The swan song of Compile studio, which became one of the best games in the genre and the brightest diamond of the PS1 library.
Hello, kids! Today Grandfather Kardinalich will tell you about how he plowed the abyss of space and shot at everything that moved. Well, or something like that. In general, today we’ll talk about shmups – a genre that I’m not too fond of. Yes, from time to time I can get annoyed by some R-Type or Amiga Euroshmaps, but in general I’ve always had a rather biased attitude towards the genre: I launched it, flew, screamed, got tired.
Here is my standard diet in games of the genre. But there are exceptions like Jets’n’Guns, which could not tire me even with all its duration – but that’s why they are exceptions, to form a core of chaos within order!
But oh well. We’re not here to criticize an entire genre for being "difficult, difficult"!", and find in it something more than an ass-tearing ocean of bullets. And such a comfort zone for me at one time became Zanac from Compile – the king of vertical shmups, which was released in 1986 and flew into the history of the genre forever. After all, as it was before: there is a standard machine gun, there are bombs, and there are your steel balls, ringing every time you have to squeeze a boat between bullets.
Zanac added as many as https://slotsnogamstop.co.uk/review/seven-casino/ eight weapons to this formula, as well as a unique difficulty system that analyzes the quality of your game and adapts to it. Probably, such a love for the game was helped by the fact that in childhood I came across it on one of the yellow multi-game games, and then I couldn’t find it for a long time, because.To. I remembered only general features. Searching through names didn’t help either, because to get to Zanac you had to scroll all the way to the end of the list.
And imagine my surprise when, along with the original Zanac, its sequel for the PlayStation 1 was found! I got to know him, however, through the prism of rejection of the genre, so I didn’t have high hopes. And now this is one of my favorite games on PS1 and certainly the most favorite shmup I’ve ever seen in person.
Zanac Neo begins with an arrangement of the main theme, but with the transition to options, he quickly makes it clear that there is much more originality in his music. Thanks for this to composers Daisuke Nagata and Ko Hayashi, who were already famous for their ability to turn everything they touched into masterpieces of electronic sound. Zanac Neo is equally successful in lyricism, in conveying the atmosphere of levels, and in creating brutal synthetic tin. Seriously, when I got to the final boss through pain and millions of attempts and heard what it sounds like, I lost all faith that I would get out of this battle alive.
“What, we came here to enjoy the music?"Yes, but no. Compile did not disgrace the great ancestor, taking the best from the original and multiplying it four times. “Here we had a boat with eight types of weapons,” recalls an old-school fan. “Hold three boats at once,” Compile answers his thoughts. Of course, the authors did not create 24 unique weapons, but functionally even standard bombs and war balls can differ significantly from one vessel to another. Well, and the cherry – they all have several levels of pumping and in their fully charged incarnations they create an epic light show.
Unless, of course, your enemies leave you a chance to reach such power. Even with a number of simplifications, Zanac Neo is still capable of packing a punch. The system of intelligent response to the quality of your game remains in place, and if you have already eaten the dog in games of the genre, Zanac Neo will quickly notice this and move on from affection to a serious relationship. However, the authors smoothed out the upper threshold of pain, and for real hardcore you will need to go to the difficulty settings. With my claws, Normal was enough for me to barely overcome all nine levels.
Compile also refined Zanac’s concept of bosses, which were simple static bases. Now more typical huge robots will be thrown against you, and in one of the final battles you will have to fight with a number of clones of the ship from the original Zanac. However, the bases as a symbol of the series have not gone away either, and disassembling them piece by piece is still fascinating. Based bases for the same based game.
Also carried over from the original is the idea that bosses need to be defeated against time. If you don’t have time, no, you won’t lose. The boss will simply say: “Well, to hell with you.”!- and will fly away, and the game will continue as if nothing had happened. The point is that if the boss escapes you don’t get points. But Zanac Neo does not skimp on extra lives for successfully increasing the score counter. True, they fly off at approximately the same speed with which they gain. Once you lose your entire accumulated arsenal after the first missed bullet, you will live in a game inflamed by your own successes. hard.
And in order to somehow make ends meet, you need to be able to use the benefits that either came into the game by inheritance, or were created specifically for the sequel. The first includes invulnerability, which is granted for about a second after selecting a weapon and leveling up. But in a game with such a frantic pace, it seems like an eternity, enough to get out of almost any ass. And also in order to fly into it, overly relying on one’s own immortality.
And this is a very cool mechanic, which, coupled with a system for adjusting the difficulty to the style of play, makes it difficult to stay too long on the same fart. Another weapon appeared on the screen? Take it – you’ll figure it out as you go. The second important addition is the charged “boom”!». That is, a bomb that creates a large explosion when it hits. Any enemy who falls within its range of action and dies transfers it to colleagues, forming entire chain reactions. And if the density of people on the screen is high enough, one precise hit may be enough to significantly thin out this crowd. And the bosses have a hard time with her too. If only I could get there! The second option is to absorb it into yourself, after which any of your weapons will be able to temporarily shoot down any enemy bullets (by default, only almond-shaped cartridges are allowed to shoot).
Unfortunately, the game became a kind of parting gift from Compile, who were unable to adapt to the new realities of the gaming industry and after the release of Zanac Neo ceased to exist in the form in which we loved them. But they made sure that their final product was not just one of those scrolling shooters. You can not like shmups, you can have a bad attitude towards the genre in general, but it’s hard not to love perfection. And Zanac Neo came very close to this title.