Ed Oscuro wrote:What sort of gameplay does this offer up? Big enemies you have to dodge between to avoid collision? (I'll skip by the charge shots and energy tanks thing for now, that seems best left out of the asking for the moment.)
What game is this most similar to? Anything arcade-wise?
someone else would be better off answering those questions. ..though I've played scores of shmups, I'm not adequately versed to make strict comparisons.
Games which came to my mind while playing Zaku were:
Gunstar Heroes, Trouble Shooter, Thunder Cross, Sonic the Hedgehog, In the Hunt, ...
There is everything you would expect from a 16-bit game circa 1993-94. Very well done!
Enemies typically come at in you in groups of three - some are large, some are not so large, some move faster than others, some will shoot at you, most do not (in the first 3 stages). Some you can kill easily with rapid shot, some with charge shot, and others with the reverse thruster. By the third stage (Marine Zone) you will be switching between all three weapons with a pretty good rhythm. For instance, one section I have fun with is where 3 ground based enemies march up from behind you (left screen). An orb will be left from the first one killed (and the orbs scroll off screen quickly), so you let the enemies get to the right of the screen then slip in front of them and hit two with reverse "Back Blaster" then in the time it takes to sweep above and to the left of the remaining enemy you can make a charge shot, just in time to catch the orb and kill the third to be rewarded another orb.
There is a recurring boss, "Iremsha", who appears in many forms (along with cool mid-level and end-level bosses). The first encounter during Marine Zone takes the action to a vertically scrolling scenario - I don't want to spoil anything, but it makes very cool use of the weapon options!
The "Option 2" button function of activating reserve energy is brilliant. The orbs don't replenish energy, but rather accumulate to activate the reserve energy. In a tense situation I have neglected to monitor my health bar and been killed while I could have activated an available reserve energy. And in other instances, I've been so concerned with getting the 6, 7, or 8th orb to activate reserve energy, that I end up playing sloppy and get killed instead of extending my life as intended. It all certainly adds to the strategy.
Some of the graphical touches really deserve mentioning. Like in the underwater sections where the color palette shifts to all blue tones, and how the color comes back when the water recedes. In those same scenes water splashes whenever Zaku enters or exits water!
Iremsha’s 2nd Marine Zone encounter will make you forget you are playing a Lynx. The graphics, sound, and physics effects are unbelievable for a homebrew game. And then the boss that directly follows up that fight is as good as anything from a Sonic the Hedgehog game! (And a great sense of humor too!)
There is no reason for any Lynx owning gamer to not purchase this game – it is far and away the best game on the system, and may even be the best handheld shoot-em-up, period.
Zaku is reason enough to warrant the purchase of a Lynx.
