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''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 Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
Shoot 'em up game developed by KAZe and published by Meldac. It was first released in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
on December 14, 1990 under the title , before being released later in the United States in January 1991. This game features a juxtaposition of zombies,
aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrat ...
and samurai. In ''Zombie Nation'', the floating samurai head Namakubi goes to the United States to destroy Darc Seed—an alien who crashed to Earth via a
meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...
in 1999, turned all the American people into zombies, 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 head or a giant Tengu mask. The player can destroy structures and enemies by shooting rapid-fire eyeballs and vomit at them. Enemies include zombie
sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...
s, zeppelins and lava monsters. The player can upgrade their firepower by rescuing zombie hostages 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 ''Mega Man'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man (character), Mega Man". Mega Man (video game), The original game w ...
'' 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, Darc Seed.


Story

The plot of both ''Zombie Nation'' and ''Abarenbou Tengu'' takes place in 1999, when a meteor known as "Darc Seed" (Eva in the Japanese version) crashes in the Nevada
desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...
. Darc Seed/Eva then shoots magnetic rays and turns the people of the United States into zombies. Darc Seed/Eva also brings the
Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...
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
sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...
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, 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 The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...
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'' tied the game with '' Splatterhouse 2'' as the tenth best video game of 1992.
Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
, 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 announced a re-release of the game under the name . The game was released on both the
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...
and
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
platforms on October 28, 2021.


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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