ZPF

I’ve mostly played on the Genesis with my physical copy, only picked up the Steam version of the game to have the ROM of it. The game itself is pretty good. Graphics are pretty good and fun. At times, *extremely* colorful. Music is really good too. Very distinct. The game itself is pretty solid as well. Not my favorite shooter personally, but it’s certainly good, and is well worth the $10 price of admission. The emulator itself leaves a lot to be desired. It’s quite barren of features, and the sound emulation isn’t very good. But the good news is that they did a really good thing and left the ROM in the game files, and it’s unencrypted. So you can just take that and chuck it in whatever emulator or flash cartridge you prefer. Game is a solid 8/10.

Seems okay. Colorful backgrounds and good music. The one hit kills are a total buzzkill and make me not want to keep playing. Not a bullet hell shooter but getting killed is to easy even for experienced players. There is absolutely no reason for any game released in 2026 to have one hit kills.

It's pretty good. I like the store between stages. That's a good idea and keeps things fresh along with 3 different ships. If i had to spend a quarter per play like in an arcade, then I'll easily get $10 worth of plays. Wish it had online leaderboards though.

A nice successor to the previous Super XYX. I’ll get straight to the point. This game is a passion project from someone (and now their team) who has known shmups for a long time. This game was kickstarted to release physically for the mega drive. Now, it's here on steam. The game has that type of high quality art that is reminiscent of their previous titles/iterations from the YX and ZP series. Let's talk about the gameplay. A basic run of this game will go through 6 stages, but there's also bonus stages and a secret boss available if you play your cards right. At the start you are able to choose between Knight, Gladius and Gold. Each with their own respective pros and cons. Knight favors a straight forward shot and in my opinion, has the better shot power. Perception wise, it can be a bit bulky for squeezing through bullets (not that you would want to do that often in this game anyway). Gladius is more fit for those worried about shooting every enemy in sight as they offer a wide job but in exchange the damage is only slightly less than Knight. Finally, there is Gold which has a zigzag kind of shot. I probably played around with this one the least but it felt like maxing out its shot made the distance of travel damage slower than its level 2 shot power. Every shot type has a melee special. It can be used in situations to quickly kill enemies once you’ve upgraded it. I personally only found myself spamming it against something that needed to die asap. The music is pretty on point and fitting for the game. As mentioned before, the artstyle is perfect for the era of late sega genesis shmups compared to the likes of Lords of Thunder. While you’re doing a run you’ll notice that the game revolves around buying upgrades during your run. It’s euroshmup implementation done right which in my opinion is quite the rarity. Cool game, give it a try when you can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfsvWAW4jKQ

jogo massa véio

Disappointing game that doesn't respect player time. While the core gameplay is average, there are a number of puzzling design decisions that make this game more of an exercise in frustration. From not saving the highscore tables (so why include them at all?), no continues given, sloppy collision detection and a frankly puzzling art pallette which, while bright, is pretty poor for readability of projectiles and enemies. While an argument could be made that this is an "old school" Genesis side-scroller shooter, that argument ignores a lot of design evolution that makes these types of games more approachable for a wider audience and, tbh, more enjoyable. There are better games to play, sorry to say.

It does what it says on the tin. ZPF is a solid Sega Genesis shmup ported to the PC. If you've played horizontal scrolling shmups such as Thunder Force, Lords of Thunder or the Darius series you'll know roughly what to expect here. Lords of Thunder is the closest comparison (given the shop and mele attack) but that game is still pretty obscure so I don't know if that will help a lot of people. Everything here is pretty solid (most importantly the controls feel tight and responsive) and I appreciate that the bullets are very visible as that could be an issue in some older shmups. I probably won't look at Mike and Ike candy the same way again though. I like the in game store as well since when you combine it with the three different ships, you have a lot of choice on how to try to tackle the challenges presented. On a negative note, this is literally just a Sega Genesis ROM with a border to fill out 16:9 screens. No extras, save states, rewind, practice mode or any such features that modern shmups tend to include. Even the difficulty options are pretty limited. Ultimately though I can't give something a negative review that is such an awesome callback to Lords of Thunder. So give a try. The price is even pretty reasonable for what it is so I'm not as bothered by the lack of modern amenities. Edit: just as an FYI, there appears to be a bug where you can't re-bind whatever is set to the 'A' button on your controller. Pretty annoying since the melee attack does not appear to be very useful and I'd like to try binding bombs to that button instead.

For a detailed review of this masterpiece watch my video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7tEe6dsOm4 If you want a quick summary keep reading. This is ZPF for the SEGA Mega Drive, Steam, Nintendo Switch and the Xbox platforms. An absolutely stunning horizontal shoot ‘em up that pushes the Mega Drive/Genesis to its limits visually, a game with a truly unique artistic identity of its own, which is something we don’t often see in gaming. ZPF was developed by experienced and highly creative and capable people who worked on games such as Commodore 64’s wonderful Metroidvania Knight ‘n Grail, Mega Drive’s Tanzer and the Turrican inspired Gunlord as well as other indie and homebrew titles for various platforms. We’re looking at a professional grade horizontal shmup that is almost pure perfection! ZPF is a side scrolling shoot ‘em up that is best described as a highly refined Euro Shmup in terms of atmosphere and music with exceptional gameplay. The game has a dose of of Danmaku tho it never really becomes a true bullethell and a pimch of Psikyo mechanics thrown in just to get your blood boiling. ZPF does utilize some bullethell design choices in the best way possible, specifically when it comes to the player’s movement and small, well crafted hitboxes allowing for some truly graceful weaving through enemies and enemy bullets. When I say that this is an Euro shmup, I mean that in the best way possible this time. Though in the past Euro shmups were known for their amazing visuals and music yet more often than not suffered from poor game design decisions or downright broken gameplay, things have changed drastically over the years and now usually only the gorgeous visuals and amazing music remain to remind us of these games’ Euro origins. Modern Euro Shmups gameplay is usually as highly refined as that of the best of the best Japanese shoot em up experiences and ZPF is no different. Pros: + Highly refined, highly polished controls and movements, allowing for highly precise micro movements with a good controller or arcade stick. + Three distinct ships to choose from each carefully designed and balanced for one of the three avaliable at the start worlds, but you can play any world with any of the ships if you like + Exceptionally creative and unique artstyle with its own signature look and feel throughout the entire game + Outstanding, atmospheric music that compliments the gorgeous 16bit visuals beautifully + Secret bosses and even a secret ending to unlcok + Adjustable difficulty + The Steam version comes with the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive ROM and you can play it on your own Emulation Set Up or even a Sega Genesis flashcart to experience it on real hardware which makes this release a must buy! Cons: - No continues by default, you have to earn money to buy them – this isn’t as bad as it sounds, you should be able to buy one as soon as you get used to the game and clear a level with enough medals which isn’t too hard. - Visuals while gorgeous can be overwhelming and hard to see at times, blending some bullets and enemies with the highly detailed backgrounds, but you get used to it. - Easy to miss secret items which contribute to unlocking the secret ending and bosses Conclusion: ZPF is a masterpiece of a game in spite of some of its shortcomings and a definite must for shmup fans. Disclosure: Mega Cat Studios provided a free Steam key of ZPF for footage capture purposes. The physical Mega Drive cartridge shown in my video was purchased personally by me.

Man those are some pixels to visit the machine elves!

Awesome game! have been waiting for it to come out! does not disappoint! challenging gameplay tho fun and not too difficult to pick up. lots of options of how u want to play. awesome, headbeating and hypefilling soundtrack. all and all awesome game!