Favorite zakos?

[Squire Grooktook]

Started playing Hishouzame after a friend recommended it as having the best/most aggressive zakos ever.

I'm still more slanted towards the second half of Rayforce. I love how relentlessly aggressive they are.

I also love Cho Ren Sha's zakos, particularly the ones who smoothly float and move around you in somewhat difficult to predict ways.

I like mowing down the small swarms in Cave games as well, particularly in Ketsui and Mushihimesama Futari, cause you can just melt them with point blanking in the former and ram them with Abnormal Reco in the latter.

Recca and Kaikan also are top tier for the insane speed. More like enemy hell than bullet hell.

Any other picks?

[ACSeraph]

For sheer brutality I doubt anything can compare to the scoundrels from Gun.Smoke.

Design-wise I'm partial to the Super-C (borderline) purple spandex guys that don't even come at you with a gun. What kind of madness drives a man to jog into Bill Rizer's spreadshot with no protection at all?

I also like the zako in 1942, and the way that if they can't shoot you they simply try to crash straight into you. They get bonus points for sheer tenacity and a complete refusal to exit the screen in the later stages.

[BIL]

Gun.Smoke's murderously persistent grey bandits, definitely. Heart and soul of a uniquely personal, vicious shooter. Outplay each and every one or die horribly.

I really like Kyuukyoku Tiger's colour-coded menagerie of zako choppers, each with their own behavioural quirks. Some want to ram you head-on, others try to loiter on your flank, some make a round trip from the top of the screen potshotting all the way. Cute and very functional detail (I learned to despise the purple ones that appear in the second half).

Design-wise I'm partial to the Super-C (borderline) purple spandex guys that don't even come at you with a gun. What kind of madness drives a man to jog into Bill Rizer's spreadshot with no protection at all?

Frickin zombies! AC Super Contra's first stage always reminds me of Return of the Living Dead, except Bill and Lance are packing way more heat than those poor cops!

[Pretas]

I also like the zako in 1942, and the way that if they can't shoot you they simply try to crash straight into you. They get bonus points for sheer tenacity and a complete refusal to exit the screen in the later stages.

For what it's worth, Masanobu Endo specifically programmed the zako in Xevious (the first scrolling STG with a real distinct variety of zako) to avoid deliberately crashing into the player. Even the unarmed "rings" seen in the game's opening moments quickly veer away from you. GAMP wouldn't resort to kamikaze tactics, it already controls the Earth.

[Squire Grooktook]

Shit, how could I forget Eschatos and Ginga Force.

Qute's slogan might as well be "we make the best zakos".

[Lobinden]

I like the little flying dudes in Raiden, especially Raiden IV. Maneuvering around their shot when their at the bottom left or right corner is always fun.

[BIL]

Eliminate Down's dead astronauts, found in the icy debris of st2.2's killer planetary ring setpiece. The only zako I always let survive long enough to attack simply because their animation is so cool.

Spoiler

Brrr. Poor fuckers.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^ Holy crap that is cool, nice find.

[BIL]

ED is super rad in general. It's Thunder Force IV's hypermetallic spacewar epic with the gloss sanded down and the xenohorror cranked way up. st5's claustroriffic encounter with a pair of nightmarish carrion-mulching juggernauts gives me the god damn willies.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Eliminate Down's dead astronauts

I've shot those guys a million times and even seen their attack animations quite a bit, but I never realized that they were supposed to be dead astronauts. I just thought it was a "generic sci-fi pod-looking thing". Seconding this game's radicality, but...

ED is super rad in general.

You might want to reconsider that abbreviation.


Anyways, off the top of my head, I like the pig chefs from Deathsmiles. Also, from MushiFutari, those guys from stage 4 or 5 that either came out of a cocoon or molted out of their exoskeleton. I can't remember exactly what it was.

[Strikers1945guy]

The zakos in Hishozame get nasty once you get into the loops, super fun.

[Squire Grooktook]

st5's claustroriffic encounter with a pair of nightmarish carrion-mulching juggernauts gives me the god damn willies.

The music in that section fits perfectly too. Gotta love that lovecraftian abomination at the beginning of stage 6 as well.