Video games - Zombie Nation

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	Video games - Zombie Nation

Zombie Nation, or Samurai Zombie Nation as the in-game title screen calls it, is a 1990 NES action game developed by Meldac of America and Live Planning. In Japan, it is known as Abarenbou Tengu.

Gameplay

The game stars the player known as Namakubi, which is actually a Japanese word that is used to refer to sliced off heads. This zombie samurai reduced to a giant floating head, has to rescue the USA from an alien invasion that turned people of the land into zombies.

The game is considered to be extremely bizarre, as the playing character is a giant floating zombie head who shoots eyeballs and vomit as a weapon. He must destroy or avoid various different enemies along the way like zombie snipers, deadly zeppelins, and lava monsters. He can also save people while destroying buildings and various other structures along the way. As he saves people, his attack powers increase.

Levels and bosses

Round I: New York City - The Head of Medusa (Evil Statue of Liberty)
Round II: The Grand Canyon - Atlas
Round III: The Oil Fields of Texas - The Nuclear Plant
Round IV: The Underground Caverns of the North Central U.S. - The Venusian Snakes
Final Battle: Darc Seed

Rounds I-III consist of three stages; two regular stages and a boss stage. Round IV, however, only has one regular stage and a boss stage. After all four rounds are completed, the final battle with Dark Seed can occur.

Story

The plot is as described in the introduction of the game:

“1999- What appeared to be a harmless meteorite crashing in the Nevada desert had turned out to be Darc Seed, an evil alien creature with horrible powers. By shooting strange magnetic rays, Darc Seed had turned the helpless nation into zombies and brought the Statue of Liberty to life to do his dirty work. These rays also gave him control over many deadly weapons, but none were more powerful than the legendary samurai sword, Shura. When the great head of the samurai, Namakubi heard that the sword had fallen into evil hands, he set off immediately for the United States. For only he possessed the strength and knowledge needed to recapture the magical sword and free the U.S. from the evil clutches of Darc Seed.”

Abarenbou Tengu

Meaning "hooligan tengu", this game was released in Japan in 1990 by Meldac of Japan and Live Planning. This is the game Zombie Nation derived from. Aside from this having some Japanese text, both games are practically identical, with this game having only two major differences:

The main character's sprite is not that of a flying zombie head, but that of a red Japanese tengu (or konoha tengu to be exact) head. Obviously this means both game's stories will differ. The title screen is different with the tengu's head being incorporated in it.
The boss of Round I is an evil Statue of Liberty in both games but with a slightly different sprite; instead of being green with snakes in replace of its crown in Zombie Nation, it's red and has a normal crown.

Probably due to the tengu belonging to Japanese folklore, they assumed the American gamers would not understand the meaning behind the character.

Trivia

Some gamers believe Zombie Nation's peculiar nature is due to an error of translation among the American and the Japanese who worked on it; Namakubi is referred in the written introduction of the game as "the great head of the samurai". This caused a rumor that some of the designers took the "head" meaning literally instead as "leader". This can easily be proven false, because Zombie Nation is based off of Abarenbou Tengu.

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