I bought it for $25 a while back, now Game Stop is offering me $1.00 store credit if I trade it in.

Its appealing only if you're a fan of the ZOE series; you command LEVs, OFs, and tanks, encyclopedic (terminology, mechs, character bios) information is made available not only on the game, but on various terms (Ender, Metatron, Urenbeck Catapult), organizations (BAHRAM, UNSF, UCM), and locations (Vacillia County, Deimos Station) in the ZOE universe. There are about 24-25 (multiple story branches) missions but not all have the same seek & destroy objective. The story is somewhat lacking, however. And a few too many soup opera (dramatic music included) moments don't help the matter.

Has anyone else here played this game?

I did play some of it, but not all the way through. I enjoyed what I did play, though it wasn't really challenging enough for my tastes. I need to pick it up again, heh.

Fist Of Mars was pretty good at first but it got boring later on when the battles started taking forever. It was pretty easy too.
I liked the story alot though. The way it sets you up for ZOE2 with the Nohman references was cool.

Anyway, love the site! I'm glad so see it back up as there are hardly any ZOE sites these days and Iloved this one back in the day. I feel priviledged to be one of the first people registered on the forums:)

Just hope alot more people start registering soon...

Fist of mars is good game.Of course every ZOE fan must play this game

Story is good,light rpg elements makes this game interesting,but the game is too easy and it is not challenging

but overall good game

I play and finish it . And i am disappointed . The system is very wearying and the dialog so long, too long ... and yes, he is too easy .
The story is good but the atmosphere of the game ( same this is a GBA game ) is not the same as the others . That's bad for a game who could be better ...

Fist of Mars was a near miss. The Active Battle system they employed was a well-done experiment in adding action to a turn-based game, but sadly, it failed. The system provided too many simple ways to make you always hit, and the enemy always miss, making the game incredibly easy. The game would have been a much better play through had it gone to press without this system in place and took a more standardized approach to strategic warfare.

However, that being said, I think the other two major elements of this game were excellent. I have the score saved on my computer and listen to it often. All of the tracks, and especially the title track, are fantastic chill pieces, and combine to make in my (rather studied) opinion, one of the top GBA soundtracks ever written. Also, I loved the storyline. Yes, it had some very soap opera-esque moments, but if you can take these as they are intended, even they can really heighten the dramatic scope of a fantastic story. The one thing that dissappointed me about the original ZOE (besides the short length) was the sparse story. It worked just fine in its own context, but didn't really give you much of a feel for the world that these characters lived in. Fist of Mars took care of this problem with aplomb.

I am currently working on writing out the script for this game, as I think it would read a lot better than it plays, especially for people who haven't been able to, or haven't had the inclination to, track the game down. I plan on submitting it to ADA as a site feature if I can ever get it done. Cage and co. do talk rather a lot, though, don't they?

I still have to get a copy of this game and play it too.

I recently got into the ZOE series and this was my first game, quickly followed by ZOE 1 and 2. I loved the soundtrack of this game, but I do think it's battle system is flawed. It was a fun game though.

Haha, I agree. Do you suppose they meant the game for younger audiences?

The battle system is ludicrously easy: just move your crosshair thing around in a circle in the whole battle field thing when an NPC is trying to hit you. If you can master a perfectly circular movement that takes up the entire aspect ratio (without hitting the edges though), you should be able to avoid like 99.99% of all the attacks.

Exactly my thoughts. There's some challenges where you go through without IAS, but that jumps the difficulty up all the way to the other end.

I wonder if Kojima will expand ZOE onto the DS and include new mechanics. It'd be neat to see new ways to fight added to the ZOE series.