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ZANAC, a shoot them up in 2D released on MSX 15 years ago, and which was continuated by the ALESTE series.
Well today we are bound to see the release of a tribute which is devoted to ZANAC, always realised by the everlasting game company COMPILE. In fact the release should occur during this year 2001, about the month of November.

As regards the old ZANAC, let's take a look to this rubric in order to have a small idea, new episode arrives on playstation1, under the title of ZANAC x ZANAC and in one CD.
The informations on the official site are in Japanese, so I cannot affirm a lot of things ; the original version will be present (precision that Adoru brought to me, thanks), and there will be new materiel as prove the screenshots of ZANAC NEO, there can be also mini-games, perhaps.

As other innovations, we can note that simultaneous two-playing game mode will be possible, and a time-trial mode might be present too for hi-scores contests. If you can tell more about this, don't hesitate to mail me in order to complete these informations.
For ZANAC NEO, it's possible to see a video and the tv commercial on the official site, and as I do, you will notice that this new episode seems to be good stuff, with full-speed scrolling, bunch of enemy shots, enemy ships and boss with ZANAC TOUCH, plus the remix cover of the mythical ZANAC musical theme (also available old ZANAC videos).

Other observation, the game seems to have changed since the official release announcement, specially in the space ships design, but you can see the shots of the beta version in the following page, in the same way you will find the little video trailer relating some part of the COMPILE shooting game history.

ZANAC NEO preversion

Also available, ZANAC NEO mechanical section, with the space crafts and the first boss

ZANAC NEO mechanics (New)

And if you want more sreenshots of this futur pure moment of happiness, go ahead

ZANAC NEO gallery (New)

And to conclude, a gallery to see the characters of the game

ZANAC NEO characters (New)

The fact that most interests me is to put a company's work forward, a video game company with a high risk attitude ; because in Japan, the "classics" fashion adapted on game console appears old-fashioned (we see less of these SEGA AGES, FALCOM Classics, KONAMI Collection, or Namco things or others), moreover make a tribute to a 15 years old game that only few gamers knew at that time (in a french magazine, pictures were beautiful, but the game was harder to purchase than zelda, much harder), it's a risky bet, almost economical suicide.

And to crown it all, the 2D shoot'em up style is more than old fashioned for the current audience of gamers, which prefers doom-like games (personally, I don't aprreciate this kind of game, I get more adrenalin upsurges with some ZANAC or ALESTE, tastes can't be discussed...)

If we add the fact that the game will be released on an already obsolete game console which is not in the glare of the spotlights, we have a beautiful obstacle race, but let's keep trust in COMPILE which will release a great game that respect the traditions. It makes me think of KONAMI and their new release of the DRACULA X68000, perhaps a new fashion of remakes (I don't hope so for some firms, I don't want to imagine SQUARE re-making their old games which are not Final F., a NES Tom Sawyer with 3d grand opening sequence and Nobuo Uematsu playing banjo, or a King's Knight in doom-like view with 68 millions of colors. The little King's knight was not bad at all, but not as good as Undead Line).

In conclusion, I encourage you to support as I do the release of this game if you love 2-dimensionnal shooting game and COMPILE's games, in order to get a world release of ZANAC x ZANAC. To claim your support you can write some encouragements messages on the message board of the official site (Shooting Tribute BBS).


If you want to know more and if Japanese is not a problem for you, 2 essentials addresses :

The official COMPILE site: http://www.compile.co.jp/

The ZANAC official site : http://www.zanacxzanac.com/

On the official site, you can also find wallpapers, I propose this stuff too, but converted in png format and zipped, because jpeg ones were too heavy

ZANAC NEO Wallpapers

640x480 (234k)

800x600 (326k)

1024x768 (463k)

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