The "system" was created by an organic intelligence body many milleniums ago and began attacking the human race. The earth was thrown into turmoil with only one hope for salvation. Fighter model AFX-6502 ZANAC was perfected by the 256th Riot Fleet to ward off the enemy system. It's your job, as ZANAC, to save the human race. Using eight special weapons and secret power forces buried along the way, guide ZANAC through 12 screens of enemy creatures to victory.
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Visually unimpressive, but a hell of a challenge thanks to one of the earliest (messy) implementations of variable difficulty based on your play.
Na época em que esse jogo lançou, Gradius estava em alta e não fazia muito tempo desde seu lançamento, e as inspirações aqui são claras, principalmente na questão dos power-ups. Porém, esse jogo segue um caminho diferente do próprio Gradius, e acaba chegando em um meio termo do que Gradius fez, com o que os SHMUPs que precediam ele faziam, é um jogo que, por mais que tenha vários estágios, a variação deles em si não é tão grande, e não exige movimentação mais precisa nem memorização, na real, é um jogo com muito mais foco em reação e eficiência, no caso reação para desviar das balar, e eficiência em usar todo o seu arsenal da melhor forma possível para lidar com seus obstáculos e pontuar, e é aí que o jogo realmente brilha, o ritmo do jogo é frenético, e cada power-up é bem criativo, tendo até mesmo uma variedade maior que Gradius nesse sentido, o que é realmente impressionante para a época. Mas, por mais que eu entenda a premissa, não dá pra negar que é um jogo cansativo e repetitivo para hoje em dia, mesmo que o foco não seja aprender os estágios, eles são longos e repetitivos, e ainda são 12 deles; uma run dura cerca de 1 hora, isso é longo até pros padrões atuais de SHMUP.
7th on the "name of a prescription drug or a shmup" list
schizophrenic dynamic difficulty system
schizophrenic dynamic difficulty system
Compile's first projects included a set of shoot'em ups, of which Zanac was the first iteration. In many respects, it prefigures Aleste (1988), including in its story. In both games, humanity faces an AI that had become hostile and decided to send hordes of ships to destroy all traces of civilisation. This ideological matrix is not unique in Japan: its fiction has always oscillated between technophobia and technophilia, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, through digestion of Heidegger's works – Hayao Miyazaki's films illustrate it, as does the ambivalence of Japanese space science fiction.
The title puts us in control of the AFX-6502 Zanac and the objective is to traverse twelve levels to destroy the System, an alien AI that has become aggressive after its discovery. Like many vertical shoot'em ups, it is possible to shoot with standard lasers or with special weaponry. The former can be upgraded with yellow balls, while the latter can be acquired via numbered power-ups. Each number represents a different weapon and can also be upgraded by taking the same weapon several times in a row. What seems to be the gimmick of the game is the fact that it adapts to the player's skills. As the number of enemies killed increases, so does the difficulty; similarly, acquiring certain weapons will bring out more powerful enemies. On the contrary, losing a life or refraining to use the special weapon lowers the aggressiveness of the game. The concept is interesting, as it creates a certain dynamism in the gameplay loop, but it has one major drawback. Indeed, the eighth special weapon is a barrage that goes through and mows down all opponents without exception. It is an excessively powerful expedient and its ammunition is not really limited, so that enemy waves are always trivialised. It doesn't matter what the difficulty level is, as it remains below our armament. This situation, coupled with the extensive length of the levels, ends up creating a rather disappointing boredom.
Zanac is nevertheless a decent game. Without shining, nor ever offering an exceptional experience, it satisfies the minimal criteria for an acceptable shoot'em up. It is unfortunate that the title shoots down its difficulty in such a clumsy way, as all the good ideas are noticeable at the beginning of the game, but they never take off. Aleste took up the exact concept of Zanac, with more success, marking the end of the franchise – Compile only published Gun-Nac (1990), which is an obvious parody, copying Konami's Parodius (1990).
The title puts us in control of the AFX-6502 Zanac and the objective is to traverse twelve levels to destroy the System, an alien AI that has become aggressive after its discovery. Like many vertical shoot'em ups, it is possible to shoot with standard lasers or with special weaponry. The former can be upgraded with yellow balls, while the latter can be acquired via numbered power-ups. Each number represents a different weapon and can also be upgraded by taking the same weapon several times in a row. What seems to be the gimmick of the game is the fact that it adapts to the player's skills. As the number of enemies killed increases, so does the difficulty; similarly, acquiring certain weapons will bring out more powerful enemies. On the contrary, losing a life or refraining to use the special weapon lowers the aggressiveness of the game. The concept is interesting, as it creates a certain dynamism in the gameplay loop, but it has one major drawback. Indeed, the eighth special weapon is a barrage that goes through and mows down all opponents without exception. It is an excessively powerful expedient and its ammunition is not really limited, so that enemy waves are always trivialised. It doesn't matter what the difficulty level is, as it remains below our armament. This situation, coupled with the extensive length of the levels, ends up creating a rather disappointing boredom.
Zanac is nevertheless a decent game. Without shining, nor ever offering an exceptional experience, it satisfies the minimal criteria for an acceptable shoot'em up. It is unfortunate that the title shoots down its difficulty in such a clumsy way, as all the good ideas are noticeable at the beginning of the game, but they never take off. Aleste took up the exact concept of Zanac, with more success, marking the end of the franchise – Compile only published Gun-Nac (1990), which is an obvious parody, copying Konami's Parodius (1990).
Another day, another Compile game that skirts greatness but that ultimately craters due to poor balancing.
In Zanac, a fiendish A.I. makes the game harder depending on how well you're playing (one of the earliest implementations of "rank", which would later become common in shoot-em-ups). This would be fine, except that the A.I. seems to be drunk and/or high, varying the difficulty by absurd degrees depending on whether you grab a certain power up (it HATES the shield), or whether you die in a particular way, or a million other arbitrary factors. It doesn't feel like the game is adapting to you intelligently; it feels like it's throwing darts at a control board.
However, as with Aleste, the fundamental mechanics make the game decently fun to play for a bit in spite of all this. There's some interesting enemy behaviors and powerups, and the music is alright.
In Zanac, a fiendish A.I. makes the game harder depending on how well you're playing (one of the earliest implementations of "rank", which would later become common in shoot-em-ups). This would be fine, except that the A.I. seems to be drunk and/or high, varying the difficulty by absurd degrees depending on whether you grab a certain power up (it HATES the shield), or whether you die in a particular way, or a million other arbitrary factors. It doesn't feel like the game is adapting to you intelligently; it feels like it's throwing darts at a control board.
However, as with Aleste, the fundamental mechanics make the game decently fun to play for a bit in spite of all this. There's some interesting enemy behaviors and powerups, and the music is alright.
Basicamente um Aleste Zero: várias ideias da futura franquia estavam aqui, incluindo a variedade de armas, alguns inimigos e até alguns efeitos sonoros. De maior interesse, aqui a Compile já começava a demonstrar que faria o MSX suar como ninguém: Zanac tem um scrolling absurdamente suave para o sistema, coisa que nem os Gradius/Nemesis do sistema conseguiram fazer. Algo que não está presente, entretanto, é qualquer senso de ritmo. Mermão, os níveis são longos demais. Tô logando como "completo", mas depois de ver o milionésimo boss genérico no Round 6 e perceber que ainda tinha mais 6 pela frente considerei minha jornada terminada.