ZeroRanger: An Underappreciated Masterpiece | Bofner
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ธ.ค. 2024
- ZeroRanger has easily become my favorite video game. Full stop.
I put over 80 hours into it in my first month of playing, and I STILL didn't 100% complete the game yet. There are still a few elusive achievements that I have yet to get. Please buy it now.
system-erasure...
store.steampow...
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At the time of publishing this, ZeroRanger is ON SALE! SO GO BUY IT!
system-erasure.itch.io/zeroranger
store.steampowered.com/app/809020/ZeroRanger/
Where did you find that switch grip at 17:12 and can i buy it?
@@AquaticLotus7552 Yeah! www.fangamer.com/products/flip-grip
Looks like they're out of stock at the moment, but they're restocking soon!
Fantastic video about a fantastic game ! Many things I love about this game that I could talk about. About the savefile thingy, ZeroRanger tries to teach players something that always appealed to me about the shmup genre : your progress is measured by your experience with the game and your skill level, not by a savefile or a recording. As long as you can start a new run, you basically lose nothing :)
I... I never thought I would see the day... A real, actual video essay on ZeroRanger. Honestly, this game is so ridiculously underappreciated that it drives me crazy. It genuinely feels like another Undertale-caliber kind of game, as the anti-shootemup to Undertale's anti-RPG, but it just... didn't have the same luck that Undertale had. It is saddening, but at the same time, knowing that we are some of a very small amount of people who have experienced something this truly, legitimately special? It's kind of... well, special.
Regardless, I'm getting all sentimental, the point is, thank you very much for making this video, and it's a really high-quality one at that! Good work :)
I appreciate it! ZeroRanger truly is one of the greatest games I have ever played. It is criminal how few people have played it. There's hope that some day it will catch steam later down the line, but for now, you're right, it is special to be some of the few people that know just how incredible this game is.
Yeah. Undertale was a legendary game marred by its hype and toxic fandom. Its popularity kind of sapped away the magic that it had. I kind of wish it was as underappreciated as Zero Ranger sometimes so that I won't have to feel embarrassed about liking it. It's ironic since Undertale's themes are a complete antithesis to its reception. Haha. Listen to me prattle. Talking about Undertale in a Zero Ranger video.
That being said, I was surprised at how good the demo was. Like WOW. I knew it was gonna be fun, but not THAT FUN. Can't wait to play the whole game once I get it. I'm shocked at how few people are talking about it. It doesn't even have its own fandom page. Its share of dedicated fans is soooo small. How could a game this good be THIS obscure?
To me Zeroranger feels like the shmup version of an Evangelion type story.
Undertale wasn’t luck, the soundtrack was unreal and the characters were extremely charming, also the entry barrier was much lower
I need this game on the switch. It’s been my favorite game ever since I first beat it. It’s an unforgettable game. Worth every penny. Buy the soundtrack, too.
Oh, I bought the soundtrack after playing for about a day. If it ever gets a physical release (the game OR the soundtrack tbh) I'd totally rebuy it. Even if it was just a physical edition for PC
@@Bofner me too! It’s so worth it, and the game needs all the love it can get!
Something ported it to the switch but on homebrew
Thank you a lot for this video! Hearing about people talk about the game that got me into the shmup genre, and is one of my favourite games of all time fills me with joy!
There is quite a lot of Macross and Neon Genesis Evangelion in ZeroRanger and I do love it.
Great video m8! 😀👍
ZeroRanger was really something special, though it was kinda expected given the creators pedigree within the Fraxy community. His creations were usually without equal at the time. He was always the one leading innovation in the scene. With inspirations ranging from the famous like R-Type and Ikaruga, to the less well known like Reflex and Hellsinker. His work was truly one of a kind.
You convinced me to pick it up! I've been having fun so far. Thanks for the recommendation.
YES! I'm so happy to hear that! ZeroRanger is such a good game!
Great video! I loved the little flip-grip mockup you did!
