Many, many fat loots await you in Zenonia. If you stay a few levels above where Gamevil imagines you will be when you reach a hard monster, the chances of falling significantly decrease. The key to success in old-style games like Zenonia is to be willing to spend some time smashing low-level enemies (which is always relative to your current level) just to level up. Once you gain a couple stages and learn a new skill, you move into more hostile territory and try out bigger enemies to earn even more experience and money. I was surprised how easily I slipped back into old habits of milling around areas, just grinding through stages to get powerful as early as possible. Trying different skills and approaches on enemies - and there are a lot of different enemies in each overworld area - is great fun. This system keeps the game relentlessly fresh. Provided you have enough power to employ them, you can mix up battles by slashing away and then tapping a skill to land a ferocious blow. You can place skills on a quick access bar along the bottom of the screen so they are always at the ready. As you level up your hero, you can choose different skills to learn and upgrade. The active skills are mostly means for attacking while the passive skills affect your well being and defensive measures. The skill tree is split into two halves: active and passive. There is a smart skill tree system in Zenonia that truly lets you customize your hero's capabilities. However, battles are not just button-mashing contests. Enemies will return the favor and slash you with their weapons, occasionally imbuing you with extra damages, like temporarily lowering your defense or evasion skills. Getting close puts you in harm's way, though. From time to time, you land critical shots that do incredible damage - and are accompanied by a satisfying flourish. You walk up to a monster (some of them are disarmingly cute) and tap the attack button to swing your weapon. Battles in Zenonia unfold in real-time instead of the turn-based system you may recall from franchises like Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior. You really could play through Zenonia a couple times, trying different choices to see where the adventures takes you next. These ratings change not only the way other people view you, but also nudge the story in different directions. How you behave in the world affects your good/evil rating.

These side quests do serve as the means to grind a few levels and increase your strength and pocketbook, but they also have great effect on the definition of your hero. There is a primary storyline that runs through the heart of the game, but there are dozens upon dozens of side quests you can accept or deny. Gamevil argues that there are over 40 hours of gameplay in Zenonia.

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