Zen-Ichi - What do you think?

[Iaspis]

I wonder if any of you guys has played a doujin shmup called Zen-Ichi. It's a decent looking shmup, focusing mainly on gameplay.
In the beginning, you have 3 types of craft to choose from, each with its own main weapon that can be powered up a bit by collecting certain pick ups. The game starts on the easy side but evenyually gets pretty manic, which is fine by me. The main trick of the game is to harvest as many blue crystals as you can, filling the upper crystal meter, so that you may either replenish your one-hit shield (in case you lost it), or have the chance to enter super harvest mode, where you can collect purple crystals (instead of blue) that fill up your bomb meter, thus gain more bombs. Bullet scratching also fills your bomb meter but at a very slow rate.
The weak point of the game is sprite design. The ships look blury and a bit choppy, which can't be good. The backgrounds are a bit monotonous too, but hey, that was the case in ChoRenSha (which still rocks) wasn't it? Still, the gameplay makes up for these drawbacks in my oppinion. What do you think of it?

[glitch]

i played this a couple of times some while ago but had sort of forgotten about it. thanks for reminding me, i just installed it again and yeah, this game rocks. all the fancy zoom-in zoom-out stuff and little bonus messages and warning signs spattered over the screen along with the manic bullet patterns make for that rare perfect blend of sensory overload. ship design is a pity, but besides that it just gets so many of the little details right that many doujins overlook. feels more like an old console game than a doujin somehow. and these lasers and explosions and especially the bombs have such a nice grainy punch to them, really makes it a joy to blow stuff up. awesome little gem.


pity it takes up only about 1/4 of my 12.1" screen though. ( ._.)

[icycalm]

It's a decent looking shmup, focusing mainly on gameplay.

That's always good to know. I am tired of all these games that focus on the packaging.

[shoe-sama]

I like how the pink ship is stronger than the yellow ship

hate the rank control aspect

[Dandy J]

i never got deep into it enough to learn about any rank stuff

i like it cause the 1. the scoring system doesnt rely on memorization 2. the scoring system rewards not getting hit 3. its manic but its also fast

[tekneekz]

how do i go about trying out this game? what kind of gameplay is it? manic? raiden esque type?

[shoe-sama]

i never got deep into it enough to learn about any rank stuff

i like it cause the 1. the scoring system doesnt rely on memorization 2. the scoring system rewards not getting hit 3. its manic but its also fast

1) quickshots to increase rate for end of stage bonus, bomb and fever distribution for items, special requirements for spawning certain enemies
2) lol uh you need to take hits (during fever lowers rank most iirc) for rank control to make stage 4 and 5 scoring (and survival, having max lives is also good for scoring lol) a lot more manageable

of course expert mode gets rid of rank control entirely, since hits = death

[Iaspis]

how do i go about trying out this game? what kind of gameplay is it? manic? raiden esque type?

Search the Internet. It's more like a Donpachi-esque game. Judging from your avatar, you'll most certainly like it.

[Iaspis]

Wow, there is a lot of activity in the Equinox blog, I wonder if we could be expecting a new version soon...

[lgb]

I do believe it is a retexture. A high-res retexture.

[Kaspal]

I do believe it is a retexture. A high-res retexture.

^^this...

i couldnt really follow what he was saying, but i do think is a retexturing (and re-release) of the game... i have the old version, love it (carry it on my pendrive all the time), and... well, i recommend it to anyone who likes frantic action with "low" res sprites n shit.

[Cthulhu]

Haven't played this one in years, but I totally dug it. The sense of speed you got in some of the levels was just awesome - the train level was especially memorable. The difficulty felt better balanced than a lot of other doujin shmups (not counting the Touhou games of course). I bought this one on a whim and was very pleased.

[vvv]

Sorry for necrobumping, but this is the only related thread I found.

Apparently, to celebrate the 10th years Zen-Ichi anniversary the game was made to distributed freely.
You can download it from the official site here
It's the same version with the old one. Unfortunately along with unsupported features such as no windowed mode support, also having compatibility problem with latest Windows versions than Windows XP.

I want to play this game, but these color glitch really made it unplayable. Does anyone has successfully run this game without problems? I'm on Windows 7 64 btw.

[Ed Oscuro]

Getting a 503 error on that link unfortunately. I'll have to try again later. Thanks for pointing this out!

And yes, it's refreshing to see games that aren't focused just on the packaging.

[Squire Grooktook]

I was getting a 503 when I first clicked it a night or two ago, but it's working now.

And yes, it's refreshing to see games that aren't focused just on the packaging.

Icycalm does make wise remarks.

[BIL]

I actually bought a physical copy of this some years back, only for the store to refund with an Out Of Stock notice. Thought the DOJ hypers meets Raiden Fighters stuntin' mashup was really fun.

[cuttingagent]

This looks pretty cool. The difficulty is very accessible. Running on Win7 with no problems, when launching the game using a .bat file containing the following(to fix the fucky colours--same hack to fix old vers of XOP and others such as Noiz2sa--thx Udderdude):

@echo off
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
Zen-Ichi.exe
cls
pause
start explorer.exe

[vvv]

Thanks cuttingagent, it does the trick
Though "start explorer.exe" command doesn't work, it opened file explorer instead. But I could just restart it manually through task manager.

[cuttingagent]

Yeah IDK much about batch files but it I notice it kills any folders I have open and I think even once explorer restarts it just doesn't get them back. If I remember correctly this trick also works with Creature Jungle and Storm Caliber Revival 99.

[RipperRoo]

is there a also a way without killing the explorer ?
thanks though!!

[Aisha]

is there a also a way without killing the explorer ?
thanks though!!

Try the suggested settings on the official site. They work for me.

Right-click on the executable -> Properties -> Compatibility tab. Make sure only "Run in 256 colors", "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution", and "Disable desktop composition" are checked.

[RipperRoo]

is there a also a way without killing the explorer ?
thanks though!!

Try the suggested settings on the official site. They work for me.

Right-click on the executable -> Properties -> Compatibility tab. Make sure only "Run in 256 colors", "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution", and "Disable desktop composition" are checked.

and compability win 95 now it works fine THANKS!

[Mischief Maker]

Sorry for necrobumping, but this is the only related thread I found.

Apparently, to celebrate the 10th years Zen-Ichi anniversary the game was made to distributed freely.
You can download it from the official site here
It's the same version with the old one. Unfortunately along with unsupported features such as no windowed mode support, also having compatibility problem with latest Windows versions than Windows XP.

I want to play this game, but these color glitch really made it unplayable. Does anyone has successfully run this game without problems? I'm on Windows 7 64 btw.

What an amazing find! I've been wanting this game for years and only just now learn that it went freeware.

[qmish]

Or should we use this?
http://bedagainstthewall.blogspot.com/p ... ender.html

[Ed Oscuro]

Or should we use this?
http://bedagainstthewall.blogspot.com/p ... ender.html

Agh, Firefox throws up a bad software warning when clicking the first link. Seems possibly useful though. Is this running on Windows 10, or older?

[Gespenst]

I haven't tried it personally, but perhaps DirectDraw wrapper like DgVoodoo2 orl DXGL might work. It's supposedly working on older games with similar color issue.

[Despatche]

Those program settings work pretty well, though.