ZERO WING
TOAPLAN
GENESIS
SHOOTER

I don't get it.  How could a game nobody's even played be this popular?  There are references to Zero Wing everywhere, and some peoples' dedication to the game is just mindblowing.  There's a guy converting the Zero Wing opener to the Vectrex, and you can find tons of online vendors selling shirts featuring the game's tin-faced tyrant Cats.  I have to wonder what'll be next... an American release of the game by Working Designs?  A tribute by Miguel Roya of Fat Chicks in Party Hats?  Or maybe things will really get out of hand and we'll see references to the game on The Simpsons... considering the show's last few seasons, they're probably that desperate for material.

What really bothers me about Zero Wing's popularity is that most of the people who constantly quote the game haven't even played it, and the few that have might think that this wimpy shooter is the best anyone could expect from Toaplan.  In reality, Toaplan had made some really enjoyable games before financial difficulties destroyed the company in the mid 1990s.  They'd created some of the first great shooters available for the Genesis (Truxton/Tatsujin, Fire Shark, Twin Cobra, and Hellfire), as well as a quirky but memorable wrestling/fighting game called Knuckle Bash and a wonderful Bubble Bobble derivitive named Snow Bros. that was almost more fun than the original.  It's a great INjustice that all anyone will remember Toaplan for is one of its crummiest games.

Yes, Zero Wing's got a great opener, but once you take off that Zig and see nothing but generic enemies, weapons, and power ups ahead of you, you're going to wish you could make a U-turn and head back to the mothership and her confusing crew.  It's been annihilated by Cats, though, so you're going to have to forge onward... and you'll hate every minute of it.  Zero Wing's main (screen) turn off are its graphics... the backgrounds are dull and grainy, and the enemies are almost as sleek and intimidating as Louie Anderson.  Note that I said almost.  You'll find a lot of metallic orbs and oval ships floating around in this game, and last I checked neither of these shapes were particularly aerodynamic.  The bosses are large, which I guess is a plus, but considering their awful design I'm not sure I WANT them covering a quarter or more of the screen.  There's the right way to design a biomechanical monster, and there's the wrong way, and Zero Wing just can't help but get it wrong every time.

The game does play well, but in the case of shooters, that alone doesn't put enough gas in the tank to get you over the finish line.  A good shooter needs both reliable control and an innovative, useful play mechanic of some kind to make it worth playing.  Radiant Silvergun had several of these, ranging from on the fly weapon switching and combining to a dual purpose sword that could shield you from attack and, when fully fueled with special enemy bullets, could crush everything within a city wide radius.  While the game would have been good enough without these features, Treasure knew that adding them would increase Radiant Silvergun's replay value and keep the player entertained for days rather than hours.  Zero Wing does has a gimmick of its own, but unlike the fleet of transforming ships in Terra Cresta or the force pod in R-Type, it doesn't add much dimension to the game, and it's not especially useful.  The Zig can use a tractor beam to capture other ships, which is a great idea, but that enemy won't stay at your side and fire along with you like in Namco's Gaplus.  Instead, it clumsily hangs in front of your ship until you launch it at another fighter (which won't take much damage) or use it as a shield to protect yourself from a single collision.  The tractor beam can't be used at all if you collect a smart bomb... instead, that will be launched and detonated, meaning that one or the other will have to be sacrificed.  The most frustrating thing about this is that there's no need for this limitation on the Genesis.  There's always been at least three buttons on the system's controller... why not use one of them to trigger smart bombs instead of just making it another fire button?

This proves that Zero Wing's translation isn't the only thing about the game that's hard to understand.  Personally, I'm not sure why Toaplan bothered to make it at all.  If you want a true taste of what the company can do, try one of its later shooters, or even better, Snow Bros.  If you're just interested in shooters with the world's worst English translations, play one of Treasure's instead.  You'll not only have enough weirdly phrased sentences to keep yourself both amused and perplexed for weeks, you'll also really enjoy the games too.