''Zombie Nation'' is a
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...
game developed by
KAZe Kaze may refer to:
* KAZE, an American radio station located in Texas
* KAZe, a Japanese video game developer
* Kazé, a French publishing company
* Kaze-Forces for the Defense of Democracy, a political party in Burundi
Fiction
* ''Kaze'' (tel ...
and published by
Meldac
is a
Japanese music and video game company. They also had a subsidiary in America called Meldac of America before it became defunct in the 1990s.
Meldac has produced albums for Jennifer Love Hewitt (''Love Songs''), Christopher Sluka, and J- ...
. It was first released in
Japan on December 14, 1990 under the title , before being released later in the United States in January 1991. This game features a juxtaposition of
zombie
A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...
s,
aliens and
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
.
In ''Zombie Nation'', the floating
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
head Namakubi goes to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
to destroy Darc Seed—an alien who crashed to
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
via a
meteorite in 1999, turned all the American people into
zombie
A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...
s, and took control of various deadly weapons. Namakubi must recover the samurai sword Shura and destroy Darc Seed and its minions.
Gameplay
Depending on the version of the game, the player controls the giant levitating disembodied
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
head or a giant
Tengu
are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion (Shinto). They are considered a type of '' yōkai'' (supernatural beings) or Shinto ''kami'' (gods). The ''Tengu'' were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey and ...
mask. The player can destroy structures and enemies by shooting rapid-fire eyeballs and vomit at them. Enemies include zombie
snipers,
zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
s and lava monsters. The player can upgrade their firepower by rescuing zombie
hostage
A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or refr ...
s that leap out of structures when destroyed.
The player starts every level with a full life bar of eight units (displayed as mini Namakubi heads on the bottom of the screen), and as the player gets hit, the life bar decreases. When it is down to one bar remaining, the music changes to a dramatic theme. The game ends when the player loses all eight units of the life bar or is crushed by the scrolling of the screen. However, the player can regenerate some of their life by defeating enemies and structures. In addition, the player gets six (increasing by one for every stage section completed, up to a maximum of nine) continues to beat the game.
''Zombie Nation'' features two difficulty levels, easy and hard. The game also allows the player, like in the ''
Mega Man'' series, to select any stage at will. Once a stage is selected the following stages will be played sequentially cycling from stage 4 back to 1. The objective is to clear all four stages and then destroy the final
boss
Boss may refer to:
Occupations
* Supervisor, often referred to as boss
* Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier
* Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization
* Fire boss, ...
, Darc Seed.
Story
The plot of both ''Zombie Nation'' and ''Abarenbou Tengu'' takes place in 1999, when a
meteor
A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...
known as "Darc Seed" (Eva in the Japanese version) crashes in the
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
desert. Darc Seed/Eva then shoots magnetic rays and turns the people of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
into
zombie
A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...
s. Darc Seed/Eva also brings the
Statue of Liberty to life to follow its commands. The magnetic rays also allow Darc Seed/Eva to control many deadly weapons, including the most powerful weapon of all—the legendary
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
sword Shura.
The head of the samurai Namakubi hears of Shura falling into Darc Seed's clutches. He then heads to the United States to destroy Darc Seed, free the American people from the looming zombification and reclaim the samurai sword Shura.
Development and release
The game was first released in Japan under the name ''Abarenbou Tengu'' on December 14, 1990. The US version was released a month later. As both versions only have differences between the sprites, with the Japanese version having a tengu mask belonging to
Japanese folklore
Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture.
In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study o ...
, the US version has major graphical and story changes, replacing the tengu mask with the decapitated samurai head. Aside from the differences, both games are practically identical, with the Japanese version having only a few major differences:
* In ''Abarenbou Tengu'', the player must obtain the rapid fire ability. In Zombie Nation, the player starts with it.
* The main character's sprite is not that of the flying samurai head, Namakubi, but that of a Japanese konoha tengu head. The title screen is different with the tengu's head being incorporated into it.
* The boss of Round I is an evil
Statue of Liberty in both games but with a slightly different sprite; instead of being green with snakes in place of its crown in ''Zombie Nation'', it's red and has a normal crown.
Reception
The ''
St. Petersburg Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single ...
'' tied the game with ''
Splatterhouse 2'' as the tenth best video game of 1992.
Mashable, in ranking ''Zombie Nation'' the second weirdest video game of all time, claimed it "brings the side-scrolling shooter genre to a weird and gross new height. As challenging as it is confusing, the high point of this game is the chance to take down an animated, evil Statue of Liberty."
On the other hand, the Japanese version is criticized due to its difficulty and gameplay, and considered a . However, both versions of the game are considered a cult hit among gamers.
Other media
''Abarenbou Tengu'' is one of the video games adapted into a manga titled , published in the Gamest Comics collection from April 1999, drawn by Kouta Hirano.
In August 2020,
City Connection
is a 1985 platform game developed by NMK_(company), NMK and published in arcade video game, arcades by Jaleco. It was released in North America by Kitkorp as ''Cruisin. The player controls Clarice in her Honda City (AA), Honda City hatchback an ...
announced a re-release of the game under the name . The game was released on both the
Nintendo Switch and
Microsoft Windows platforms on October 28, 2021.
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zombie Nation (Video Game)
1990 video games
KAZe games
Meldac games
Nintendo Entertainment System games
Scrolling shooters
Video games set in 1999
Alternate history video games
Video games about samurai
Video games developed in Japan
Video games set in the United States
Video games about zombies
Single-player video games
Works about tengu