3.75 ★

A cozy little customization game and absolutely adorable, especially considering the number of people who worked on it and that it only took 6 months!

( + + ) The assets are really pretty and you get quite a lot of customization options, I enjoy the whole pastel aestethic.

( + ) Clever coding: The way the Elderly / Young mechanic was coded was really smart, loved the overall concept a lot.

( + ) The game introduces you to more buildings with every level, aka slow and steady so you got enough time to learn it all.

( + ) Adorable dialogues + sandbox mode!

( + - ) New additions every level, but it still felt a little repetitive eventually! Maybe if the different levels had different cities / cultures / environments? The music also got on my nerves a little haha

( - - ) Was really sad that I wasn't able to save each of my levels and decide on each to restart or not. As soon as you started or replayed a new level, all other saves got deleted.

There are many ways that any product can be remembered over time, whether it be for a generally positive or negative reception, certain elements of said product that would go on to inspire many others later down the road, or maybe, even… the mistakes the producers could make. Mistakes have turned up often when it comes to video games (even more so nowadays, because this industry is a joke), and these mistakes can come in many different forms, such as something simple like a grammar mistake or a graphical bug, a glitch that hinders the gameplay from being as solid as it should be, or then there could be games like Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric or Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which are unforgivable mistakes that are disguised as games to be sold for a quick buck. Whether or not these mistakes can be seen as bad or not, they could be the only reason that a game remains relevant or memorable to this very day, which is the exact case for today’s subject, Zero Wing.

Just from looking at the gameplay, this seems like a game that is extremely unremarkable, one that wouldn’t be remembered whatsoever to this very day. However, the only reason why people still do remember at least a screenshot or two from the game would be based on an error made when it came to porting the game to consoles. Aside from that though, does the game itself deserve being remembered all the way to this very day? Honestly… not really. It is one of the most average space shooters that I have ever played, with the game still functioning as well as it should, but it brings nothing new to the table to justify its existence other then just being yet another space shooter in an era full of them.

The story is basically about destroying aliens, but there is some more detail, with them previously signing a peace treaty on Earth, only to then break it, so… I guess they get credit for trying(?), the graphics are good, but they are pretty unremarkable for the type of game that it is and when it came out, the music is, without a doubt, the best part of the game, having plenty of banger tracks to listen to while taking out all of the threats you will come across, the control is basic enough, being pretty much what you would expect from a space shooter, with one exception I will get to in a bit, and the gameplay is, again, the most average space shooter gameplay that you could possibly find, especially from this era.

The game is your typical space shooter, where you take control of… Trent (the best protagonist in video game history, clearly) in the ZIG fighter, take on a good number of challenging levels, shoot down as many enemies as you can in your path, gather plenty of powerups along the way, as well as upgrades to said powerups to increase their size, firing rate, and power, and take on plenty of imaginative, big bosses that will stop at nothing until you have run out of credits. Yeah, you have all heard this song and dance before, so you are probably wondering, “Does this game have anything original whatsoever?”, and the answer is yes, actually. Alongside your regular shots, you also have access to a Seizer Beam, a separate command that you can use to grab certain enemies and either use them as a shield or to throw them at other enemies, which can also apply to bombs that you can find throughout all the levels. Other then that though, that is really about it, and while it is cool to throw enemies at other enemies to take them out, this feeling of satisfaction wears off pretty quickly, say around the… 3rd or 4th time you do this.

So, why exactly was this game remembered so fondly years after it came out when it has nothing going on for it other then one little move? Well, the reason why that is (if you don’t know already) was because, when the game was ported to the Sega Genesis, there was an intro cutscene added that outlined the plot with animated visuals, paired alongside some lines of dialogue… and the translation for these lines of dialogue are HORRIBLE. Seriously, this may just be one of the most infamous examples of bad translations I have ever seen for a video game, and it is hilarious to read and see, especially when paired alongside the “serious” images and plot going on. Other then that though, there really is nothing going on with this game to make it stand out, other then the enemy and boss designs being pretty cool on occasion.

Alongside that are some issues plaguing the game that make it not that fun to play. First of all, the pace you move at is soooooooooooooo slooooooooooooow. Your regular movement speed is fine, and you can gather speed upgrades in order to make yourself go faster, but in terms of the scrolling, it is some of the slowest I have ever seen for a space shooter, making the game feel like it is going at a snail’s pace. The game itself isn’t that long at all, and the stages shouldn’t last you much more then five minutes a piece, but it can still drag on at times. Also, I’m not sure if this next issue is only with the arcade version, or it carries over to all versions, but it is a problem nonetheless. Whenever you take out certain enemies, the screen will flash red for a second when you kill them, and when you kill a bunch of enemies like this back to back, you can imagine how unpleasant it is to have a constant flashing red screen in your face. Needless to say, people who are prone to seizures shouldn’t play this, and this shouldn’t be a thing in the game whatsoever.

Overall, despite having a hilariously awful translation for the west, and having one or two things that make it stand out, Zero Wing is one of the most unremarkable games that I have ever played in recent memory. It basically does its job, leaves afterwards, and gives no lasting impact whatsoever other then one cutscene, which you can just watch on YouTube, so aside from that, it does nothing to excite or intrigue. That’s not usually a bad thing, but in this case, you have to have some kind of excitement to keep the player wanting to come back, and there is just none of that here. The only thing I would recommend you doing involving this game is just watching the opening cutscene of the Genesis port to have a good laugh. Seriously, if you somehow haven’t seen it already, go check it out. You won’t regret it.

Game #337

The original Super Mario Bros. 2 may have been a weird game, and probably not as good as Mario 1 or 3, but it was a novel little platformer with some cool ideas, like the vertical level design or multiple playable characters with different attributes. As a launch title for the Game Boy Advance 13 years later however, its just another mediocre platformer that does not compare favorably to Mario's other 2D adventures at all.

In retrospect, many of my gripes with Super Mario Advance come from opportunity cost, as the Game Boy Advance library concluded with no new original 2D Mario games, only follow-up ports/remakes after this one. These other ports are of Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island, all far better both in their original form and on the GBA than Mario 2 here.

The elephant in the room is the irritating and distracting voice acting. The GBA speakers were never going to produce quality voices, but Birdo's lines need to be heard go be believed. It doesn't help matters that Birdo is used as a boss over and over and over again. Toad's voice is already hard on the ears even with good audio quality, but the Super Mario Advance nature of characters screaming every time something happens makes playing as him an audio nightmare. Not like the others are much better, if I have to hear Peach's hyper-compressed voice saying "Just what I needed!" one more time I might lose it.

Beyond that, most of the problems with this game are shared with the original Mario 2, but the vertical screen scrolling feels weirder on the GBA. The zoomed-in screen and larger sprites don't help matters in visual clarity, or being able to see above you particularly well when you need to. The classic Mario 2 gameplay of having to actually find your way through a level is still present, often involving taking a key from some far-off dead end and backtracking through the level to a locked door while that creepy mask enemy chases you. Better Mario games have beauty in their simplicity, shown to be better off going left-to-right, and jumping on enemies tends to be preferred to plucking turnips out of the ground and throwing them at shy guys.

There's little else to say that differs from the original Mario 2 other than some small collectables added to existing levels like red coins that don't do much to enhance the experience. It's far from the worst out there, but Super Mario Advance has the unfortunate placement of being smack-dab in the middle of the long drought of new 2D Mario games, both underwhelming on its own, and unable to take credit for the innovations of the NES original.

2.0/5.0