Zero Wing - Revision history

Frostyryker: slight reformatting

2024-05-02T16:44:30Z

slight reformatting

Smc stg at 13:10, 30 November 2023

2023-11-30T13:10:16Z

Smc stg at 13:06, 30 November 2023

2023-11-30T13:06:28Z

Smc stg at 13:04, 30 November 2023

2023-11-30T13:04:27Z

Frostyryker at 17:33, 23 July 2023

2023-07-23T17:33:53Z

NullNotBub: /* Version Differences */ Added info about the Bitwave Games port.

2023-04-04T06:33:06Z

Version Differences: Added info about the Bitwave Games port.

NullNotBub: /* Hit Box */

2023-02-16T09:04:27Z

Hit Box

Smc stg at 18:56, 9 February 2023

2023-02-09T18:56:03Z

Smc stg at 18:46, 9 February 2023

2023-02-09T18:46:08Z

Smc stg at 18:41, 9 February 2023

2023-02-09T18:41:51Z

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Zerowing logo.gif|center]]
-== Introduction ==
+{{GameInfobox
-[[File:Zerowing-start screen.png|thumb|left|240px|Title screen of the 2-player arcade version.]]
+|bordercolor = #000029
-'''Zero Wing''' is a horizontally scrolling [[shoot-em up]] that was developed by [[Toaplan]] and released to the arcades in 1989 by [[Taito]] in Japan. The player controls the ZIG-01 ship through a total of eight different stages.  Zero Wing is one of few and the last horizontal shmup that [[Toaplan]] developed. It is a slight departure from a typical Toaplan shooter as the spaceship does not have bombs but rather is equipped with a tractor beam that can grab some enemies. Mostly arcade faithful ports were made for the PC Engine CD-ROM in Japan and the Sega Mega Drive in Japan and Europe that added more story elements.
+|title = Zero Wing
 While Zero Wing is a decent and worthwhile game, most people know of it by the meme "All Your Base Are Belong To Us". The English translation of the European Mega Drive version with the added story elements was done very poorly and the opening story sequence became one of the most popular internet memes of all time.<ref>https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/best-memes-of-all-time</ref>
 == Gameplay Overview ==

@@ Line 265: / Line 265: @@
 ) The trick involves an enemy bullet causing the bomb to explode at just the right time and place.  The bomb can take three hits from bullets before exploding so it's necessary to keep track of how many hits the bomb has taken.  It's necessary to allow the bomb to be hit at some point before the final stage of the trick so that it explodes upon contact with the desired bullet.
-)  Once the player is at full power and has the bomb, the midboss of the stage must be destroyed quickly, and without using the bomb.  It's necessary to destroy the midboss just after its first dive to the bottom of the screen, but before its subsequent rise beyond the mid-point of the screen, as an item carrier will shortly follow, but this carrier will not appear if the midboss is still on the screen.  It must be destroyed to preserve the correct location of the fourth red item, or the rest of the manipulation will not be posisble to perform.  Upon destruction the midboss slowly sinks and falls off the bottom of the screen - the higher it is upon destruction, the longer this animation will take and the greater the chance that the item carrier will be missed.  The midboss fires rings of bullets periodically but at this early point in the game the timing is still predictable.  If the bomb still hasn't taken any hits, it's recommended to allow it to absorb one bullet from these rings to prepare for later.
+)  Once the player is at full power and has the bomb, the midboss of the stage must be destroyed quickly, and without using the bomb.  It's necessary to destroy the midboss just after its first dive to the bottom of the screen, but before its subsequent rise beyond the mid-point of the screen, as an item carrier will shortly follow, but this carrier will not appear if the midboss is still on the screen.  It must be destroyed to preserve the correct location of the fourth red item, or the rest of the manipulation will not be possible to perform.  Upon destruction the midboss slowly sinks off the bottom of the screen before being removed.  The higher it is upon destruction, the longer this animation will take and the greater the chance that the next item carrier will be missed.  The midboss fires rings of bullets periodically but at this early point in the game the timing of these rings is still predictable.  If the bomb still hasn't taken any hits, it's recommended to allow it to absorb one bullet from these rings to prepare for later.
-)  The large red ships that appear after the waves of green enemies are difficult to handle with the red weapon.  They can be caught with the tractor beam, but this can't be used while holding onto a bomb.  The best strategy seems to be to stay at close range and block the enemies' 3-way shots at the point of origin using the lower option.</br>
+)  The large red ships that appear after the waves of green enemies following the midboss are difficult to handle with the red weapon.  They can be caught with the tractor beam, but this can't be used while holding onto a bomb.  The best strategy seems to be to stay at close range and block the enemies' 3-way shots at the point of origin using the lower option.</br>
 ) After dealing with the two large, red ships, there will be three smaller enemies appearing from the openings in the terrain.  The first will appear from the left opening, while the second two will emerge from the right.  After this, two ground turrets and an item carrier will appear from the right.  The front turret and the item carrier must not be destroyed prematurely so it's necessary to stop shooting at this point.

