NES Games No One Played: Letter Z

Finally, the end of the rainbow!

After 25 (or so) weeks I’ve finally reached the end of this series. I started this project with an idea to start playing all the obscure games on my shelves, all the weirdos and rejects that I never gave the time of day. Even the worst films, books, or albums have moments or elements that make them intriguing; maybe not good, but worth evaluating in reference to the medium as a whole. As such I too believe that even the shittiest games I’ve reviewed here have had some merit, even if it’s only that they were one of only 700 or so games to appear on the holy Nintendo Entertainment System.

I would usually discuss a few unloved titles for each letter or in the case of the Letter E or the Letter O, just review every game since there were only a few. I knew when I got to Z that the games there were somewhat problematic in that there were only five titles to choose from and the fact that most of the games are fairly popular. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is my favorite NES game, I play it all the time, but it’s famous and everyone knows its ins and outs. Zombie Nation and Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics II are hidden gems for sure, but over the years they’ve both seen their share of exposure. That left only two titles and since I’m falling asleep as I type about the prospect of reviewing Zanac, my final review belongs entirely to another.

• Letter A can be found here
• Letter B can be found here
• Letter C can be found here
• Letter D can be found here
• Letter E can be found here
• Letter F can be found here
• Letter G can be found here
• Letter H can be found here
• Letter I can be found here
• Letter J can be found here
• Letter K can be found here
• Letter L can be found here
• Letter M can be found here
• Letter N can be found here
• Letter O can be found here
• Letter P can be found here
• Letter Q can be found here
• Letter R can be found here
• Letter S can be found here
• Letter T can be found here
• Letter U can be found here
• Letter V can be found here
• Letter W can be found here
• Letter X can be found here
• Letter Y can be found here

ZEN THE INTERGALACTIC NINJA | 1993

My sister and I had an Nintendo Entertainment System growing up. It was a present given to both of us for Christmas, the only time I ever remembered that happening. She’s five years older than me and as such we didn’t have a ton in common during those early years, but the NES was something we both enjoyed. She was really into weird fantasy games like Faxanadu and Solstice, both of which scared the shit out of me, and I was into more action based titles like Bad Dudes and Astyanax. By the time the Genesis and Super Nintendo started appearing in my friend’s houses, my sister was starting high school and was no longer interested in video games. Try as I could, I could not convince my folks to get us the 16-bit systems without her support, so I was left to ride out the late NES wave. Because of this, as a kid I had several late era releases like Power Blade, Mega Man 4, Jungle Book, and of course Zen the Intergalactic Ninja. Man, those are all pretty good games! Nice job James’s parents!

I used to be an avid comic collector in the early 90s during the whole Image Comics / “every issue is a 1st edition and has some foil shit covering it” days. Zen the Intergalactic Ninja was one of many “trying to break into the mainstream” indie superhero comics, obviously following the blueprint laid out by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (“First you get the comics, then you get the TV show, then you get the women”). He was apparently a telepathic alien…who was also a ninja. Makes sense to me! If you read Wizard back in the day, you probably saw a mention of or ad for Zen here and there, but no one read this comic and it quickly disappeared back into obscurity. I have no idea how or why, but in 1993 Konami (yes KONAMI) made a video game adaptation of Zen the Intergalactic Ninja (hereafter referred to as Zen or ZIN).

ZIN is strangely an environmentally themed game. Each stage features a different polluting problem and a level boss with a Captain Planetesque bad guy name like “Sulfura” and “Smogger” . The funniest application of the “green” theme to this game is the bonus stage where you “recycle” trash items by swatting them into a furnace! Including batteries! “This ain’t your parent’s family friendly environmental hero, Zen the Intergalactic Ninja came to LIGHT THIS MOTHERFUCKER UPPPPPPP!!!!” Not only is it super fun and rewarding, but it’s pretty clear that in 1993 we still had a lot to learn about recycling.

