zero wing is what i'd consider to be a legendary game, though mostly for reasons beyond the actual game itself, anyone thats spent enough time on parts of the net like this will be familiar with it even if not by name, the games opening is infamous for being the "all your base are belong to us" scene, it's funny and quotable and its likely the most infamous bad localisation of all time and i honestly love it, it's remixes are catchy and its just an iconic scene for a reason, if you havent seen it you should, it's still funny even now but the game is often overshadowed by this scene and it can even be written off because of it, which is a shame because it may well be one of my favourite games on the mega drive and one of my favourite shmups period.

what really makes this fun for me is how accessable it is for a shmup, even on real hardware, now i did play this in the zero fire collection for switch, which also has a few other games on it and most people will just end up playing this on an emulator which will have options like save states that can make it even easier to get into. the game is easy, not necessarily by normal game standards, but by shmup standards, it's on the far slower end and projectiles do not overcrowd the scree, you even kill enemies and bosses super fast and you can capture ships for a shield that can act like an extra life almost and you can end up with 15 lives by the end like i did but you can continue if you do end up running out, i died more to the environment to any actual enemies if anything and the game defaults to the easy difficulty in the mega drive port that i played, any newcomer will have a fairly good time here and that's the main people i'd reccomend it to, it's too simple and easy for a lot of shmup veterens as ive seen online but for someone like me thats a more casual player, it's a great time and one i can easily reccomend to anyone wanting to get into them but whos maybe put off by difficulty or full blown bullet hell games.

it plays super well too, you have a few different attack types, a homing that was my main, a lazer and a spread shot, all pretty standard, you even have two little extra guns that shoot above and below you and these are very useful especially if you can maeuver them into a tight spot where they become super concentrated on the fire, the lazer was my least fav without these because it was very difficult to hit things compared to the other two, but with these it became super effective since it had real range, you can even level them up to me more effective too which is cool, it feels like R-type or life force i think. you have a few other options like the beam which can suck in enemies to make a shield but you are missing a big screen clear attack, though the game is so easy i'm not sure it even needed it. the levels are all super fun too, some of them feel more focused on maneuvering through spaces rather than attacking enemies and i really liked this approach, those levels were the hardest point but it was a fun challange, same with the bosses, harder but still doable and very short, they look cool as hell too.

the music is fantastic too, easily one of my favourite mega drive OSTS and i don't even like the soundchip for the console, it's just that catchy and a ton of it will be making its way into my playlists, it was helmed by 3 people primarily, Tatsuya Uemura who mostly worked on other toaplan games like tiger heli and hellfire, his last game was dimahoo in 2000, you also had Masahiro Yuge who on top of many toaplan games also did inuyasha feudal combat and kuru kuru kurumin, lastly you have Toshiaki Tomizawa who would go on to work on a ton of classic OSTS at cave like mushihimesama, ibara and the deathsmiles games, he's my favourite shmup composer. it looks great too, tons of varied environments, from space to jungle planets and even some body horror, it's pretty shmup standard but it looks very good, especially in the switch collection where i played it, the ingame designs can range from the adorable looking main ship, to some really creepy enemies later on in the body horror levels and it's all pretty detailed and the cutscenes, despite being funny and memey also look fantastic i think, there is some slowdown though, which i think is a bonus as it made the game even easier! i do wish there was more cutscenes though, you really only have the one and a little congradulations dance at the end, which is a shame. it's also quite short, an hour at most but you can replay it again on harder difficulties and it loops with harder and harder runs, if you want that.

the game has been ported a few times over the years, there's the original arcade ver and a PC engine version which i do wish to play sometime and it's included on the zero fire collecion for switch alongside hellfire and you even get thrown in copies of demons world on cart and another toaplan developed tetris style game as a download code, it even has all the ports of the 3 games on cart and it's a very good collection, the way to go if you do plan to pick this up, it's done by M2 who always hit with these ports, the gold standard IMO. the games impact would be largely in the memes as it never really had a full on followup, though toaplan did go on to make almost too many shmup classics, musha, batsugun and the TRUXTON games (if you know you know, truxton is a lifestyle, not a game) they're one of the most prolific devs in the industry but they sadly didn't make much after their ps1 collection outside of a snow bros game released last year which seems cute and fun. overall with such a short length and ease of access, its even on switch online, there's no reason not to give this one a go, it's better than any of the memes make out.