This game is one of those oddities you may see a couple of times where people go wow that's a pretty weird game, dies once and moves on. People will probably recognize this game more under it's US name called Zombie Nation.

This game is a shmup and you play as this Tengu mask thing. I think they represent something important in Japan but I'm not knowledgable enough to know this stuff. I do know Tenguman in Mega Man 8, is that good enough? No? Ok. You can shoot to destroy many enemies and even environments like buildings.

This game does not want you to win. It can get pretty hard even on Easy. If I have any tip to give you, do not touch hazards because you have no i-frames meaning stuff like that electricity in the first stage will basically equal game over for you. You have limited continues but you can gain more then your default amount.

The controls are a little too floaty but this may have been done due to the health bar. You also have to mash a lot as you need to earn auto fire, I'm not too sure how I even got it, maybe it was from saving the humans? You can also get powerups to your own weapon but it's nothing too amazing and you can also earn a one time use of clearing anything on screen. Also the way to show you how many more humans you need for powerups is confusing, I at first thought it was tracking my progress in a level since it was a running man going to a flag. It took me till like stage 3 to notice what it actually meant.

There's also not many stages at all, there's 5 stages and even then the last one is just the final boss. The stages are kind of mixed for me. I feel like they're fun enough at times but I swear they just throw stuff at you and it can be pretty rough. It feels like they knew the game was too short and instead just put some poor hazard and enemy patterns in places. You can also choose what stage to do first but it's only that stage but there's really no reason to pick later stages unless you want early practice.

The bosses are easily some of the most wtf parts of the game as if it wasn't already weird. You fight an evil statue of liberty in stage 1, like damn they really wanted to slap you and go this ain't just any shmup, what shmup lets you do that. The bosses also aren't too hard at least on easy and don't even get me started on the final boss. Easily one of the most anticlimatic bosses I've ever fought in a shmup. It dies in like 5 seconds, why.

The game does look nice for a 1990 game, it's got some cool themes at times however the backgrounds leave a lot to desire at many places. Sadly the game does have a lot of sprite flicker and slowdown so that keeps it down. The music is pretty good however so that's nice at least.

By the end of it all, I really didn't know what to score it. I think personally it's not bad but I wouldn't call it good but it's so close to being good. It has the qualities of being a good game but it's not enough. With enough changes, something good could be here but as for what it is, it's just a game that's at best worth a look. If you like Bakage games then you probably have already played this. Both releases of this game are also very awfully priced in the 2nd hand market. Your best bet is getting a copy on modern platforms for $20 but even then I feel like that's too much. Even if I didn't love it, at least I did have fun.

Crazy hybrid of Strider, Guyver, and a western. Besides Treasure's output on the Genesis Tanzer has quite possibly some of the tightest controls for a game on the console and trust me you'll need them with how brutal the difficulty gets. If there is one flaw Tanzer has it's the lives system. Whereas most games have a traditional three life or continue system Tanzer instead opts for giving the player one life with the ability to purchase a checkpoint any time when they reach the ingame shop between stages. While this may seem advantageous at first the real flaw comes with the price of upgrades and the checkpoints, the majority of the time you'll only be able to afford one or the other meaning it's either going back at least one whole stage when you die or not get any fun new powerups to toy with. If you're able to put up with an incredibly punishing difficulty Tanzer is absolutely one of the best homebrew games on the console as of this review and I'm greatly anticipating the next game by Mikael Tillander.

THE ADDICTON. This game came out around the time people were still going to "Internet cafes" back in my home country. I spent hours there just playing this like crazy! With my friends, my cousin and my sister, we were going often paying for one or two hours of Internet and killing each other with this cute little dudes and their awesome vehicles and beasts. I loved the design, I used to have a lot of avatars for my character. I wasn't even that good at it, just average but had a lot of fun. I think I stopped playing when the game got quite obscure: there were too many hackers out there and they hacked my account twice. I even lost avatars I bought with real money. So yeah, I got robbed playing this game! Damn.

I don't think videogames or survival horrors if you wish can get a lot better than this. This is an obvious milestone.

Haven't played anything like this.

I love the first Silent Hill, but I think that the story is shown in a very difficult way to follow. Not the case of Silent Hill 2, where you can get attached emotionally to the characters very easily.

Awesome music work by Yamaoka, again. Really cool graphics and cinematics. Combat its not its strong point but that ends up adding to the absolute terror you feel.