@@ Line 259: / Line 259: @@
 )  The correct item locations must be maintained throughout the entire stage.  In practice, this means that no deaths are permitted, and all item carriers within the stage must be destroyed.
-)  The player must '''only''' use the red weapon throughout the stage.  Though the green weapon is superior, its use during the stage is precluded by the fact that the 10-UP may only be granted once the player has reached maximum power, requiring the player to pick up at least four items of the same weapon type, and this cannot be achieved with green items in a single stage.  Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be practiced.
+)  The player must '''only''' use the red weapon throughout the stage.  Though the green weapon is the most effective weapon overall, the 10-UP can only be granted once the player has reached maximum power, requiring the player to pick up at least four items of the same weapon type, and this cannot be achieved with green items in the first stage.  Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be developed.
 )  Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear.  This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept.  It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with an enemy or terrain.  Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.

@@ Line 160: / Line 160: @@
 ==== HP scaling ====
-Enemy HP is affected by the weapon the player is using when the enemy appears.  The corresponding multiplier for each weapon is applied to be the base value HP:
+Enemy HP is affected by the weapon the player is using when the enemy appears.  The corresponding multiplier for each weapon is applied to the base value HP:
 {| class="wikitable"
@@ Line 259: / Line 259: @@
 )  The correct item locations must be maintained throughout the entire stage.  In practice, this means that no deaths are permitted, and all item carriers within the stage must be destroyed.
-)  The player must '''only''' use the red weapon throughout the stage.  Though the green weapon is superior, its use during the stage is precluded by the fact that the 10-UP may only be granted once the player has reached maximum power, requiring the player to pick up at least 4 items of the same weapon type, and this cannot be achieved with green items in a single stage.  Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be practiced.
+)  The player must '''only''' use the red weapon throughout the stage.  Though the green weapon is superior, its use during the stage is precluded by the fact that the 10-UP may only be granted once the player has reached maximum power, requiring the player to pick up at least four items of the same weapon type, and this cannot be achieved with green items in a single stage.  Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be practiced.
-)  More optionally, but very highly recommended is for the player to avoid collecting speed up items until after the 10-UP is received.  This is for the simple fact that the manipulation requires some careful positioning of the player's ship and gaining speed only serves to make this more difficult than necessary.  There are two speed up items in the stage and the player may choose to collect all, one or none of them depending on their confidence in finding the required position at these speeds.
+)  Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear.  This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept.  It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with an enemy or terrain.  Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.
-)  Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear.  This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept.  It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with an enemy or terrain.  Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.
+) The trick involves an enemy bullet causing the bomb to explode at just the right time and place.  The bomb can take three hits from bullets before exploding so it's necessary to keep track of how many hits the bomb has taken.  It's necessary to allow the bomb to be hit at some point before the final stage of the trick so that it explodes upon contact with the desired bullet.
-) The trick involves the bomb making contact with a specific enemy.  This contact causes two hits of damage to the bomb so it's recommended to allow the bomb to be hit once or twice (but no more) by enemy fire before this point so that it explodes upon contact.  It isn't necessary for the bomb to explode to perform the trick but this explosion makes performing the trick somewhat safer.  This is another optional part of the trick left to the discretion of the player.
+)  Once the player is at full power and has the bomb, the midboss of the stage must be destroyed quickly, and without using the bomb.  It's necessary to destroy the midboss just after its first dive to the bottom of the screen, but before its subsequent rise beyond the mid-point of the screen, as an item carrier will shortly follow, but this carrier will not appear if the midboss is still on the screen.  It must be destroyed to preserve the correct location of the fourth red item, or the rest of the manipulation will not be posisble to perform.  Upon destruction the midboss slowly sinks and falls off the bottom of the screen - the higher it is upon destruction, the longer this animation will take and the greater the chance that the item carrier will be missed.  The midboss fires rings of bullets periodically but at this early point in the game the timing is still predictable.  If the bomb still hasn't taken any hits, it's recommended to allow it to absorb one bullet from these rings to prepare for later.
