Mind Zero Looks Like Persona 3, But Plays Like Persona 1

I had a chance to check out an early English build of Mind Zero, a PlayStation Vita dungeon crawler made by Class of Heroes developers Zerodiv. It’s hard not to compare Mind Zero to the Persona series since both games focus on high school students with otherworldly entities connected to them. The big difference in Mind Zero is the Minds don’t grow with Kei, the protagonist, and the other characters as they rise above their personal problems.

Minds are more like parasites that are fighting for control of your body. The more you use a Mind, the more it consumes you. I found when I played a little bit of Mind Zero I was totally dependent on the Minds. Mind Zero lets you fight enemies either as your character or with your Mind. Kei… isn’t that effective on his own and he only has a fraction of his Mind’s HP. When your Mind is summoned it absorbs damage, but if it’s not out Kei takes the full hit. Minds also deal more damage and give you access to techniques.

So, why bother using your human form at all? Well, if a Mind runs out of MP (short for Mind Points) you cannot summon your Mind. If you want to use techniques you need to stock TP (Technique Points) and in human form you can use Charge to stock those up. The catch is in human form you’re vulnerable and if your LP (Life Points) run out your character is dead. When I fought Baroque Gate, a boss with two demonic creatures stretching out of a door, I juggled these three stats. First, I switched to human form to charge and back to my Mind when I had enough TP to dish out a heavy attack.

Minds have one more ability, Burst, which lets you do two attacks in a row. When you execute an attack the camera pans backwards so you can see your character strike even if they’re human. Mind Zero has elemental attacks, but in the short time I played the game I think the basic strategy was knowing when to charge and reactivate your Mind.

Mind Zero is presented as a first person dungeon crawler which made it feel more like the first game in the Persona series instead of the more modern entries. Dungeons in Mind 0 have traps like panels that spin your characters around.

The build I played had English text and voiceovers prepared. A representative from Aksys also informed us Mind 0 has an option for Japanese voiceovers too.

Mind Zero is slated for release this spring on PlayStation Vita.