Thanks man. It's my dream. You been practicing for the WR? I'm pretty, rusty rn, so if you were to strike now it'll take me a minute to catch up
@@Bofner I kinda burned myself out on the speedrun, and then I got sick so I've been out of it for a bit. I am definitely gonna give it some more shots in a bit though
Yeah ok I just started playing this. About 2 hours in and racked up to stage 2-2 which is well, kicking my ass lmfao. I'm not very good at video games.
But lord the music is outstanding
I've been playing this game for YEARS
It's so fun it got me into the genre but I still only play this and monolith
It's a great entry to the genre, but unfortunately, it's also one of the best, so it's tough to play other shoot 'em ups after it because they can't quite stack up to it. Darius Gaiden is a really good one too though, and its style is one of the best of any shooter
Try checking out Einhander, Devil Engine, and Ikaruga if you liked Zero Ranger. I never had an issue getting into Schmups seeing as one of the first games I remembered playing was Steel Empire when I was 3 years old on my grandma's Genesis.
Time to give the classics a shot: Batsugun, Battle Garegga, and my alltime favourite DoDonPachi
@@natixeboom what do you think about steel Empire nowadays? i still like the music very much, the style and the athmosphere but it doesn't seem to get that much love (maybe even disliked by shmup enthusiasts)
i am not really a shmup lover but i am looking forward to play zeroranger with my kids soon
@@agenttank Original game is still good. A good game will always be a good game. The remake I can't like because I don't care for the remixed music. More of a downgrade from the original.
Thank you so much for this! I'm definitely checking out this game!
Been waiting for this to come out on switch.
just buy it on steam like the rest of us!
Somebody ported it to the switch
Thanks for this. Have been on the fence for a long while. This def helped
Wow I also beat the game with one "hp" left just like you. Very tense. Fantastic game like you said.
great content bro. i look forward to seeing your channel grow in 2021
Thanks, that really means a lot!
I started playing this game two days ago. I didn't get very far, but I already love this game. so I wanted to search for a video of someone gushing about it like I do in my own head.
Without a doubt, I found what I was looking for.
+1 subscriber
Glad you enjoyed it! Every time I play ZeroRanger I think of more stuff I want to talk about haha
aw thanks man! good luck with your channel. cleary, you have a good since of timing, editing, and structure (or maybe it was all luck) but you have a lot of potential. what I would recommend you doing is (strangely enough) not to focus just on gaming. You simply seem like the type of person who would do random yet interesting documentaries (even in a casual style) rather than a youtuber that just covers games. I could be wrong but ya know, it's your decision and your channel. and for the last time (because this comment is long) Good luck. you're gonna need it.
PS: yes the last line was a zeroranger reference
@@Bofner I did it. today I finally finished this masta-piece. so I returned to this video with even more appreciation for this video and for this game.
@@poyobotyahoo7494 Hell yeah! Congratulations! Glad you made it through the whole journey!
@@Bofner 80+ hours and 10+ attempts on TLB since I started playing all the way back in august. It was hard as hell but the journey was worth it. Actually felt enlightend at some point after realising that as long as my resolve is strong the cycle of life and death (green orange and TLB) can be endured no matter how long I have to repeat it. Eventually, once I was devoid of fear and attachments to my continues and progress I was able to eventually win the TLB. It honestly gave me fucking life lessons and I now consider it my favourite game of all time. Fuck TLB haters. Strengthen your resolve. And that what was enlightment for me: as long as your resolve is absolute your can push forward even through absolute despair
yes, this game deserves much more love, thank you
The story elements of this remind me of how I felt when playing the also excellent roguelite arena shooter/dungeon crawler Monolith, and the brain-melting experience of RYM 9000.
RYM 9000 is a bit more explicit in its backstory, of which the player gains bits and pieces by completing certain feats. They're presented as a lovely image accompanied by description of the person, event, or entity in question.
Monolith's opening is very stark and direct in suggesting the game world's past downfall, but the rest of the lore comes, again, in morsels obtained while playing the game. The game's version of an enemy codex is one of my favorite things about it, as it gives a lot of very creepy and sometimes sad flavor to the scenario.
