Zanac (1986)

Bold statement?... Correct!

I love the game's approach and how it seamlessly uses all of the NES's power to handle this game to its best looks. framerate is great, great level design, great difficulty curve that doesn't discourage any player from jumping ship once the game starts to get challenging, yet keeping some of the craziness which will bring people that rent games to play this title weekly. Gameplay is top-notch, and varies a lot from play style to another. I don't have much problems with the gameplay, and controls. in fact, I like both of those game's aspects.

My complaints for the game strongly stem from the graphics. the spirit work can be very very annoying. it blends a lot with the background, not giving you much details on where you are on the screen at most times. the colors choice is annoying. someone with weak eyes, will have a very hard time keeping up with the game.

Just Wow. Zanac is one heck of a game. It really is a beast in terms of mechanics, rules, strategies, play style, weapon upgrade comps, enemy units and is incredibly complicated in terms of optimal play styles and strategies. This is definitely a game that you have to learn and know to Master. I recommend the guide at strategywiki.org

Weapon Upgrades have numbers 1-8 or so, I only liked weapon 3 and collecting the same number will level it to a second stage

The way the AI aggression works in the game is complicated, but essentially the better you do the more enemies will spawn. Different actions (and time) will make this heat cool off (such as dying) I have mixed feelings on this because the game is freaking hard to begin with and if you basically kill enemies or survive too long, they will just ramp up. Collecting weapons and even shooting your main weapon all slowly makes the aggression meter go up until you basically get wiped.

The upgrade system i dont really like. I spent about 30 minutes reading about the game and the weapon system and way upgrades work and its hands down the most complex STG model i've yet to see. You collect 'main' gun upgrades from playing this weird equivalent of a 'shell game' where you shoot at groups of 3 boxes to colect apowerup that is hidden in one of them. You can essentially 'gamble' by crashing your ship into a box and if there is a weapon upgrade in it, it is the equivalent of 5x as many upgrades (it goes higher, and there is a secret way to upgrade your gun to max. but kinda tricky to do)

There are also a good number of other tricks and shenanigans in this game and I suppose it might make the game interesting if you've played it for 500 hours and become a zanac sensei ninja-master or at a pro at shooting games in general but I found this SHMUP quite overwhelming and felt lost after having played it about 10 times in 10 minutes (yeah I wipe quick in this) and decided to consult strategywiki.

My god this game is hard, HAHA. It's like so stupid hard. It works well for the story and makes the whole battle feel so much more epic. The Guardian Legend (what my pfp is from, the japanese cover anyway) was a bit epic feeling like this.

enemy movements in this are hard as nails. enemies are fast and erratic. there are all sorts of enemies that do all sorts of things and come every which ways its like shooting at bees. Since spawning enemies is dicated by agression level.. its really hard to learn to play this game by muscle memory or practice. Its very chaotic.

I just dont like timed battle boss fights! Aggression will determine if you can even do it in time.

In addition to enemies the game has these super enemies that show up time to time and are almost like minibosses, then you have these big fortresses you must fight at certain sections of the level and the end before moving to the next area (12 in total) Oh also these fights are timed and that makes it really annoying because if you take too long (almost always do) you dont get the point bonus for killing them.

You absolutely want the secret main weapon upgrade. There are multiple ways to get it but they are all tricky to do.

For such an early title, i do have to say Zanac is realy imprssive in just how much it deviates from usual SHMUP design. It's the sort of game that at first you arent sure about but as you play it more you prboably come to appreicate it more (Dark Souls stlye?) It's wildly original and super challenginging. The visuals and audio and controls are okay but nothing amazing, its the design, programming and way those elements fuse together into a vertically scrolling shooter game that is in many ways different.

I typically dont like to master games, especially reflex ones like this, but for those that do this is a must play, it's a real challenge for any serious astro-pilot looking to take out the big bad evil A.I.!

The game also runs perfectly smooth and i didnt notice any flicker which is hard to believe. Even though I wasn't crazy about some aspects of this game, I definitely need to play more SHMUPS by compile... Seems that they code some solid running and interesting games!

Believe it or not, this was the first NES game I ever played in my life.

I remember it like yesterday. It was 1987. A neighbor friend of mine had just gotten a Nintendo Entertainment System. With it, he got three games: Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda and Zanac. Zanac, for whatever reason, was the first game we popped into the new console.

As someone who was used to arcade games, I was blown away by the NES. It was almost arcade like quality at home. Wow! Now of course I know there were limitations at that time, but as a young kid, you don't really have that level of judgment.

Zanac was developed by Compile, who went on to develop many great shmups. I remember this game for the non-stop action, the numbers that represented powerups, the rockin' soundtrack (great music for an early NES title) and how damn hard it was. Now, what made Zanac unique was that the game was programmed in a way to make the difficulty ramp up based on how well you were doing. So the game would be easy at first, but the better you did, the harder the game got. Pretty groundbreaking concept for again an early NES title.

That neighbor moved to another state about a year later. Around the same time I got my own NES and picked this up. I eventually beat it, and while yes it's not the best shmup ever, it's still in my mind one of the better NES games released. I watched a documentary on Netflix where the creator of Gears of War, Cliff Bleszinski, called Zanac one of his favorite video games of all time.

There is a version of Zanac on the Switch. I picked up it. While it's a bit different from the NES originally, it was still the same action, and I found myself once again having a ball. This might be one of the NES titles the tends to fly under the radar, but probably deserves more praise than it gets.

ZANAC is quite the hidden gem. Personally I'd never heard of it until I watched 'NESMania'. Originally an MSX release by Compile, it dropped a year later for the NES, and it's a really well made shoot 'em up with cool graphics and a technically impressive aspect to it. The game adjusts its difficulty to the players skill, fire rate etc, so does the music. The weapon upgrade system is complex but balanced, and the gameplay is simply hectic, difficult and fun or downright stressful - depending on what type of gamer you are.

[3] / [5]

Platform:

NES

Description:

An early vertical shmup for the NES, not to be underestimated.

Liked:

I am still impressed that Compile would come up with such a game as early as 1986. It has loads of action, seemingly never slows down. Part of this constant pressure feel comes from the randomized enemy patterns, which are based on your skill level, which sounds pretty freaking modern. The powerup system with a few different subweapons to choose from with different behaviours is also great to keep the game fresh.

Disliked:

Yes the graphics are a bit dated, which is one of the reasons it took me a while to pick this one up based on screenshots. In motion I liked graphics more than on screenshots though.

Summary:

It's an impressive game for its day and still holds up remarkably well (much better than say Star Soldier), and Compile did a marvelous job with the hardware, creating one of the most action packed games on the system. Highly recommended for anyone into shmups or the NES library in general.