ZEROIGAR

William_Hung

Crazed MVS Addict
Joined
May 5, 2004
Posts
143
Is this SHMUP for PC-FX worth tracking down? Some rank it up there with RS.
 

jp.

Angel's Love Slave
Joined
Feb 1, 2004
Posts
911
ALRIGHT! I've spent the day playing this game, so here's my opinion on it.


First thing you must know, its not a traditional shmup. There's a life bar, once it runs out, you die. There's also no score. Well, not really. There's experience. Sure, the rising number at the top of the screen might LOOK like a score, but its experience. And it resets at every level.

Basically, pending on how you score in one level (or one life if you don't beat the level), you'll level up. The highest I've leveled up after a single stage was twice. I don't know when/if the levels max out, the highest I've been at is 9. As far I can tell, leveling up only effects your hit points and your Special Attack Meter. Your weapons power-up via power-ups your robot picks up in the stages.

There are three modes:
Story Mode - Includes a "Level 0" if you will, and has high quality anime cut scenes between levels. Also, you cannot purchase special attacks. Though you do level up (and I think you level up a lot faster).

Arcade Mode - You can now choose from 3 robots to pilot. Also, the levels don't really progress, you just choose them. So if you want, you can probably keep playing levels 1 and 2 to level up and then go on. Also, at the menu screen for AC mode you can buy/level up special attacks (i.e. flame thrower, options, bomb, laser beam, etc.). The game saves the level of the robots as well as what stages have been unlocked.

There are two versions of arcade mode, I do not know what the other one is.

Score Attack - Play through a quick level with a time limit. Simple enough...



The game itself is pretty fun. Some things I don't like though. For started, the control is very weird. You can adjust the speed of your robot with the Select button, but even at the lowest setting it seems way too fast. And the movement just feels... amateurish.


The levels are pretty fucking cool. Nice transparencies, parallax, etc. Vibrant colors, nice explosions, massive bosses, and all that jazz.

Enemy designs are OK. Eventually, in the later levels, the game gets pretty fucking hard. Well, if you aren't leveled up, level 1 is pretty fucking hard. But in the higher levels... yeah, the screen is just filled with enemies. You rarely get shot at, its mostly a fear of running into something (which does a shit ton of damage). Also, the levels are pretty damn long...

Boss fights are probably the high point of the game. Mind you, you'll only be able to dodge some of their attacks after fighting them a few times. It kinda has that Thunder Force "know what the boss is going to do or you're going to die!" system going on there. The boss designs are VERY cool though, you can blow up multiple parts of the boss, and aside from the cheapness of some of them (level 1, level 4), they're well done.

Music is jammin', I liked it at least.


All in all, its a pretty decent game. A lot of replay value will come from leveling up your robots and I imagine 1CC'ing Story Mode is going to be a bitch. So far I've only gotten to level 5... and the game tore me to shreds once there! Speaking of level 5, awesome fucking level. And 4. Both them are just cool.

Is the "The Radiant Silvergun of the PC-FX"? Price wise, yes. Quality wise, not even remotely close. Actually, I doubt anything on the PC-FX would compare to the Saturn's big guns in any genre. But Zeroigar is a fun game, so if you don't have anything else to play, its pretty cool.
 
Top