Oh, and Hyperspace Dogfights. That one has its lore given in radio communications during combat, and in the descriptions of various items obtained during gameplay. It's another roguelite that plays somewhat like Luftrausers, except the player's craft has thrusters on both sides, front, and back and they lead to some really nifty maneuvering abilities. Also comes with various melee weapons for the player's jet, and lots of fun systems to bolt on. Also has just as unsettling a backstory as the other two I mentioned here. I honestly have never been able to tell whether I'm the good guy when playing this one; it has the same sort of feel that I got when playing TIE Fighter many years ago.
This game is legendary
One of the best games i ever played
I just played it for the first time today and got to 2-4's boss which feel like final boss (not TLB). Game is amazing!
That fight is absolutely incredible... and also haunts my nightmares at the same time
not even CLOSE to beating this game and it's already my game of the year
I put in 80 hours into just trying to beat the final final boss and having to go through the entire game again, still an amazing game tho
Glad that I am on System Erasure binge.
I've gotta play through Void Stranger some time soon
Awesome game. I'm developing my own shmup right now and this game is a true inspiration!
link
A bit late but I watched this video after playing Zero Ranger and Void Stranger.
I would recommand the later. It's not a shmup this time but it's yet another masterpiece. No spoilers.
I bought Void Stranger day 1! But I haven't had time to finish it, and my motivation dropped a bit after getting a game over and having to restart from scratch. I'll get back to it again at some point, though I'm not sure if I'll make a video out of it or not yet
Sorry for not commenting much lately, praise the Algorithm for not sending notifications that you've been uploading. I haven't heard of this game at all before this video, so fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing. A Shmup with a proper story is a rare treat, it reminds me of Tyrian (where you could even stop a level midway through to read logs). Not having your ship explode at the first brush of a feather is a neat detail too, making you feel less flimsy and more substantial. I've never seen this feature in any other game other than the... erm... um... ah... the hentai shooter Steam Hearts (don't judge, I was a dumb teen), but getting shunted about the screen is an innovation of Zero Ranger and is a good way to add weighty impact. Good attention to detail in your analysis like noting the bonus life counter. I will have to check this game out!
No worries dude! I'm stoked to hear that you'll check it out! I know Robo Aleste for Sega CD tries to implement a story, but it's not done with much grace imo
I never played shoot em' ups, but this game instantly hooked me, story, gameplay, and the fucking music holy shit!
but I have a question that must be answered and I'm not skilled enough to pull out the victory necessary.
now first off, I finished the game (true ending) and I still can't pull of this thing.
apparently you can unlock weapon 0 during Vanilla mode secret boss.
if instead of hitting him you go on him you start absorbing him like the other weapons, and if you complete the animation you most likely unlock the weapon, but I couldn't do it, I killed the boss, but absorbing it is too hard for me.
[ Extra info: ]
- On the game over screen you see your weapon slots
- There are 8 slots but only 6 are occupied (forward, back, side shots, aimed and charged shot, drill and sword.
- Maybe absorbing instead of defeating a boss gives weapon 7
- Maybe there is a weapon 8 somewhere...
th-cam.com/video/h2lS7omxhSI/w-d-xo.html
I think this is what you're talking about. I was speedrunning white vanilla for a while, and absorbing was always the fastest way to end the level. No special weapons though :(
Yup! this is exactly what I was thinking, good to know someone already tried it, sadly there is no extra weapon...@@Bofner
@@xeviusUsagi I'm stll waiting on the lack Onion update for the third difficulty level. I Can'T wait to see how that plays out
awesome game and your video for it was wonderful!!
This game is fantastic, and deserves way more recognition. Also wait, Ta-Te? I thought it was Tate?
It's a Japanese word that means "vertical." It's just a coincidence that the english pronunciation of tate sounds like a shorter way to say "rotate". Horizontal shoot 'em ups are called "Yoko", which is the Japanese word for "horizontal"
@@Bofner Oh Interesting! Thank you for filling me in :)
Any other games close to this one's level of consistent quality all across the board?
