Game:

Zed Blade (1994)

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Zed Blade (Operation Ragnarok in Japan) was developed by NMK (Nihon Maicom Kaihatsu) and released in 1994. It was released for SNK's Neo Geo platform, and the only game by NMK to be on said platform, and is a horizontal side-scrolling shooter in a science-fiction futuristic setting.

You know what that means - if it's taking place in the future, that usually means it's the typical "humans fighting against machines" kind of setting - and you'd be right. Here is the story:

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Zed Blade takes place in a futuristic sci-fi setting where mankind has managed to expand into the stars and travel to every planet in the Solar System. A large project to establish a space frontier was started with the development of an automated space station named Yggdrasil, which is controlled by a state-of-the-art supercomputer, however the crew of the Yggdrasil began to refuse in responding any of the incoming communications from Earth months after its deployment, with Yggdrasil suddenly launching attacks against Earth through usage of a large fleet of highly developed space fighters, robots and war machines that leads to the enactment of "Operation Ragnarok", where three of the best space fighter pilots from Earth must restore order by seizing control of Yggdrasil and halting the invasion.
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Story-wise it sort of reminds me Cyber-Lip, having to fight against machines supposedly having gone rogue. Now there's not a whole lot to say about Zed Blade, but one of the few features it has is the ability to select from three pilots (Uncle Beard, Charlotte, and Swift Arnold) and you can customize your ship with different weapon shooting styles, for the front, rear, and missiles, so you can mix and match your preferences. That's is something you don't typically see in most horizontal or vertical shooters, since you're usually confined to specific power-ups that shoot in a certain way. Also, the three pilots all have different ship speeds, from slowest to average to fastest. You can also carry bombs, which the maximum amount you can carry differs between the three ships. You can pick up a hyper-bomb as a power-up from enemy drops which obviously is a more powerful version of a bomb. You can also pick up 1UPs and earn them through score bonuses point thresholds.

In all honesty, there's not a tremendous amount to say about Zed Blade - although the biggest thing that stands out about this game is the fantastic soundtrack. The music is actually pretty good throughout the stages, and I'm particularly fond of the title screen music and the music against Yggdrasil the final boss. The soundtrack adds some pizzazz and a burst of headbanging energy to otherwise a shooter that doesn't quite leap out at you in terms of gameplay or presentation, just skimming between the levels of "average" and "could've been worse".

Bit of trivia for you... Zed Blade was originally slated for the Neo Geo AES, which was completed, but for some reason never released. It was even announced for the Neo Geo CD and shown at Consumer Electronics Show in Winter of 1995, but it was never released either. I believe no reason was given, but I'm guessing the quiet cancellations of both versions may have been due to the game's average to mixed reception and SNK may have not had much faith in either version doing well in terms of sales. Still makes me wonder if any copies of either version are kind of still floating around in SNK's offices, just stuck in the eternal vault.

That's all I've got to say here. See you next game!