Anyone ever play Zarlor Mercenary?

[dark]

Circa 1990 shmup for the Atari Lynx. I love this game, it is very high quality for the Atari Lynx. There is a lot of attention to detail and variety in the graphics, and although I have seen criticism that this game is highly derivative of the Amiga titles Xenon X2 and Battle Squadron, I find the gameplay (and ship speed) to be much faster and much more enjoyable, and the level graphics to be much more varied, colorful and interesting than either of those games. Similar to Xenon and Raptor Call of the Shadows, there is a shop you enter between levels to buy weapons and items, there is also a life bar on the screen. This is an American game, made when shmups were still relevant in mainstream gaming and has some of the trappings of a "euro" (aka not Japanese) shmup, but I found myself enjoying it very much regardless, despite not being a fan of euroshmups - there are powerups that will make your ship move quickly, and powerups that will give you autofire by holding down the fire button (both easily collected in the first 10 seconds of gameplay), so it cleverly does away with some of the less fun gameplay aspects found in some early shmups.

This shmup also featured 4 player simultaneous multiplayer (if you networked together four atari lynxes). The only other top down shmup I know of that can do this outside of a couple of recent indie titles is Gigawing 2 which came out 10 years later, so perhaps this game holds the record for the first shmup with 4 simultaneous players?

There is a twist to this game if you play for score - and that is, you spend your points as money in the shop. However, if you run out of ships, it is game over with no continues. So you the player are forced to choose between heavily upgrading your ship and buying extra lives and other fancy items, or having a very lean armament that might not serve you well in the more challenging levels in order to keep the money. This could be interesting for a highscore contest, but I'd have to find people who would play this ancient title first!




Anyone played it? Anyone curious?

[Strikers1945guy]

Looks pretty cool !

[Obiwanshinobi]

There is a twist to this game if you play for score - and that is, you spend your points as money in the shop. However, if you run out of ships, it is game over with no continues. So you the player are forced to choose between heavily upgrading your ship and buying extra lives and other fancy items, or having a very lean armament that might not serve you well in the more challenging levels in order to keep the money.

I fantasised about something along those lines some time ago.

Cool title, too.

[Herr Schatten]

There is a twist to this game if you play for score - and that is, you spend your points as money in the shop. However, if you run out of ships, it is game over with no continues. So you the player are forced to choose between heavily upgrading your ship and buying extra lives and other fancy items, or having a very lean armament that might not serve you well in the more challenging levels in order to keep the money.

I fantasised about something along those lines some time ago.

X-Out had a similar mechanic, where you had to buy extra ships and weapons with your score. I found that idea quite progressive when it came out. Unfortunately, it was wasted, as the game itself was subpar, even though many people remember it fondly for its pretty visuals and nice music.

[Jeneki]

(this topic is going to be full of obscure titles, haha)

Guardian Storm (arcade) is like that, with both powerups and 1ups in a shop between levels.

But yea, Zarlor Mercenary looks cool. Thanks for posting this.

[CloudyMusic]

I had a Lynx, but I can't remember ever seeing this game. Shame, too, because it looks pretty cool, at least by Lynx standards.

[broken harbour]

I have this game buried in a box somewhere with all my Lynx stuff. I have hazy memories from 20+ years ago that it was cool, but I was young, not sure how it holds up today.

I wish my Lynx still worked, I've been wanting to revist a few games lately. I should really find a working system.

[Cagar]

There is a twist to this game if you play for score - and that is, you spend your points as money in the shop. However, if you run out of ships, it is game over with no continues. So you the player are forced to choose between heavily upgrading your ship and buying extra lives and other fancy items, or having a very lean armament that might not serve you well in the more challenging levels in order to keep the money.

To be honest, this sounds like the opposite of a fun and rewarding scoring system.

[louisg]

I have this game buried in a box somewhere with all my Lynx stuff. I have hazy memories from 20+ years ago that it was cool, but I was young, not sure how it holds up today.

I wish my Lynx still worked, I've been wanting to revist a few games lately. I should really find a working system.

I can't say I have much love for Zarlor Mercenary, but man I love my Lynx. I went on a Lynx kick a few months ago, playing the hell out of Xenophobe, Blue Lightning, Xybots, Warbirds, Toki, and Battle Wheels. Xenophobe in particular is still just so much fun. OK, enough thread derailing

[dark]

I want to do a score contest for Zarlor Mercenary and Gates of Zendocon (both are lynx games). Anyone down besides me?

