Zero Wing for Genesis

Review #4700

Zero Wing

The OG meme

Genesis 1989 Williams Shooter Shooter › Horizontal
Zero Wing screenshot for Genesis
Screenshot used for review/reference purposes.
3 / 5

Gameplay

Three weapons which are upgradeable and always awarded in the same sequence. Red, blue then green. Red is a normal shot. Shot blue is laser and green is seeker. You always have two options, one above and the other beneath your ship and they're huge so they take a lot of hits which makes the game pretty easy. You can also upgrade your speed a couple of times.
You lose everything when you die and restart the level R-Type style. I'm fact the entire game is a slow deliberate crawl in the tradition of the much better R-Type.
The only gimmick is a tractor break which lets you grab an event directly in front of you and throw it toward other enemies. I used it twice and then never again but it's there anyway.

2 / 5

Level Design

Long periods of nothing on screen. The levels are largely empty and are extremely long and slow moving.
Terrible pacing

5 / 5

Theme

This game has a deserved notoriety because of its horrible Engrish translation. The opening sequence is hilarious. The over the top anime style opening doesn't really jive with the visuals with its chunky cute-em-up sprites but it's fun nonetheless.

3 / 5

Art Style

The graphics look all right. The backgrounds are pretty boring but the sprites look nice and animate well. Your options constantly animate and enemies turn toward you instead of just moving vertically. Overall there's some nice details but it's not spectacular looking. Also, the designs seem out of place in the high stakes setting put forth by the games opening cinematic.

2 / 5

Audio

The music is good. I enjoyed it. The sounds however are really bad. You are normal shot which plays constantly of course sounds straight out of an Atari 2600 game.

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