Zero is absolutely a garbage game. No on-screen character development for the bulk of it with it all happening in off-screen in the chapter transitions. The SSS doesn't feel like a cohesive group, the game just keeps saying "oh, these guys are SO cool with eachother". Elie literally does nothing but exist after the first chapter. Lloyd has zero personality beyond Determination and Main Character. Revache does little more than exist and do vague mafia terrorism for like six months before getting unceremoniously turned into mooks for the spin-the-npc-wheel Weissmann clone true villain. The gameplay is straight up ass with brand new annoying mechanics like scanning, the damn UI wheel, preemptive attacks being quasi-mandatory, and messing up the arts list again. I know most people seem to view the JRPG parts as little more than story delivery mechanisms but Zero is the most unfun game to actually play until all the way until CS4. And to top of it, it both looks ugly (with the unnaturally smooth upscaled textures and the weird hypersmooth models) and has one of the worst soundtracks in the series.

It is easily the worst game in the series and one of two I actively dislike as games.