles of wits against opponents.

Preparation is Key

Beyond skills, there are other elements to keep in mind when dealing with the game’s various checks. Firstly, there are many items to equip, changing not only CASCADE’s appearance but also the bonuses tied to each skill, often with a sacrifice of another skill bonus also involved.

The other system to keep in mind is the unique Conditioning system, which uses the concept of propaganda for spy training into an actual gameplay option. As the player progresses and interacts with more people, more options will be unlocked, but the general idea is that they can be equipped as additional passive bonuses. They are not only about getting more bonuses, but they may also come with extra gimmicks, like more interaction options or experience boost.

It’s less about survival and more about trying to reach an optimal solution to many situations with your limited skills while avoiding debilitation.

Conditioning, however, comes with a violation system, which means that the player will lose its benefits temporarily in case they take a specific action. It’s also possible to manually suppress them to get some room for others, losing access to their benefits and rendering them unequippable for 12 hours.

To expand the conditioning slots, players will need skill points, which can be obtained when the player gains enough experience by advancing various quests. These points can also be used to enhance specific skills instead, so it’s important to keep in mind the priorities at any given time.

With all those systems in play, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is a robust RPG experience once the player understands how things are connected and manages to play with the options. This can be a significant challenge at first, however, and the game does a very poor job at presenting it. It’s pretty much up to the player to mess with the systems and see what ticks, which, combined with the often harsh skill check conditions, may not be very friendly to people unused to the genre.

On the other hand, there's also dialogue that feels a little odd, like reactions that make no sense when the player has already done something. For instance, hearing a grunt from a compromised spy who isn’t in the area anymore because the player checked the item late. It is an understandable issue for such a plot-heavy experience, but it still feels like a shame on the few occasions it happens, and can hopefully be patched up in the future.

Closing Comments:

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is a great RPG experience that manages to explore the espionage angle in an interesting way in its narrative and gameplay systems. The world manages to provide a fascinating context of decay, political intrigue and despair. While it may be a little complicated as a starting point in the genre, it’s a must-play for those looking to dig deeper into what the genre can offer.