-)  Once the player is at full power and has the bomb, the midboss of the stage must be destroyed quickly, and without using the bomb.  This requires the use of an autofire button set to 30HZ, as it is necessary to destroy the boss just after its first dive to the bottom of the screen, but before its subsequent rise beyond the mid-point of the screen.  The reason for this is that there is an item carrier which shortly follows, and this carrier will not appear at all if the midboss is still on the screen.  This carrier must be destroyed to preserve the correct locations of subsequent items, so this cannot be allowed.  Upon destruction the midboss slowly sinks and falls off the bottom of the screen - the higher it is upon destruction, the longer this animation will take and the greater the chance that the item carrier will be missed.
+)  The large red ships that appear after the waves of green enemies are difficult to handle with the red weapon.  They can be caught with the tractor beam, but this can't be used while holding onto a bomb.  The best strategy seems to be to stay at close range and block the enemies' 3-way shots at the point of origin using the lower option.</br>
 [[File:Zw red ships.png|80px]]
-) The final stage of the trick is the most difficult and is extremely time-sensitive.  After dealing with the two large, red enemies, there will be two smaller enemies appearing from the openings in the terrain.  The first will appear from the left opening, the second from the right.  These must both be destroyed as quickly as possible using the three-way shot of the lower option at close range.  Immediately after the second is destroyed there is about two or three seconds to find the correct horizontal position.  This is a two-pixel window and both valid positions are shown in the GIFs below.  The correct positioning can be determined by examining the location of the dark pixels within the player's bullet spreads while firing at 30HZ.
+) After dealing with the two large, red ships, there will be three smaller enemies appearing from the openings in the terrain.  The first will appear from the left opening, while the second two will emerge from the right.  After this, two ground turrets and an item carrier will appear from the right.  The front turret and the item carrier must not be destroyed prematurely so it's necessary to stop shooting at this point.
-) Once either of the valid horizontal positions has been found, the player must travel to a low vertical position to destroy a purple turret using the lower option.  During this time, another enemy will have emerged from the right-most opening and will now fire an aimed three-way spread.  This spread should be dodged by moving directly up from the vertical position required to destroy the turret, into the vertical position that will soon be occupied by the next item carrier that is about to appear.
+) At this point, it's very important to know how many hits the bomb has taken.  It must have taken at least one hit, but no more than two.  If it has taken one hit only, the first bullet fired by the front turret must hit the bomb so that one more hit will cause it to explode.  The bomb must be destroyed by the second shot fired by this turret, so there's not enough time to have the bomb take two extra hits here; it must have already taken one earlier in the stage.
-[[File:10UP spread dodge.png|640px]]
+) After the front turret shoots once, head straight to the upper left corner.  When the front turret fires its next bullet, allow the bullet from the rear turret to hit your lower option pod before travelling directly down to collide the front turret's bullet with the bomb.  If this was the third hit, the bomb will explode, and the explosion will destroy the item carrier at the correct moment.  During the explosion, there is also an opportunity to remove the two turrets from the screen.
-) After finding the correct horizontal position, destroying the turret, dodging the enemy's spread, and finding the correct vertical position for collision with the item carrier and subsequent collision with the item it releases, the success of the trick is all but assured.  The final step is to stop shooting and allow the item carrier to collide with the bomb the player has been carrying.  As noted above, the bomb will explode if it has taken any hits previously, but will destroy the carrier without exploding if it has not taken any hits, and this doesn't affect the trick other than having to destroy the 3-way enemy with the shot as it escapes to the right instead of it being destroyed in the explosion.  If the player has positioned the ship correctly, the bomb collision will destroy the carrier upon the intended frame, and the player should collect the red item it drops by remaining perfectly still and allowing it to drift into the player as it is carried by the stage's automatic scrolling.  If all was done correctly, this will result in collecting the item on frame 13120 of the current life.  As this is divisible by 64, this will award the player the 10-UP.
+)  The carrier should drop the fourth red weapon item.  After the bomb has destroyed the carrier and the turrets have been eliminated, do not collect this item immediately, but return to the left edge of the screen and engage the tractor beam by holding the B button, allowing the red item to drift into the tractor beam's hitbox.  If all was done correctly, this will result in collecting the item on frame 13440 of the current life.  As this is divisible by 64, this will award the player the 10-UP.
 ==== Double Special Item ====

