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Zombie Nation (video game)
Encyclopedia
Zombie Nation, or Samurai Zombie Nation as the in-game title screen calls it, is a NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
action game developed by KAZe
KAZe
is a video game developer headquartered in Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.Founded on February 2, 1987, KAZe is well-known for developing various pachinko and pinball video games.Their services include the development of Web sites, system consulation, and IT consulation...
. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, it is known as . This game is known for its strange juxtaposition
Random juxtaposition
Random juxtaposition refers to the stimulation of creativity in problem solving, design or other creative pursuit by confronting two unrelated concepts or objects, usually the goal or problem to be solved on the one hand and a randomly selected object or concept on the other. Similar to an oxymoron....
of zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s and samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
.
In Zombie Nation, the floating samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
head, Namakubi, goes to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to destroy Darc Seed - an alien who crashed to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
via a meteorite
Meteoroid
A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite...
in 1999, turned all the American people into zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s, and took control of various deadly weapons. Namakubi must recover the samurai sword Shura and destroy Darc Seed and its minions.
Gameplay
The player controls the giant levitating disembodied samuraiSamurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
head Namakubi (Japanese word denoting "sliced off heads"). The player can destroy structures and enemies by shooting rapid-fire eyeballs and vomit at them. Enemies include zombie sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
s, zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
s, and lava monsters. The player can upgrade his/her firepower by rescuing zombie hostage
Hostage
A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
s 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 on his/her life bar or is crushed by the scrolling of the screen. However, the player can regenerate some of his/her life by defeating enemies and structures. In addition, the player gets six continues to beat the game.
Zombie Nation features two difficulty levels - easy and hard. It also allows the player, like in the Mega Man Series
Mega Man (video game)
Mega Man, known as in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System . It is the first game in the original Mega Man series and the entire Mega Man franchise...
, 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 Zombie Nation takes place in 1999, when a meteorMeteoroid
A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite...
known as "Darc Seed" crashes in the Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
. Darc Seed then shoots magnetic rays and turns the people of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
into zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s. Darc Seed also brings the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
to life to follow its commands. The magnetic rays also allows Darc Seed to control many deadly weapons, including the most powerful weapon of all - the legendary samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
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.
Abarenbō Tengu
Meaning "hooligan tengu
Tengu
are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami...
", this game was released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in by Meldac
Meldac
is a music and video game company headquartered somewhere in Japan. They also had a subsidiary in America called Meldac of America before it became defunct in the 1990s....
. It was then localized outside Japan as Zombie Nation due to the tengu belonging to Japanese folklore
Japanese folklore
The folklore of Japan is heavily influenced by both Shinto and Buddhism, the two primary religions in the country. It often involves humorous or bizarre characters and situations and also includes an assortment of supernatural beings, such as bodhisattva, kami , yōkai , yūrei ,...
not widely familiar with western culture. Aside from having some Japanese text, both games are practically identical, with this game having only a few major differences:
- In Abarenbō 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 LibertyStatue of LibertyThe Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
in both games but with a slightly different sprite; instead of being green with snakes in replace of its crown in Zombie Nation, it's red and has a normal crown.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1991 in DragonDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
#172 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 2½ out of 5 stars.
Noah Antwiler of The Spoony Experiment
The Spoony Experiment
The Spoony Experiment is a website run by Noah Antwiler aka "The Spoony One" or just "Spoony"....
cricticized the game's lack of samurai elements, but he said the plot was great. Antwiler stated that he found some of the parts of the game make no sense, such as Namakubi grabbing zombies to upgrade his "mind bullets." He called Namakubi's eyeball attack "Mind bullets" and his vomit "Horrible phegmy death." He also comments on the peculiar bosses in the game, such as Namakubi fighting a Medusa-Statue of Liberty and the even more hilarious strongman who Antwiler called "Naked zombie Sean Conenry." He made a few references to Sean Connery films while fighting "Connery." (In the game's story, this boss is supposed to be Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
.)