Watch your step, for you’ve just entered theGraveyard. Inside, we’ll be digging up games that have long been without a pulse. You’ll see both good and bad souls unearthed every month as we search through the more… forgotten…parts of history.
The late ’80s and early ’90s were a haven for beat-em-ups. The side-scrolling brawler gained a lot of traction with Double Dragon in arcades before Final Fight took them to the next level graphically, and Streets of Rage helped propel the genre to prominence on consoles after iffy NES and SNES attempts beforehand. With the genre going from basic street brawls to becoming the go-to way for superhero games to be released in a pre-Arkham Asylum world, it saw its fair share of ups and downs, but had a number of titles that delivered high-quality experiences that went under the radar. We’ve covered some, likeViolent Storm, but Zero Team is one that stuck out as another must-cover after browsing the eShop one day.
Being on an arcade game kick after grabbing Spin Master, I happened upon Zero Team and saw a vibrant brawler with a bit of a tokusatsu feel to it – something that wasn’t seen much beyond the mediocre Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers SNES brawlers – and just had to check it out. That wound up being a great move as Zero Team drips in personality and charm right away, although it’s less goofy than Violent Storm. It’s a game that we should be glad to even be able to play as it was thought to be unplayable due to the PCB’s encryption – but that was bypassed in 2016 and now it can be enjoyed anywhere on the Switch or on the PS4/PS5.
Zero Team’s cast of four is memorable, which is good for a game that never got its just due for many years. There’s a brute, two all-arounders in primary colors, and an attractive woman in a pink thong, which wasn’t something normally seen in brawlers in the early ’90s. Yes, there were fanservice characters for franchises like Mai and Cammy, but you didn’t have characters in beat-em-ups running around in garb like this. Everyone has a slick motorcycle and rides that into battle to beat up foes and there’s a diverse group of enemies to tackle. There are short goons and then large cowboys that have been watching some classic All Japan Pro Wrestling with their usage of Stan Hansen’s visage, lariat and Texas longhorn hand sign right towards the screen.
The unique cast of both playable characters and enemies plays a large part in making Zero Team such a fun game to play, as does its overall speed. One trap that a lot of brawlers got into then and still suffer from in modern games trying to pay homage to the classics is that they’ll have a slower pace to suit a beefier character on the roster. That isn’t the case here as while player speed can change, attack speed is nice and snappy across the board. The ACA version is also fantastic when it comes to sampling every character as you can start with one and then just continue with any other. This makes the differences in special attacks more visually pronounced – even if the screen-filling destruction is the same across the board.
It’s so neat to have a game like this around on modern platforms because we’ve seen a lot of brawlers come out, but few feel like they could’ve thrived and just missed their chance. The Takeover is a good game, but also one that doesn’t rise above classics like Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Zero Team may not have the same level of depth as those games do in terms of combat, but do topple most in the genre when it comes to just being a memorable experience because it does so many things differently with its setting and characters. There’s nothing else quite like a game that lets you play as a buff old dude, a woman in a thong, and two ninjas. The end result is a game that remains fun and rewarding to play with a slick set of playable characters and some pure goofiness.
Beyond the cast, things like having bosses just explode into a pile of things like gold, bananas, jewelry and toilet paper for points-collecting purposes are ridiculous, but funny. The stages are varied too and includes the usual cities, but also areas like underground passages with different color schemes. Everything has a vivid color scheme, helping make Zero Team feel more fun and light-hearted too. The inclusion of areas like grated metal you can send enemies off of help add a sense of danger to latter-game stages too, making you want to be more careful with where you step – and to avoid taking damage.
Zero Team is a fair brawler that does feature tougher bosses, but also gives them clear patterns to learn while also having goons show up to take a beating and sometimes offer up health. This keeps things fair, as does having the option to choose between the original Japanese game and the US version, which adds more damage to the player’s special attack. With the ACA version, the player has unlimited continues to help ensure that the game can be beaten as a war of attrition. Some may not like it, but I love knowing that for $8 I can take a chance on an older arcade game and feel confident that I can see it through to its conclusion without having to worry about the cheap quarter-munching tactics of 30 years ago.
It’s a visually-impressive game with animation flourishes in just the right places and a ton of detail. Character sprites are small, but that allows more characters to be on-screen without slowdown, so it’s a worthwhile trade-off. Few brawlers nailed getting a cast of big characters on-screen at once well, so it’s better to have things work out this way and allowed more attention to be paid to things like enemy attack animations and small touches like the Stan Hansen homages alongside enemies turning to stone at points. It’s a bizarre adventure, but a fun one to see unfold.
Zero Team’s only real downside is its soundtrack, which is peppy, but never becomes memorable at any point. The same goes for the sound design as a whole. Enemies let out a satisfying sound when they’re defeated, but it’s scratchy and doesn’t feel like a lot of work went into cleaning up the voices. Luckily, beating up foes still offers up a satisfying sound, with snappy strikes dealing out a swift whoosh while things like missile launchers deliver the boom when needed. Still, with that being its only real shortcoming, Zero Team is an impressive game.
With a lot of fun to be had and a low barrier of entry to enjoy, Zero Team is a must for brawler fans. Anyone who grew up in the early ’90s and loved arcade games like TMNT and Final Fight will have a lot of fun with it. The sentai-esque enemies are something that help give it a broader appeal though viewing it as a way to enjoy a good Power Rangers-style adventure works too. It’s a highly-polished game in most ways and while it isn’t as insane as Violent Storm was, it’s still a ton of fun, and man does Violent Storm need a modern re-release post-haste.