[Strikers1945guy]

I want to do a score contest for Zarlor Mercenary and Gates of Zendocon (both are lynx games). Anyone down besides me?

Sure?

[dark]

I started a score contest for Zarlor Mercenary

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55961

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Another cool Atari Lynx shmup title by the name of Raiden (that has a 1990 copyright date) was released by 3rd-party developer/publisher, Songbird Productions, and offered for sale at the 2004 Classic Gaming Expo. I bought a copy brand new from that particular show and was impressed by the gameplay. It is presented in tate mode. Of course, it's one of those Lynx shmup titles that was never released at retail (despite being 100% developed/finished by Atari Corp. themselves).

Another ace Lynx shmup title called Zaku (plays like the classic Air Zonk shmup on the TurboGrafx-16 platform) is a very polished title worthy of your time as well + a silky-smooth 60fps framerate doesn't hurt either. It's presented in yoko format indeed.

On a related Lynx note, the unreleased Lynx prototype game title, Road Riot 4WD ( that was developed in-house by Atari Corp. in 1994) has a solid & silky-smooth 60fps framerate also. Tis a shame that it wasn't released at retail and it's still offered for sale today by BCS Computer Vision (based out of El Dorado, CA). As it is, it's 99% finished but only requires a Congratulations final ending screen + ending staff credits to be 100% finished -- still a very slick & professionally done Lynx racing game nevertheless. It's regarded as another one of those rare Lynx "killer app" gaming titles worth owning/playing in your private Lynx gaming stash alrighty.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[dark]

It turns out you can play Zarlor Mercenary right in your browser, it loads in about 10 seconds. You could click this link and be playing Zarlor right now, no fussing around with configuring emulators or downloading zip files.

http://game-oldies.com/play-online/zarl ... atari-lynx#

So now no one has an excuse not to give it a quick go, and perhaps enter into my score contest!

[dark]

No one entered into my score contest.

I was just playing this game again last night in bed, with the lights turned out, on my physical atari lynx - 1990s cool-kid style, and I put in the 25 or so minutes to play all the way through it and clear it with a great high score. I truly love this game, it is definitely one of my favorite handheld games of all time and I'd probably put it somewhere in my top 15 shmups of all time, though it probably wouldn't be in the top 10. I even love the music. This game just has that old school arcade vibe to it and has a good amount of variation in the graphics and enemies to keep things interesting. Truly not just a great lynx game, but a great game overall!

Earlier this year I picked up a second copy of this game (and I already had a second atari lynx) and a lynx network cable, and I forced my friend to play it with me. It was pretty cool but he kept dieing a lot. When he lost all his lives, the screen continued scrolling and watching me, on his lynx. Also, at the end of levels, I was able to transfer money to my friend, so he could buy lives and powerups and stuff. We didn't share a pool of lives, so I could keep dealing him into the game by playing like an expert and getting enough money to give him stuff. Eventually we all died though, probbly b/c I kept shoveling my money into bringing him back to life instead of buying enough powerups for myself. Still though, I wonder if I am the only person to have played networked Zarlor Mercenary in the last 12 months.

By the way, this game was programmed by the same guy (Chuck Somerville) who programmed the much better known Chip's Challenge. In fact he would have been working on these games at about the same time and publishing them probably in the same year. I guess this one wasn't hit breakthrough hit.

[Shou]

I've played it in the last year on the big screen.

[dark]

Just popping in to say that its 2019 and I'm still obsessively playing this game. In fact I'm involved in a highscore contest for it on an atari forum and me and another guy are really pushing the score possibilities to the limit in order to get the highest score possible (ie: selling most of our items and lives before the last level and then trying to get through the last stage without dying). I also recently got one of those arcade1up machines, turned it into an emulator box and have enjoyed playing this game on a larger screen and with arcade controls, maybe I'll create some artwork for the cab to make an unofficial zarlor arcade machine lol I am truly obsessed with this game, I've honest to god been playing it for over 20 years now. Can't say that about any other American/Euro shmup.