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:33, 23 July 2023
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	# Primary info provided by [[User:Coreo\|Coreo]]		# Primary info provided by [[User:Coreo\|Coreo]]
	</small>		</small>
		+
		+	[[Category:Horizontal orientation]]

@@ Line 352: / Line 352: @@
 * The stage 5 midboss gives 15,000 points, where it previously did not give any points due to a bug.
 * The main part of the stage 5 boss awards 10,000 points where it previously was not worth any points.
 ===Home Console Versions===
@@ Line 375: / Line 389: @@
 ----
 == Bugs ==

@@ Line 141: / Line 141: @@
 === Hit Box ===
 ----
-The [[Help:Glossary#Hitbox|hit box]] of the ship in Zero Wing is narrower than the sprite but just about as long as the sprite minus the blue thruster flame.
+The [[Help:Glossary#Hitbox|hit box]] of the ship in Zero Wing is narrower than the sprite but about 75% as long as the sprite minus the blue thruster flame.
 [[File:Zero wing hit box.png|100px]]

@@ Line 261: / Line 261: @@
 )  The player must '''only''' use the red weapon throughout the stage.  Though the green weapon is superior, its use during the stage is precluded by the fact that the 10-UP may only be granted once the player has reached maximum power and this cannot be achieved in the first stage with use of the green weapon.  Use of the red weapon will make some large enemies in the stage more difficult to handle and effective strategies for dealing with these enemies must be practiced.
-)  More optionally, but very highly recommended is for the player to avoid collecting speed up items until after the 10-UP is received.  This is for the simple fact that the manipulation requires some careful positioning of the player's ship and gaining speed only serves to make this more difficult than is necessary.  There are two speed up items in the stage and the player may choose to collect all, one or none of them depending on their confidence in finding the required position at these speeds.
+)  More optionally, but very highly recommended is for the player to avoid collecting speed up items until after the 10-UP is received.  This is for the simple fact that the manipulation requires some careful positioning of the player's ship and gaining speed only serves to make this more difficult than necessary.  There are two speed up items in the stage and the player may choose to collect all, one or none of them depending on their confidence in finding the required position at these speeds.
-)  Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear.  This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept.  It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with and enemy terrain.  Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.
+)  Just before reaching the third red item, which should grant maximum power, a bomb item will appear.  This bomb is also crucial in performing the trick and must be kept.  It will explode after taking three hits or immediately upon colliding with an enemy or terrain.  Holding onto the bomb will also prevent the tractor beam from being used so strategies for dealing with enemies without the tractor beam will need to be relied upon for the remainder of the stage.
 ) The trick involves the bomb making contact with a specific enemy.  This contact causes two hits of damage to the bomb so it's recommended to allow the bomb to be hit once or twice (but no more) by enemy fire before this point so that it explodes upon contact.  It isn't necessary for the bomb to explode to perform the trick but this explosion makes performing the trick somewhat safer.  This is another optional part of the trick left to the discretion of the player.

@@ Line 245: / Line 245: @@
 The locations of the five hidden Pipiru characters in Stage 4 (which grant 10,000 points when picked up with the tractor beam):
-) Immediately at the top of the screen at the start of the stage, hidden behind the foreground.
+) Immediately at the top of the screen at the start of the stage, hidden behind the foreground.</br>
-) In the water immediately before the first section of the large red battleship.
+) In the water immediately before the first section of the large red battleship.</br>
-) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the beginning of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.
+) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the beginning of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.</br>
-) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the midpoint of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.
+) At the top of the screen, hidden behind the foreground, at the midpoint of the section of the battleship featuring the long rope.</br>
-) In the water below the boss.
+) In the water below the boss.</br>
 === Tricks ===