Trivia / Zone of the Enders

• Acting for Two: In The 2nd Runner, Jehuty's and Anubis' A.I., ADA and DELPHI, share the same voice actress. Cynthia Marcucci and Yoshino Miki are their English and Japanese voice actresses, respectively.
• Children Voicing Children: In the English version of the first game, 14-year-old Leo Stenbuck was voiced by the then 14-year-old Remy Le Boeuf. In a rare VA example of an actor aging with the character, two years passed both in-universe and out between the release of the first game and its sequel, The 2nd Runner, that Le Boeuf, having gone through puberty and his voice deepened, was able to reprise his role as the now 16-year-old Leo. Interestingly enough, this is averted hard by both of his Japanese actors, Hiroki Shimowada and Kenichi Suzumura, who was 24 and 28-years-old at the time of recording the role for their respective games.
• Development Hell: The "Enders Project", the Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner sequel, has been put on hold and has yet to resume. With the departure of series director Hideo Kojima from Konami, it will likely never be finished.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Unlike the PlayStation 2 games, The Fist of Mars was never ported to any other system since its original release. Secondhand copies are on the pricy side and rare to find, with prices going upwards of $70 to $300 used.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Some music from Zone of the Enders' soundtracks was reused in Metal Gear Online; most notably "Vivid Transparency", heard here. This has led to a surprisingly large number of people wondering where someone got the notion that a Metal Gear track is from this game about flying, sword-fighting robots. Some of the music also got reused in the BEMANI games.
• The Merch: Aside from the games and anime, there are wall scrolls, soundtracks, art books, and other products. Special mention goes to the Revoltech figurines of Jehuty, Anubis, and the Vic Viper, as well as Kotobukiya's line of model kits.
• No Export for You: Prior to HD Collection's version of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, a Special Edition of the game was released in Japan and Europe, but strangely never to North America. The Special Edition featured some graphical and frame-rate improvements over the original game, new difficulty levels^*(the Japanese version has an Extreme difficulty and a Super Hard difficulty in-between Very Hard and Extreme mode, whereas the European version only gets the Extreme mode), new cutscenes and battle sequences, an expanded Extra Mission mode, and sub-weapon tutorials for the VR Training. This changed though as the HD Collection includes the European version of the Special Edition of The 2nd Runner for the North American release.
  • And there's the two premium editions for the Japanese version of Zone of the Enders HD Edition, which has two books instead of one from the overseas release, and a Blu-ray re-release of the Zone of the Enders: 2167 IDOLO OVA with the most expense of two packages.
• No Port For You: Although the M∀RS remaster of The 2nd Runner is available on PlayStation 4 and Windows, it was never ported to Xbox One or Xbox Series likely due to the HD Collection being backwards compatible and available digitally on those systems, and said consoles lacking any VR capabilities, which is one of the major selling points of the M∀RS remaster.
• The Original Darrin: Leo was originally voiced by Kenichi Suzumura for the pilot version of the first Zone of the Enders game, but was replaced by Hiroki Shimowada. When Leo returned in The 2nd Runner, the role was given back to Suzumura.
• The Other Darrin: Nohman has been portrayed by a different Japanese actor in all of his voiced appearances: Masashi Ebara in the original game, Joji Nakata in Dolores, i, and Jurota Kosugi in The 2nd Runner.
• Preview Piggybacking: The first Zone of the Enders was widely known for its inclusion of a demo for the highly-anticipated Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which was the biggest reason many Metal Gear Solid fans bought the game. History repeated itself in 2012 with the HD Collection of the series, this time bundling an early demo of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance before it became available digitally.
• Promoted Fanboy: Yoji Shinkawa, the series's mecha designer, grew up playing Gradius and always envisioned the Vic Viper's two protruding front segments as legs on a Transforming Mecha. He leapt at the opportunity to see this vision come to life when he included the Vic Viper in The 2nd Runner as Leo's mech.
• Same Content, Different Rating: Both ZoE games on the PlayStation 2 received M for Mature ratings in the US, despite having precisely one bloody scene each between the two of them, no profanity, and no sexual content. When the HD Collection came out in the US, the version without the Metal Gear Rising demo received a somewhat-more-sane Teen rating. Similarly, the PS4 and PC re-release of the second game, having no connection to Metal Gear, has a T rating.
• Vaporware: The Play Station Vita version of the Zone of the Enders HD collection has been announced at the Tokyo Game Show in 2011, and no word has been said regarding it since.
• What Could Have Been: Several design sketches show unused designs for some of the frames. For example, the Raptor was initially supposed to be dual-wielding katana-like weapons, instead of having them grafted on to their arms; as well as unused names for most frames, if the HD Edition's Special Art Book is to be believed, at least. For example:
  • Jehuty went through several name changes, from New Eden to names such as Exodus, The Whisper, Vision Divine, Lightning and Megadriver.
  • Similarly, Tempest had the names Faust, I-Vanvo, Epusutain, Vadourv, Devionario, Manonresco and Volpone before settling on Tempest.

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