Beautiful cutscenes, too ambitious (extremely Japanese) story that doesn't get developed in 3CDs, but an overall interesting thing to play.

The start is kind of slow, but the music and the general atmosphere keep you playing, you can feel that there's a big plot to develop underlying somewhere, but it comes abruptly at the end of one of the stages.

The scenarios are quite different but not as cool as the character design. The game gets pretty grim as you play, with sudden bursts of PS1 gore. This explosions are surprising because you don't feel that you're playing "that" kind of survival horror, at first this looks like teen oriented, but Galerians is quite graphic and even gets some beautiful and eerie ideas from HR Giger.

I like how expendable items are not shining or marked in any way over the background, makes fun to look for stuff.

Tank controls are awful, making things unnecessarily difficult. Combat gets interesting at, maybe, half of the game, bosses are tricky, one of the first ones is absurdly difficult to beat. Puzzles are easy, is mostly a finding keys mechanic. If the map will mark you and in which direction are you pointing... that will be really helpful. Saying this because I would love a remake.

If you can forgive the playability, you'll find a more than decent and interesting survival horror who tries hard to find its own personality.

If you liked 1 and 2, for sure you're going to like 3.

Funny similarities with Silent 4: The room (which I happened to beat just before this one):

–There is a "weird world" (The Dream Palace here) and the "normal world": your apartment.

–You switch between one and other by waking up.

–Candles to keep ghosts away.

This already makes it quite different to 1 and 2 and I love the apartment interchapters where you investigate with the help of Miku.

The game has a lot to tell and it's really cool the way that you keep notes that summarize what you have discovered, I've spent a lot of time reading with delight. I feel that's not necessary to beat the game if thats what you want to do, but the third installment has imo the most comprehensible story and the one where you can empathise the most with the main character, Rei. It's a game about loss and you can feel Rei's gloom.

Also tries to mix it with both 1 and 2 and it's really cool when you visit locations that look familiar.

I didn't like combat very much, too based on fatal frame and pressing the button at the right moment for my likings, but it's not really relevant.

Very beautiful and haunting game. For sure you have to play this one if you enjoy horror. I don't think it's the scariest of the 3 (I'll give that achievement to the second) but it's really scary anyways. Great ending for the PS2 saga.

Why's everyone recommending to play on Super Easy on a first playthrough??? Alien Soldier is excess incarnate! It's the purest form of MDMA in the shape of 2D action! What, all of a sudden you want it to be tame? It's against the very soul of the game! It demands for you to jump into the meat grinder inside its cartridge and come out the other side all mushy, just to hop back into it once again.
Who the hell looks at the two settings "SUPEREASY" or "SUPERHARD" and doesn't instantly get the message!?

Horizontal scrolling mech shoot em up. Four mech types to choose or you can build you own by choosing between four special weapons, melee weapons, and leg types. Leg type changes movement speed, jump height, and number of ally soldiers that can ride and shoot off you (2-4). Your special weapon can be used when a meter charges once or twice for a more powerful version and the charges come fairly quickly, you can squat down and dash along the ground, if you are flying or underwater you can dash upwards, holding down the fire button will lock you into shooting in a certain direction or angle while allowing you to move back or forward, your melee weapon is used on close targets and can destroy certain enemy projectiles. Powerups can be found to increase your life, fill your charge meter, or power up your main weapons. Weapons drop in the form of a cylinder that you shoot to change the letter on, signifying the spread vulcan gun, a laser gun, grenade launcher, or a kind of shotgun energy weapon.

When your mech is destroyed you eject and continue to fight as a pilot. Your pilot form can have allies follow you while your suit makes you fast, maneuverable, and a small target, but you lose your special and melee weapon, one hit will kill you, and your main weapon is down to the weakest form. When you die you can choose to respawn in one of the game's four mech configurations or in the fifth form that you could have constructed yourself.

Responsive, varied stages, good bosses, good music, and being able to choose your own mech parts is a good touch. Kind of sequel to Vapor Trail but plays nothing like it.

US version removes stage story intermissions, level select that gives you two mission options for an easier and harder missions, three of the four endings, but has you play through all 12 stages like Japan's expert mode. Better than a lot of games that would just put you on a linear path while removing the other levels. This does mean that the difficulty fluctuates quite a bit between stages, the game can last too long, and while the bosses are different there are similar styled ones that probably wouldn't have seen as much if you were going off a stage select.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1371224690535010305