Video games in general or shoot 'em ups in particular? I can think of a couple of games from different genres that are just as approachable and fun as ZeroRanger, but few shoot 'em ups come to mind. Darius Gaiden is subjectively my favorite game, but it's not "perfect" in the way ZeroRanger is
@@Bofner bullet hell in particular, especially the ones with surprisingly compelling stories.
Also, remind me - is there a way to tweak the way continues work in ZR, in any way?
@@knowledgeanddefense1054 Haha, you can go into the program files and make a copy of your save data so it won't get removed if that's what you're talking about. Unfortunately I haven't played too many bullet hell games. I really enjoyed the 6th, 7tha nd 12th Touhou games though. I'd say that 6 was my favorite though. It's a bit old though, and sometimes runs into frame rate issues when being played on Windows 10 (plays at 600 fps instead of 60 fps). Mark at The Electric Underground has a better appreciation for bullet hell games than I do, so it might be worth it to check out his channel and see what games he recommends.
@@Bofner What even is the difference between bullet hell and shoot em ups? I meant games from either 1 of those.
@@knowledgeanddefense1054 Bullet hell games have a much larger amount of bullets (like filling MOST of the screen) that are typically fired in a unique pattern as opposed to shooting at the player. A normal shoot 'em up isn't usually quite as intimidating looking, as most enemies will fire at the player's location. Bullet hell style games didn't become popular until the mid-late nineties and 2000's, whereas shoot 'em ups were big in the 80's and 90's. ZeroRanger kind of falls inbetween the two. Bullet hells though, are just a subgenre of shoot 'em ups (shmups), so it wouldn't be incorrect to call a bullet hell a shmup
Eboshidori, one of the lead devs, is working on a new game called Void Stranger. It's like one of those games on my TI-84 calculator was injected with ZeroRanger steroids and raised by Eboshidori's Fraxy series.
I know! I'm so excited for it! I was a big TI-84 guy myself (I actually recently learned how to program for it in assembly). Can't wait for that AND the black onion update for ZeroRanger!
saddest part about this vid is that mostly only people that already love the game will come watch hah
Unfortunately it's probably true, but I can always hope that at least a couple people learned about this game from seeing my video haha
@@Bofner Dunkey's 2018 video, which got like five million views, praises the freak out of this game. Let's hope a lot of people at least consider getting it.
when it goes to Switch it will rake in $ and shake up the industry.
God man, I really hope so. It definitely deserves to at the very least
The cutscenes look very evangelion inspired
Anyone knows what's the deal with the Onions in this game?
I wasn't sold on this game until I saw 6:04.
Oh, Tony
Palette is minimum.... but big results.
Very nice B-Roll at 4:16, but you meant 8, not 9.
Darn, you're totally right. I think in my mind I was thinking that you USE 9 credits (if you count game start) but you only earn 8 EXTRA ones. Good catch
@@Bofner also it's a part of buddhism and shit. lotus has 8 pellets. and everything in budhism has to be symmetrical, like they would literally throw out an apple at the end of the harvest if there wasn't an even number.
hey, um, what's happening at 9:55? I've never seen that before
If you charge the charge shot for 60 seconds it reaches its final charge level and unleashes that giant blast of energy
very good game indeed
Loved this review!
By the way, I've never seen the charge shot get that big at 9:48. Do you have to wait a long time?
Edit: You do
Yeah, you have to wait for a full minute haha
@@Bofner The 60 second charge shot in this piece is probably a reference to the 60 second charge blade in Hellsinker.
Its my favorite hidden element!
