Zotrix (PlayStation 4 - Nintendo Switch - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Zotrix (PlayStation 4 - Nintendo Switch - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

The unearthing of trash shmups continues, and this time is an old PS4 shmup.
Today's review is Zotrix.

Unlike the Geostorm of the movie Geostorm, this one is even worse, 'cos instead of monster tornadoes and freak temperature drops, this one throws one trash shooter after another. Zotrix is no exception.



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Part of a complete breakfast, I mean, a shmup catalogue...
...a BAD SHMUP CATALOGUE.


At first, Zotrix sounds like the name of a crap 1 dollar store sugar-overcoated breakfast cereal for kids who want to experience diabetes at an early age. But actually its the name of a crappy PlayStation 4 shmup which is part of the diabetes that is the newborn "Trash 'em Up" subgenre of shmups.
To begin with, this game has two modes: Arcade Mode and "New Game" with its respective Continue option. Options only covers volume controls of music and sound and watch the credits.



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The Mindless Twin Stick Shootout in space.

Let's start this review with the Arcade Mode. This simple game mode comprises the core structure of the game itself as it is a vertical Twin Stick shooter where the objective is to repel the enemy waves in the style of arcade classics like Galaga. For a vintage themed shooter, using a Full 360° Twin Stick movement grants the player a field advantage as it has all the range the player needs to take care of the enemies in any direction. In Arcade Mode you'll get four power ups: 2 For the ship to increase its initial single shot into a Twin Shot and then into a Triple Shot. The fourth one adds an Extended Weapon that provides another Twin Shot, giving you a 5 bullet frontal fire. Another feature of this game is the inclusion of the diving maneuver, while pressing the L3 or R3 button, your ship will dive dodging enemies and bullets just like on B-Wings. This is an interesting move since you're gonna be using it a lot since the game will change its pace from throwing waves of "Popcorn" enemies to launching bullet resisting enemies and even bosses on each 5th stage. The game is incredibly generous with the sub-weapon slot 'cos it allows you to store 10 different weapons, while in Arcade Mode looks way too much, it is very useful throughout the campaign, which is the second and "Main" mode of the game.

Difficulty is an issue in both modes of the game. On Arcade Mode there's no continues if you lose all your lives. Despite having a life bar indicated by the ship icon on the bottom left, the game suffers from the atrocious "Turridamage", so multiple bullets can drain all your life if you're careless. Also, there's almost no temporary invincibility when you respawn as the bullets can hurt you as fast as you re-appear on screen. Fortunately, the game grants you the ability of take down the enemy bullets, this helps a lot since the game can turn into a bullet hell very easily. Speaking of bullets, your ship has an annoying recoil effect that pushes you back on each shot which only makes shooting annoying and feels like if it was an unnecessary effect.



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Like Megadeth said "Peace sells, but who's buying?"

At the end of each level, you'll enter a store where you can buy an upgrade, a ship or an extra life. While there's only 5 items, the game at least makes a tough but fair on price tags with the new ships and extra lives since the 1ups always cost a million points and with the enemies increasing in size and strength, they also increase in score point value, from 300 to 1,200 and more, reaching 1 million becomes easily affordable. My startegy is to buy a drone first, and then save for a new ship. Buying a new ship is essential in this game since each ship has their own strength levels in firepower.

However, the way you buy is ridiculous, rather than selecting and then buy, you have to choose the item to buy and then leave the store. You can only pick 1 item. Sounds like a screwed up store, don't you think?

Another interesting feature is that the game can be saved if you quit and resume after playing the Campaign mode, but if you close the application, the saved progress in Arcade Mode is lost and you'll have to start all over again. Keep in mind, there's 20 stages in total, and to get all the achievements of this mode you'll only need to play up to Stage 15.

NOTE: I personally recommend you to play this mode after finishing the Campaign 'cos playing Arcade Mode for too much (all the 20 stages) might glitch the rest of the trophies, this happened to me with Quest 15 and I had to start the game all over again!



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You're 1st Place! ¿Aren't you glad?

After finishing the 20 Stages, you might expect an ending, at least something simple since the game aims for the classic style. But guess what?, there's nothing. It sends you to the results screen just like when you die. So, either if you win or lose, the ending is the same thing. Well, that's 5 of 10 bucks wasted in this game.
Time to check the Campaign mode.



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Galaga Attacks!

