ZPF by developer ZPF Team and publisher Mega Cat Studios—PC preview written by Jim with a copy provided by
the publisher.
Estimated Ready Time: 3 minutes
ZPF is a new shoot-'em-up game that looks, sounds and plays like a Sega Genesis game. The demo I played was short with three levels and three different heroes (ships) each with their own play style.
First up is Knight, a ship that looks like a Knight and shoots swords in a straight line. Each Ship has its own melee attack that is just a short-range attack. Knight's is an attack that shoots out straight and doesn't go very far, but seems to do a decent amount of damage if you want to get close enough to use it. Like most shooters like these, you also get bombs that damage everything on screen, but these all look the same no matter who you play as. Next is Gladius, my favorite out of the three. It looks a little like a motorcycle without wheels and can fly. It shoots in different directions making it easy to hit every enemy that pops on screen, although they seem to do less damage than Knight's attacks (this could just be though). Its melee attack makes a circle appear around the ship and goes around once and disappears. I found it to not be very helpful in a fight. Lastly is Gold. Gold shoots a laser straight and its melee attack is a few balls coming out in front of you to hit anything in short range of you.
Each ship is shaped differently. The smaller ones are more easy to dodge incoming bullets while Knight, the biggest, seems to do the most damage out of the three. There are three levels in the demo I played. The first one being a fantasy level called Magical Journey. The level is very woodsy with enemies looking more fantasy-based, although they still have a bit of sci-fi to the enemy design. Next is Megalopolis 20XX, a city level in the near future with tanks and helicopters as enemies. Lastly is a sci-fi level called Space Infestation with alien creatures in space. It was definitely the weirdest-looking level in the game.
I was able to beat Magical Journey pretty easily, but the the other two levels I had to raise how many lives I got in the options menu. At the start of each level is a shop as the demo ends after every level. I wasn't really sure how these worked. In the full game will I get to buy stuff like 1ups after every level? I could raise the number of “medals” I get in the options menu so I could buy things. If I had to guess this will be something in the full game.
One neat thing about the shops is each level has its own shopkeeper, so each one looks different, a neat little detail. There are of course power-ups you can get on levels that make your shots do more damage and 'secrets' that at the end of the level the game tells you the percentage you found. Though I found some I never really knew what it was I found. You can tell just by looking on the Steam page that the developers are going for a Sega Genesis look, sound, and feel and after playing the demo I must say they did a really good job of capturing the feel. The music and sound effects especially.
My time with ZPF was short. I was able to see just about everything in the demo in an hour. It did leave me wanting to see what the other levels will be and what setting they will take place in? Time will tell.
