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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.
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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.
Also
available, ZANAC NEO mechanical section, with the space crafts
and the first boss
And if you
want more sreenshots of this futur pure moment of happiness, go
ahead
And to conclude,
a gallery to see the characters of the game
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
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