Since "New Game/continue" is the Main game, this one is actually a campaign that contains multiple missions to fulfill. To start up with, it was nice to see it had a cutscene combining illustrations with the game's sprites to make a brief explanation of what's going on with the mission. Right after this, the game begins.



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It's Obi-Wan Kenobi wrong!

Welcome to Mission Control, this is the main hub of the campaign. Throughout your journey across stations you'll be encommended with quests that require you to head from one station to another. However, this is not as simple as going Stage 1>Stage 2 like in any other shmup. In this game you'll have to move from one station to another and to another and to another to complete a quest up to 4 Stations. If you don't know the paths you might get lost and stucked without clearing all the tasks, which in total are 40 quests.
To give you a hand on where you're supposed to go, here's the full route for the 40 quests.

Quest #1: Ozhron-7 -> Arban
Quest #2: Arban -> Barthon -> Dubrovnik-M2
Quest #3: Dubrovnik-M2 -> York -> Arban
Quest #4: Arban -> Mendez -> Ozhron-7
Quest #5: Ozhron-7 -> Dubrovnik-M2 -> Newton
Quest #6: Newton -> Ozhron-7
Quest #7: Ozhron-7 -> Hamburg -> Barthon
Quest #8: Barthon -> York -> Hoy Madar
Quest #9: Hoy Madar -> Arban
Quest #10: Arban -> Hawken -> T-45
Quest #11: T-45 -> York
Quest #12: York -> Hamburg -> Hawken
Quest #13: Hawken -> Entropy -> Newton -> Hamburg
Quest #14: Hamburg -> RX-78 -> Entropy -> Ho Tang
Quest #15: Ho tang -> Sofia -> Entropy
Quest #16: Entropy -> T-45 -> Ozhron-7
Quest #17: Ozhron-7 -> York -> Hawken -> London
Quest #18: London -> T-45 -> Ho Tang
Quest #19: Ho Tang -> Barthon -> Hawken


Quickest path between Quest #19 and #20: Hawken -> London

Quest #20: London -> Sofia
Quest #21: Sofia -> Mendez -> Barthon -> T-45
Quickest path between Quest #21 and #22: T-45 -> York
Quest #22: York -> Ho Tang -> London
Quest #23: London -> Sofia
Quest #24: Sofia -> Newton
Quest #25: Newton -> Hoy Madar -> London
Quest #26: London -> Newton
Quest #27: Newton -> T-45 -> Ho Tang
Quest #28: Ho Tang -> Hawken


Quickest path between Quest #28 and #29: Hawken -> Entropy

Quest #29: Entropy -> Hamburg -> London
Quest #30: London -> Sofia -> York -> Arban -> London
Quest #31: London -> T-45


Quickest path between Quest #31 and #32: T-45 -> Ozhron-7 -> Dubrovnik-M2

Quest #32: Dubrovnik-M2 -> Entropy

Quickest path between Quest #32 and #33: Entropy -> Newton -> Hoy Madar

Quest #33: Hoy Madar -> Hawken
Quest #34: Hawken -> Entropy -> Newton -> Hoy Madar


WORD OF ADVICE: London station will be destroyed after Quest #34. Fortunately, this doesn't affect the game's progression.

Quest #35: Hoy Madar -> T-45
Quest #36: T-45 -> York -> Hamburg -> RX-78
Quest #37:RX-78 -> T-45
Quest #38: T-45 -> Ozhron-7 -> Arban -> Mendez
Quest #39: Mendez -> RX-78 -> Ho Tang
Quest #40: Ho Tang -> Sofia -> T-45


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Yeah, have a [EXPLETIVE] nice day indeed.

That's the route for the whole game. Have fun if you can.


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"I'll take that money off your hands. Nothing personal. Just doing business."
- Seram Turnwheel (Ginga Force)


No quest-based campaign is complete with a shop, like in RPG's like CrossCode and Mass Effect, there's a store where you can buy from defensive weapons like decoys to Shields and even stronger ships. There's an item called Nuke All which is the murderbomb that causes 3,000,000 damage points to enemies and you'll be buying this weapon very often due to a very, very, very unbalanced boss which I'll talk about in a moment. Unlike any other RPG or store based shmup, Zotrix isn't just cash only, but also minerals to make the purchases. This leads us to the next "feature" of this game.



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Playing "How to be Rockefeller" in outer space.