If you haven't tried it before and are curious, that link above to playing it in an emulator in your browser still seems to work. Why not give it a try?
http://game-oldies.com/play-online/zarl ... atari-lynx#

[the androgyne]

I had this game when i was a kid. It was probably my most played Lynx game (though i only had 6!)
I have fond memories of it because it wasn't a game i chose myself, rather my mum bought it for a christmas or birthday. I was stunned that she picked out such a great game hehe. I don't think i ever made it past the 3rd or 4th stage, but I remember having a lot of fun finding which way was the best to take, since the screen scrolls horizontally as well.

Unfortunately my Lynx and games... and SNES and games were stolen just a year later I think. With our insurance I opted to put the money towards more SNES games instead of re-buying everything I had previously.

Then about 10 years ago i saw Ebay had a load of cheap unopened Lynx games, so I bought it again along with Pit Fighter and Hydra, 2 other games I had. But since then i haven't bothered to track down an actual Lynx to play it on! I play from time to time on PSP via emulation. Hydra is a kind of racing/shooting game that still holds up too!

[dark]

The high score contest ended with a new world record as far as I'm aware. Relatively close to a TAS run I did using save states to ensure I never died while using minimum items (but not so close as to be unbelievable that he achieved it without tools/cheats).

While I was doing run throughs for the contest I found out that there is technically an area where one could get unlimited score. The level 3 boss shoots drones at you that you can shoot down for a measly 100 points while dodging the boss's lasers. Since the recorded scores are in the millions and the high difficulty in dodging the lasers, I think this would take a big effort (ie doing this maneuver for hours) to have a meaninngful impact on a score attempt. But who knows, maybe the shmups wizards here could dissect the game further

Link to score contest thread
https://atariage.com/forums/topic/29855 ... tion-2019/

[PFG 9000]

I check the AtariAge forum much more than this one, so I missed this thread in 2014 but saw the recent high score thread at AA.

I'm a huge Lynx fan. When I was a kid and all my friends had NESes and Gameboys, my parents would "only" let me have a Lynx. I didn't appreciate how amazing it was at the time, but I did love it. Now I have a complete USA library and still play it frequently.

I've never put much time into Zarlor Mercenary though. It always seemed like a Euroshmup, and a brutally tough one, so I don't think I've even played past the first stage. But it's on my list to put more time into.

[Turrican]

Zarlor is getting a second chance at shelf life later this year:

https://www.evercade.co.uk/atari-lynx-c ... cartridge/

(yeah, it's bringing along that ol' mate of his, Zendocon )

[dark]

Cool, I think this is the first official re-release it has ever had since coming out around 1992.

[Turrican]

They haven't. How could they, after all... The remarkable power of the Lynx would have made a conversion to other portables of the time too laborious (inevitably losing much of what makes Lynx games interesting: cool sound, all kind of sprite rotation/zooming tricks...)... On the other hand, the abismal resolution of 102 lines made Lynx games an experiment in minimalism and quite difficult to "sell" to other systems, even as retro compilations.

the evercade gizmo is putting on the table 25 games in two volumes, for a system that totalled 73 cartridges during shelf life: almost a third of the entire softography (and probably the good third). Mind you, this is emulation, although licensed, so let's just hope the games will run in an acceptable quality.

[dark]

Periodic update to remind people about this game! Now with more ways to play than ever before (lynx cartridge, emulator on various systems, emulator in your web browser, recent cartridge re-release on evercade)

Anyone playing it in 2022? (Or 2021?)

[TrevorMcFurr]

Funnily enough I dug my old Lynx 2 out the other day and Zarlor Mercenary was the game I put in first. I was never especially good at it but like you said dark, it is a lot of fun with a really nice variety of backgrounds.

I think it may be available on the Evercade Atari Lynx Collection 2, too...

EDIT: I just read Turrican's post also mentioning the Evercade Lynx Collection

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk

[dark]

I am pleased to announce that Zarlor Mercenary has been re-released on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2186 ... Mercenary/


For that matter, so were other lynx shmups:
Gates of Zendocon
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2190 ... _Zendocon/

Blue Lightning
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2193 ... Lightning/

[SavagePencil]

Curious how they're doing the emulation. Is this just mednafen running them under the hood?

[dark]

I don't know, I haven't downloaded these particular releases - but Digital Eclipse recently completed custom atari lynx and jaguar emulators that are being used for the recently released Atari 50th Anniversary game compilation. Those emulators are the property of Digital Eclipse rather than Atari S.A. (current iteration of Atari) and can therefore be licensed for use by other companies, so its within the realm of possibility that its using a new custom emulator.