Zombie Incident

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Zombie Incident is a Platformer originally released on the MSX home computer platform in 2011 as an entrant in the MSXdev’11 coding competition, ultimately winning that competition. In 2015, it was ported to Nintendo 3DS, so those who don’t own a niche computer from the 1980s can play it without an emulator.

The story in this game is not very well-localized (or perhaps it was just poorly-written to begin with), but the gist seems to be that you play as a young woman who has ventured into a dangerous forbidden monster-infested castle in search of eight stars. The game is not exactly forthcoming about how you go about getting these stars, and this led to some initial frustration for me as I struggled to figure out just what I was supposed to do in this game.

What you are supposed to do, it turns out, is exterminate all the monsters by jumping on top of them, Mario-style. However, doing so is not so simple. Some monsters are vulnerable to you and can be damaged by you, but others can only be damaged once you’ve built up enough power by killing other monsters. This is indicated by the color of the monster, though some colors are pretty close to one another so this can be a bit misleading at times.

The game takes place on an 8×8 grid of static screens, and as you explore these screens, you construct a map showing you which rooms you’ve cleared of monsters (blue), which have monsters you can defeat (green), and which have monsters that you cannot damage at your current power level. Some of these rooms have doors leading to the stars you’re searching for, but you must defeat all of the enemies in the room before you can unlock that room’s door.

I really wish this game explained all of this at the start.

Perhaps the reason this wasn’t explained is that doing so would not only eliminate some of the mystery behind this game, but also lay bare its repetitive goal structure – the whole point is to jump on enemies over and over and over again. And I don’t mean “jump on each enemy”, as happens in Mario games. No, jumping on an enemy only powers them down one level, meaning that more powerful enemies will require you to jump on them over and over and over again, each time waiting a few seconds for them to transition down to the next color.

This might be understandable if we were talking about a tough boss character, but when it’s just a random critter mindlessly patrolling back and forth in an area, this just seems tedious. Even worse, if you take too long to bop them a second time, they’ll revert back to their prior color. And just to make sure things are extra-annoying, some enemies will be flying close to a ceiling, making it hard to jump on them in the first place without taking damage.

It’s a shame, because much of the rest of this game is delightful. The overall map of the castle is interesting and has a decent variety of different areas to explore. It’s nothing too extraordinary, but it definitely exudes an old-school charm. My only complaint here is that the platforming in the game is a bit iffy, with a jump that repeats if you hold the button as you land, and a wall-jump that automatically activates whether you want it to or not.

Another element of this game that’s really charming is the presentation. Naturally, being originally created for the MSX, this game uses 2D pixel art graphics that have a good amount of personality to them, and these are joined by a catchy chiptune soundtrack, particularly the background theme Citadel of Evil.

In the end, Zombie Incident has a lot of elements I really like, but it’s also filled with design choices that make this a game that’s hard to recommend. Exploring this game’s castle is fun, and the presentation is great, but the Platforming itself could use a bit of work, and the need to repeatedly jump on some enemies’ heads is tedious and frustrating, not to mention the lack of direction the player is given at the game’s start. If you have the patience for these sorts of issues and want to play something created with an old-school flair, Zombie Incident may be worth a look. However, most others may want to opt to play something else instead.

tl;dr – Zombie Incident is a Platformer where players must explore a castle and try to hunt down all of its monsters. The castle itself is fun to explore, and the retro-style presentation is great, but the platforming has some issues, and some game design decisions lead to a fair amount of frustration here. Those who are patient with this game’s flaws may enjoy its charms, but everyone else is better off looking elsewhere.

Grade: C

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