My Played Video Games Review: Formation Z for the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom)

[darthnava]

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Formation Z is a horizontal flying and scrolling shooter video game released in arcades by Jaleco in 1984. It was later ported to the Family Computer (Famicom) by Japanese video game developer Hect in 1985.

I had first played it on pirated compilation games cartridge and the factor that appealed to me the most was that the gameplay revolved around a transforming robot. It is because I am a sucker for Japanese mecha and transformer-like robots.

The Family Computer or Famicom was the NES version for Japan and the rest of Asia (Image source)

The Story

In the year 2701, you pilot a high-tech robot which can transform into a jet fighter on a mission to stop an alien super weapon from reaching our world.

Famicom cartridge of the game (Image source)

The Graphics and Sound

It is 1984 era graphics on the NES and they are quite good. The game features a variety of ground terrain.

The character sprites are quite bad. Everything is small and has plain colors compared to the large background, and it makes the game a bit empty. The character sprite you control looks okay though.

The only music you get in the game are at the title screen and before you begin your mission. After that, the game is silent. You will only hear some poor sound effects to soften the monotony.

Gameplay sample of Formation Z on the Nintendo Famicom

The Gameplay

There are only 2 levels and the game controls are poor.

You can’t control the rate of your jump, which forces you to time your jumps to avoid enemies, and because the screen is always moving to the left, so timing on these jumps is a pain. The enemies home in on you always and you can only get hit once because you get only 3 lives

In Formation Z, you can transform into a plane. But you use up fuel when you're flying, and you're going to need that to fly over lakes, oceans and gaps. So you will probably be walking on the ground mostly just to save fuel. This is ridiculous because flying is the only good part about this game.

The game lacks good action. So replay value is poor. The 2 player mode does not really help to make it better.

My Verdict

There are better NES/Famicom shooters out there. But do try it for curiosity's sake and see if my opinion is full of crap than yours.

Play it on the Famicom or on NES emulators for curiosity's sake. See if you will like it.

Let us keep on gaming in the free world!