The Trading Room is the second feature of the campaign. Here you'll have to pay attention to the stock market of the stations while buying resources, 'cos not all the stations have the same things (Example: Some have Gold and others don't), this stock market thing also applies to the price of the resources when you're buying or selling unwanted materials.
Stop the review for a moment!, Who on its right mind thought this was a good idea?, If the game is targeted to general audiences, the least thing kids and gamers doesn't give a [EXPLETIVE] about is the stock market. Well, kids might find the financial section of the newspaper fun when they find company abbreviations that write silly meme-words like NASDAQ's abbreviation for PowerShares Global Wind Energy Portfolio known as PWND, not to mention those that almost write expletives.
Back to the review, you have to pay attention to the total of resources accumulated on your ship, since regardless of which one you're using, the overall allowed is of 10,000. That's another negative for me 'cos it limits the player to carry as much as it needs, forcing you to sell and trade when this was completely unnecessary.



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ABC-123 Inc. presents "How internet servers work".

Network Map is the compass in your mission, as you move from one station to another, you'll probably need some guidance along the way. This is where you can also know which quest-based routes were cleared (marked with dark blue) in case you get lost.

In all these interfaces you'll really, REALLY wish you're given an arrow-like, Analog stick controlled cursor 'cos to navigate on all these screens requires to use the D-Pad, but the way the cursor moves feels like random and erratic. While you move left will go up, pressing up moves to another direction, is like if the whole damn thing is broken and makes the screen navigation very irritating. To make this much worse, if you've selected a route and then you go to the store or the map, you'll have to re-select the mission again. Really this game needs a fix on this problem.



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Things to do today: Head to Arban to Mendez, stamp the "Crying Lea" in a review,
Poke fun of a trash game, Survive this Geostorm of trash shmups.


Operations is the most simple of all the features, as this one is the "List of Things to do" that carries the quests everyone will give you on your mission.
So there's no much to explain about this screen.



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The option of including 10 alternate weapon slots comes in handy here.

Armory is where you can equip your ship and change the one you're using. ¿Remember the 10 slots that I've mentioned you before in Arcade Mode?, You'll be using most of them here to equip from Missiles to Decoys and Nuke Alls. You can also install the Extended Weapon and Drones, increasing the firepower of your ship much further.



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The enemies are aiming at you, not at the transport.

Once you've finished your equipping, you'll start the mission, which essentially feels identical to the Arcade Mode's gameplay. The main difference is to protect the transport ship, but for your luck, nothing happens to the transport vessel since its just part of the background scenery. The priority here is to survive the stage without losing all of your lives. This will take you around two to four minutes. There's exceptions where the stage takes six minutes and you'll be facing around 1,000 enemies.
After clearing a mission you can decide if you want to repeat the stage by selecting "REPLAY" or continue with the campaign. Selecting replay will allow you to restart the stage many times you want, but it won't accumulate extra resources for the times you repeat the stage. However, it will count the enemies killed in the repeated times. This is useful to obtain the 100,000 kills trophy.



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¿Can't you see who I am? I'm Invincible!

One thing is dealing with strong enemies with a weak ship, but this game goes all abusive on you at the point of trolling you as it throws you large sized ships like the green vessels seen in the screenshot or mid-sized mother ships that spawn small enemies, they won't be a trouble if it wasn't for a major flaw: They're indestructible. You can shoot them as much as you want and waste your Nuke Alls, they're not gonna die. The only thing you can do is to move aside from their flight path and wait until they leave.



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The big bad armed wheel of death.

Most of the missions will throw you bosses that will require to destroy their parts before you can hit them. Having your firepower at level 3, an Extended Weapon equipped and a strong ship like the Green Glider will be of great help to take these ships down before they leave the stage. Well, if they leave nothing happens, they don't affect the outcome of your mission and the quest will be done either if they're destroyed or not.



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Have you ever had that feeling of being overwhelmed in a one-on-one battle?

¿Remember when I said you'll be using Nuke Alls later in the game? Well, here's why. In the final part of your quest you'll be facing the "Rex" boss which is simply boss design gone way too wrong. The main problem with this boss is not its easiness, but its EXCESSIVE amount of health given. Based on the use of Nuke Alls on this boss, I've burnt 7 of them, meaning that the bastard has 21,000,000 of HP. If you don't have Nuke Alls in your inventory there's nothing you can do but to shoot in vain until it escapes.



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Sorry, but there's not gonna be a next time for me.
I'm quitting from this game.