Starting out, you can choose from four levels to be played in any order. Each one employs a very different gameplay mechanic, but there’s no “Mega Man boss weapon” strategy to which should be played first. I always started with the Acid Rain Forest. For this level, your objective takes place entirely on one screen and is twofold: defeat the boss Sulfura who hangs out above the clouds at the top of the screen, and save the flowers getting pummeled with acid rain which are located on the bottom sections of the screen. It’s a really interesting idea of balancing action with resource management: if you spend too long with Sulfura the flowers will die, but if you spend too much time trying to revive the plants you’ll inevitably take more damage and thus be too weak to beat the boss.

Next is the Slixxon Oil Rig which has Zen navigating a towering inferno in order to save the rig workers trapped by the fires. To do this he’ll need to find extinguishers to put out the flames and pull the people out tosafety. The boss of this stage is this T-1000 looking oil spill called “Oil Slick” who, like my dad, is tough but fair. The Biggs Toxic Factory switches from side scrolling to an isometric perspective. Here, Zen begins the level by setting a timed bomb and running his ass out of there. You know this cool dude isn’t turning around to watch that explosion! It’s not quite as tense as the dam level in TMNT, but it has a similar effect. The jumping in this stage, as in any game using an isometric view, is pretty difficult. Even if you follow your shadow as you jump it’s still pretty darn challenging to get the platforming correct. The boss here “Smogger” is probably the easiest of the bunch, which is at least fair because this is by far the hardest level. Finally there’s the Runaway Rail Car which as you may have guessed takes place entirely on a moving mine cart. This is probably my favorite stage, just a great blend of super fast moving backgrounds and diverging paths. The boss here “Garbageman”, is also decently easy, he just pops underground and tries to grab ya. Story of my life!

After that you’ll go to a very Battletoadsy cave where Zen is falling down while being chased by a descending set of spikes. This whole section is straight up Quickman from Mega Man 2, once you memorize the pattern of platforms that block your way you’ll eventually beat it, but even when you know where they are it’s pretty damn tense! Past that, there’s a few mini-boss battles before you finally have a showdown with “Lord Contaminous”…IN SPACE!! The images I quickly sourced online don’t do the art design justice, but some awesome human uploaded the entire manual, so check that out for more detailed drawings and level descriptions.

The graphics are some of the best on the system, up there with other late era Konami titles. The spritework is as impressive as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, the speed of gameplay and backgrounds are just as good as Bucky O’Hare, and the music and overall presentation is on par with Konami greats like the Castlevania Series, the Contra Series, etc. My only complaints with Zen are that even on Easy mode, this game is still hard as hell. Also, while this game is jam packed full of details and extras most games never saw, it’s pretty short, just four stages and an extended boss stage. Other than that, I’d absolutely say it’s one of the best games on the system, completely deserving to be mentioned in the top 100 if not the top 50 NES games of all time. As a developer, Konami just did not fuck around and even their worst games are still better than pretty much everything else made for the system. Pop over to NESGUIDE, browse through the Konami library, and then check em’ all off the list, your brain will thank you later.

Similar Games: TMNT III: The Manhattan Project, Battletoads, Bucky O’Hare

OTHER LETTER Z GAMES (CLASSICS)

If you don’t think Zelda II is the best (or at least 2nd best) game on the NES we will fight!

OTHER LETTER Z GAMES WORTH TRYING

Zoda’s Revenge, Zanac, Zombie Nation

OTHER LETTER Z GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

There are no bad Z games. Bask in the pure unadulterated glory that is the Letter Z!

Finally I just want to say to everyone who read one, a few, or Jesus all of these articles over the past half year, thank you. What was at first just a fun exercise soon became more of a chore to complete than anything. When I started these were a 5 minute read (according to Medium) and even the shorter one’s I’ve done recently take 2–3 times as long to read (and as such ten times longer to write). I absolutely enjoyed playing and writing about all these obscure games, it’s just that doing so every week with the normal everyday life stuff began to get harder and harder. All the comments and feedback I got made this way more rewarding. Knowing people were at least mildly into it kept me going week after week and for that I am very very appreciative. On the flip side I’ll catch ya!