I have a confession to make. I’ve never been good at Shoot ’em ups or Shmups or STG, as they’re affectionately known as. Sure, I’ve played plenty of them ever since I started gaming on Famiclones. 1943, Gradius, Crisis Force, I’ve played them all, growing up. Yet, I never got good at them and eventually stopped playing them altogether. However, my affinity towards Shmups was refueled by Valfaris: Mecha Therion. Now, I boot up my favorites of the genre occasionally and play casually for a few minutes at a time. Since I’m always looking for new things to try out, the opportunity to preview ZPF, an upcoming horizontal shooter from publisher Mega Cat Studios, was too good to pass up. After trying out the publicly available demo of the game, I have some thoughts.
Now, what’s most special about ZPF is that it’s primarily made with the legendary Sega Genesis in mind. That’s right, this is a new game coming out for a hardware more than 35 years old. For the uninitiated, games are still being made for retro consoles, whether they be homebrew, or full-fledged productions. ZPF belongs to the latter. Raising over 200k on Kickstarter, the developer ZPF team plans to release the game as a physical release with a box, multi-region Cartridge, and a Manual. How cool is that? But fret not. Those who do not own a Genesis can pick the game up on Steam and even try it out using the demo that’s still up.
Coming to the game, it’s a pretty standard 16-bit era Shmup featuring a wide range of biomes, aircraft, powerups, and bosses. The full game is supposed to have six stages (each stage comprises several different levels), three playable aircraft (?), each with their own playstyle and plenty of mini-bosses and screen-filling stage bosses. Meanwhile, the demo consists of half the content, i.e, three stages and two PCs. Pretty hefty for a demo, wouldn’t you say? While quite simple, ZPF is a blast to play and only a skilled pilot can make it to the end of the demo. You’ll probably need those cat-like childhood reflexes back. There’s even a cute little shop where you can buy upgrades between stages.
Perhaps the most striking and divisive aspects of the ZPF is its aesthetics. Featuring richly detailed pixel art appropriate for the era and a kickass chiptune OST, ZPF looks straight out of the late ’80s. At the same time, the game’s unique mix of sci-fi and fantasy can be hard on the eyes at times, due to the highly saturated colors and strong hue. I do not recommend playing this game in a dark room. Everything is so vibrant that I had a hard time discerning between background art and enemy projectiles, and considering that you’ll be trying to dodge these 90% of the game, it’s certainly an odd choice.
On the other hand, since ZPF is being built with the Genesis in mid, I reckon that the visibility would not be this much of an issue when you’re connected to a classic CRT TV and sitting a few feet away. But, the inclusion of a good CRT filter would go a long way to ensure that ZPF finds a home in PCs worldwide. Better yet, the game would be a perfect fit for the Steam Deck. Funnily enough, there are sections of the game where I experienced the classic 8/16bit era slowdown, which pretty much indicates what hardware the game is tailored towards.
All in all, ZPF is shaping up to be a nice homage to an era that’s most dear to us. While I do suggest playing the game on original hardware, you can pretty much make do with the PC port (as long as some of the issues are rectified). ZPF is currently slated for a Q2 2025 launch.