COOL！
This video is 3 years old, but i still want to put in a commment on the spoiler section, so of course, obligatory spoiler gap here:
That final bit. Stage-EX. My first game completion, i actually accidently reset the game with one of the options, deleting my save file without knowing until after. so what did i do? start from 1-1. Honestly, it took me way shorter, got to loop 2 one my first 3 tries, but im a stubborn person, so i wanted to beat this game from the start. 1-1 to 2-EX. it was admittedly a bit of a stupid idea- this game is my first shmup and it got me into the genre, but after beating despair, i had only 1 notch in my continues- have a guess what i did.
Damn right i pushed on- got another continue from the points i gained, but still, only 2 hitpoints. i lost my first coming up to the final stage, and i lost my second right infront of the lotus jewel- i got lucky and charged in right after that, somehow getting inside and beating it. i was riding that high for days and man this game is awesome.
I LOVE everything about this game, the music, the gameplay, everything. It admittedly feels dumb to even post this comment, but its 6:40 am on a night where i had, at most, 1 and a half hours of sleep. we ball.
This game is easily in my top 10 of all time, and probably in my top 3.
I think everyone who's beaten this game knows exatly what you're talking about. After not playing it for a while and listening to the music I get put into another emotional plane. This is so much more than just a good shoot 'em up. I will carry the memory of beating this game for the first time with me for the rest of my life. Thanks for commenting. It warms my heart to hear from people who feel the same way about ZeroRanger as I do
Some of those ships are from CHO REN SHA
If you check out The Electric Underground's interview with the Devs, they say the CHO REN SHA 68K was a HUGE influence on ZeroRanger, among a lot of other titles
@@Bofner yeah I need to play this game I LOVE cho ren sha and if this game is 10% as good it is money well spent.
imagine a physical release for the Mega Drive of this would be possible omg
I've been playing around with some master system development, and have been flirting with the idea of converting the first level onto that just for fun haha. But I'm nowhere near that level of programming yet
@@Bofner omg convert it and do a physical release! I would buy an ms2 just for that. I really hope someone squeezes that game onto a MD Cartridge, that would be so fantastic.
@@Bofner bless the master system
@@AstralPhnx haha don't tempt me!
I pick Blue Revolver over this game, the main reason is because I am not sure if Zeroranger got what I am looking for in a shmup. The shots/weapons, theme and stage design looks cool but it feels like I still cant vibe on it. Maybe I'll get it someday.
There's a demo! se-made.com/
That's funny you say that though, because I feel the same way about Blue Revolver. I should give it another shot!
@@Bofner the thing that makes me like about Blue Revolver is the meter management and the cluster missile.
I might end up buying it sooner... Or maybe after Castle Shikigami 2. I hope that Zeroranger isnt as boring as Crimzon Clover.
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 I've heard crimzon clover called a lot of things but never boring. May I ask why you think that?
@@michaelhoule2134 I find the Novice mode to be boring. Spamming lock-on isn't my thing.
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 novice mode is a nice buy in for a newish or casual player. Not to hard not to easy. I like normal mode personally as I'm not into the full lock ons for bullet canceling that expert mode is.
To each their own as it takes all types to have a thriving scene.
Tyvm for the answer.
9:55 how the heck do you do that??? That’s not what my charged shot does...
If you hold it down for ~1 minute you'll get that super charge. Really only useful in one or two places
Jeremiah gottwald the game
Yeah...if it's going to force me to start from scratch every time I lose to the final boss then there's no point. I suck at schmups, don't have the reflexes and spatial awareness for them. I'm not grinding my skull against a wall for a game that says "f*** you, do it all again" when I inevitably lose.
I feel like the TLB is particularly lenient in the sense that if you know what to do, you really don't need good reflexes or anything to make it through - most attacks are slow and choreographed, and it's moreso a test of focus and patience than reflexes.
But yeah, I see where you're coming from - the normal final boss especially is particularly brutal without practice, but the game gives you tools to let you practice stages (you can restart a stage from the beginning with all the lives/continues you had going into it, apart from the TLB), and if you really want there's nothing stopping you from save scumming the TLB. I think this game's worth a shot regardless, even the first few stages are a ton of fun to replay.
I was hoping someone would do a video on Neon Genesis Evangelion the shoot em up haha