If you think UFO 50 having fifty games is hot, wait until System Erasure releases their own anthology which, in reference to their favourite number, contains zero games
THIS IS THE PLOT OF ZERORANGER
Person who thinks the puzzles in Void Stranger are too hard:
Person who thinks the puzzles in Void Stranger are too inconsistent:
Person who thinks all of stage 4 in ZeroRanger should have been in loop 2: "It just feels like a disappoi
ZeroRanger taking the boss pattern name "Tiny Valor" verbatim from Radiant Silvergun is literally stolen valor. Send tweet. *remembers I'm crossposting to 4 sites now and can't say that anymore* Send, uh, send, uhh,
System Erasure does a Tetris-like falling-block game and the only available songs are "B-Type" and "C-Type"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1wyPN4DaJE – Listening to this interview with system_erasure about ZeroRanger and going on an emotional catapult ride once they mentioned they started development in 2009 in Game Maker 6.
I will say… maybe the most shocking thing about ZeroRanger is how much of Void Stranger you CAN'T see in it.
Like, there are dozens of obvious surface-level features, but the two games' philosophies about narrative design, tone, genre, and player agency are still worlds apart.
3) The understated pun that the mechas are "ZeroRangers" because they are melee-only (i.e. "zero range") is just barely tolerable enough that I can live with it.
*I am informed via Blackberry (in keeping with the fruit theme) that this isn't really a compliment at all* Well,
OK, time to say something good about this game.
1) I like that the main shot manages to still be the optimal choice for large parts of the later stages.
2) The little "beginner QOL" things, like not having terrain damage, or letting you survive collisions with enemies, do add up.
Well, I eventually managed to get the end of ZeroRanger.
Final verdict: "Those are definitely some games I remember playing before this one."
I just did a 1CC up to and including loop 2 stage 3, and I /still/ got the bad ending >:( …Guess I'm gonna have to think my way out of this conundr*closes the game and opens a Touhou stream instead*
There's references, there's gratuitous references, and then there's "What if we just put the Treasure Co., Ltd. logo on this wall. You love that, don't you"
ZeroRanger's later stages' music uses that one famously cheesy MIDI synth choir sample that's common in mid-00's PC shmups such as Genetos. Unfortunately, hearing it simply makes me wish I was playing Genetos instead.
ZeroRanger review:
☑️Gradius references
☑R-Type references
☑️Radiant Silvergun references
☑️Gunstar Heroes references
☑RayForce references
☑Recca references
☑Xevious references
☑Undertale references
🔳Darius references
RESULT: 1/10
Feeling like something cool might happen if I get to the final stage without collecting any powerups… which sounds like an interesting and provocative design decision, but falls flat due to one small detail: i dunt wunna
It is with deep regret that I must announce that I have now fought Sans in ZeroRanger.
ZeroRanger currently mostly feels like "what if Guxt was released before Cave Story instead of after".
God I HAAAAAAATE being exactly the target audience for this game
This absolutely smells like the kind of shmup where you have to fly into the core of a boss immediately after you destroy it to warp to a secret area, just like in Nemesis 2 for MSX… or something equivalent.
So I downloaded ZeroRanger – just to "see what all the fuss was about" – and, uh, the references are definitely flying thicker and faster than the other __ranger game.
They named a BGM file after the boss theme from Salamander that got used in like 2,000 Gradius games since.
