Homebrew Genesis shooter ZPF owes a big debt to Wings of Wor and the Thunder Force series, owing to its pacing and its general feel. But it’s also visually striking in a way that gives it a completely distinct identity.
The art style by pixel wizard Perry “Gryzor” Sessions is similar to his work on Super XYX (and other NG:Dev.Team titles like Gunlord and Neo XYX), but their skill is even more impressive here. Again like the Thunder Force games (IV in particular), there’s plenty of parallax scrolling, with most areas showing off several layers of depth. The artistry goes absolutely wild with bright colors, with levels ranging from vivid jungles to neon-lit cities, from medieval castles to cyberpunk fortresses. Stages are filled with vibrant wildlife and terrifying monstrosities in equal measures. The game gets more grotesque and truly surreal as it goes on, particularly the stage where you fight angry Greek statue heads in space. And of course, you can expect plenty of the “wavy line” background visuals effects that were popular on classic Genesis games. There’s no real thematic cohesion to any of it, but the brilliantly detailed artistic style keeps the experience consistent. The soundtrack also enthusiastically embraces the distinct FM synth sound chip of the Genesis.
There’s no terrain in the stages, leaving waves of enemies to fight, but the stages regularly shift between areas and with it comes different enemy patterns. These transitions come with awkward background fade outs and fade ins, but it also keeps each stage feeling fresh, with some changing from day to night and altering the color palette appropriately. There’s little doubt that this is one of the best looking games on the Genesis. The downside to all of the colors is that it’s occasionally hard to pick apart bullets from the scenery. While there’s technically no difficulty select, you can tweak a few things in the options menu, like determining how much cash you start with and how much you lose when you die.
For each of the seven levels, you can choose from three vessels – Gold and Gladius are both spaceships, which use focused lightning shots and spread shots, respectively, while Knight is a winged soldier who tosses a steady stream of swords. Each of them has their own melee attack, and while their short range makes them difficult to use, they also do a ton of damage. If you’re daring with these, you can quickly destroy most bosses. Both of these are powered up individually, plus you have the usual limited use screen-clearing bombs. Defeated enemies drop “Z” medals, which can be used between stages in a Lords of Thunder-style shop to power up either weapon, purchase more lives, downgrade the enemy bullet count, buy hints, or exchange your money for points. You don’t have any continues at the start, but you can buy one here. There are also multiple endings depending on various factors, like finding hidden keys, giving the game some extra replay value.
ZPF is such a stellar title that it’s hard to believe it’s an indie project, and along with the NES/Famicom game Changeable Guardian Estique, could easily pass as a late-gen release for their console. The game was first released as a crowdfunded Genesis cartridge in 2025, published by Mega Cat Studios, with a Steam release following in 2026. This is pretty much just the Genesis ROM wrapped in a very basic emulator. The only change is that the nipples have removed from the female statues, presumably due to concerns with various rating boards or regional regulations.
Links
Mega Cat Studios – Purchase a physical copy here
Screenshot Comparisons
Genesis
Steam
