NCS Game Notes
* The intro to the game pans away from Jupiter's red spot and continues flying away until the entire planet is visible along with its moon Callisto. The camera shifts to view inside Callisto where an animated sequence takes over and scout bots are dropped on the snowy surface. An explorer named Dingo Egrey discovers an orbital frame when an attack from enemy forces commences. He accidentally climbs into the frame and soon activates it for a man-machine fighting experience. The intro continues with war between bots that use artillery as well as streaming missiles that leave vapor trails. In-game action sequences are also depicted as high-level orbital frames battle in quick action cinemas that show all of their weapons in effect. There's also a Vic Viper Orbital Frame in an homage to Gradius. The intro runs nearly 10 minutes long and ably demonstrates the game and all of its features.

* The game options once START is tapped are: NEW GAME / LOAD GAME / OPTIONS / VR TRAINING / PREVIOUS STORY.

NEW GAME - Choose from Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard difficulty level before the mission.

LOAD GAME - resume the action from a previous engagement

OPTIONS - Set vibration, toggle captions, adjust screen and brightness, set stereo or monoaural.

VR TRAINING teaches the ways and means of Jehuty maneuvers and attacks by showing how movement and fighting is performed and then allowing the player to try for himself. There are ten tutorials in all.

PREVIOUS STORY recounts the events of the original Zone of Enders game and tells the tale through cinematic sequences and short text screens that alternate with the snippets of action.

* At the outset of the game, another intro is shown where an exploratory mission lands on Callisto, a snowy world where miners are working. Robots are drilling into the side of a mountain when a cruiser ship drops another miner-robot which joins the other robots on the icy world. It is driven by Dingo Egret who pilots the worker-bot and speaks to someone at homebase through video intercom. He greets a fellow worker-bot and goes to work. Players take control of a clunky red worker bot and may drill into the side of a mountain like his cohorts are doing. The L-analog moves the bot, the R-analog swivels the camera, and the TRIANGLE button makes the bot jump up. To drill into the mountainside, hit the SQUARE button and the bot swings out its right arm and proceeds to drill. To proceed, center the boxes on the screen and follow them for your target destination. R2 allows the clunky bot to burst ahead in a short burst of flight.

* After following the route shown by the SQUARES, Dingo finds a metal box located on the surface. He exits the worker-robot to explore inside the container when explosions are heard outside and his bot is destroyed by fast moving marauders. It looks like the end is near for Dingo when he harriedly grasps a ledge... only to be engulfed inside a vessel. The container is then sent scuttling across the icy expsnse until it hits a ledge and cracks open to unleash a majestic Jehuty. Lofted into the sky like an angel, the Jehuty is held aloft when two enemies that are in adjacent airspace attack but they're easily slashed apart. Soon thereafter, a swarm of enemy ships attack and Dingo has to pick them off by firing into the mass of ships or confront them up close and slash each one in a targeted attack sequence where he may slash from ship to ship consecutively.