After finishing the 40th quest you'll probably expect an ending cutscene, but instead nothing happens. The only thing that you're gonna get is a report from Iseul Hyun telling you that Commander Anika Elli (who gave you some quests before) will be arrested and he will thank you for your help. Right after this you'll be on the Mission Control where you can select routes freely. But in my opinion it's more convenient to close the game and uninstall it.

Graphically, the game takes influences of the old arcade games like Galaga and Galaxian as some of the sprites are simple colored enemies with very small color linings and pixels as simulated details that complete the retro feeling. The only problem that I've found there was with the small and fast enemies since they're almost microscopical and you can't appreciate their designs. The wheel "Dux" bosses are perhaps the most visually amazing as they look like a complex, intrincate structure reaching artistic levels. All the levels are space based, which, will make a nostalgic resemblance to Galaga/Galaxian with the black background and white stars, it feels boring and repetitive at the 5th quest, making you wish this game made a better effort on giving you more variety on the levels.



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The 4th and 5th on the top are Pierce Brosnan and Tom Cruise ripoffs.

This is the whole cast of characters who will give you objectives throughout your campaign. As you can see they're based on the western style but in a more realistic style at the point you can even notice very familiar faces like the Ex-James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, Alec Guinnes in his Obi-Wan Kenobi style, Tom Cruise and even Chris Pratt and a Carrie Fisher lookalike. The pilot is never seen since the game pulls the "Performed by you!" stunt like in Super R-Type.

Oh well, lemme give this game a fix. A well deserved fix.



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20 Years later on Romhacking, "Zotrix: Anime Girl Hack" for your PS4 & Switch emulators.

There, all done. Anime style makes wonders don't you think? I'd rather follow orders from Margaret than the bootleg relatives of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Pierce Brosnan and Chris Pratt.
Ah, what would be of my reviews if I don't rip apart the western style in favor of the more fan-favorite anime style characters.

The music of this game is a calmed techno-ambient chillout that while doesn't have action paces, it manages to add some non-boring music to the already boring game. There's a track that has some rock guitaring, is not Thunder Force or Vapor Trail paced, but still brings some action to the whole thing or the tropical-salsa like "Alien Intro".


CURIOSOTRIX
- T-45 refers to both the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk and the T-45 Power Armor from Fallout.
- RX-78 is a reference to the original Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam.
- Dubrovnik-M2 refers to Dubrovnik, a city on the Adriatic Sea in southern Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva County.



Now you understand what I've meant when I called Zotrix and all trash shmups a "Geostorm"?
This is a Geostorm of @#$%! Zotrix tries to be a love letter to the classic Galaga days, but the constant "Enemy overpowers you" feeling, virtually indestructible carriers, a 21 million HP boss that will leave the stage before you can hurt it, broken trophies and unnecessary resource financing thing simply kills the whole game off. If you're looking for money spending shmups, try U.N Squadron, Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles, they're way better and what's more important: They don't have broken things.


*Sing "Broken Trophies" to the tune of "Invisible Touch" by Genesis*

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Time to play Zotrix, a shooter that I've bought.
Hoping that nothing, nothing could wrong.
Agh! Oh my Lord!

It has a few problems, I believe.
I've cleared quest number 15.
Agh! God damn it, No trophy seems to come up!



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This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
I've cleared the stage, but nothing seems to unlock.
This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
This game is screwed, I'm throwing it to the trash.

But that's only one problem, and things are getting worse.
Playing Arcade Mode too much will compromise trophies.
Agh! Oh my Lord!
Looks like progression is very screwed.
It's something
atrocious!
And the worst is, I've paid 10 bucks for this game.



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This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
I've cleared the game, Platinum doesn't unlock.
This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
This game is screwed, I'm throwing it to the trash.

This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
I've cleared the stage, but nothing seems to unlock.
This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
This game is screwed, I'm throwing it to the trash.



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Deleting saved data, seems to be the game's fix.
Start the game all over again, you've gotta be insane.
Agh! Oh, my Lord!

It has a few problems, I believe.
Some trophies I'm gonna miss.
And the worst is, nobody will fix this game.

This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
I've cleared the stage, but nothing seems to unlock.
This seems to have some Broken Trophies, damn.
This game is screwed, I'm throwing it to the trash.
Fan of Transformers, Shmups and Anime-styled Girls. You're teamed up with the right pilot!
Bringing you shmup and video game reviews with humorous criticism.

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