Retrospective: Abarenbou Tengu (Zombie Nation) for the Famicom/NES

Why is it that Japanese entertainment can be so incredibly wacky? I highly doubt it's all just a case of "lost in translation." I'm of the belief that the strong emphasis placed on restrictive uniformity and honor in Japanese society causes some people to feel the need to completely cut loose when it comes to their entertainment. Sometimes the best humor comes out of hardship and I think that says something very positive about the human race in general. After all, without humor we wouldn't have games like Abarenbou Tengu (Zombie Nation) for the Famicom/NES!

Abarenbou Tengu is a Famicom (Japanese NES) shmup game that was released in the US as Zombie Nation, a game which many people fondly remember. I, on the otherhand, recall as a kid seeing the B movie-inspired boxart for Zombie Nation many times and basically thinking "Well that looks disgusting." It wasn't until several years later that I'd learn about the original Japanese version and finally get it. Zombie Nation is a great game. It was just tampered with!

Abarenbou (Japanese for "hooligan" or "delinquent") Tengu is essentially the same game as Zombie Nation but with a giant floating Tengu mask/head instead of Zombie Nation's ugly disembodied samurai head. When you know what they are, tengus are approximately a bajillion (a unit of measure befitting this game) times cooler than that stupid ugly samurai head.

Other than that vital aesthetic difference, the Japanese version is slightly harder (you don't start off with rapid fire) and has some other visual differences. I imagine the story that scrolls during the intro is probably more entertaining as well, but my Japanese isn't good enough to confirm that. I'm not going to even try to decipher Abarenbou Tengu's story but I wish I could understand it. It's probably even more bizarre than Zombie Nation's.

The gameplay, on the other hand, is essentially a chaotic horizontal scrolling shmup with destructible environments that are impressive to see on the NES. The player flies a tengu through various environments as the screen slowly scrolls right. The tengu has the ability to fire projectiles from his eyes and bombs from his mouth. Structures will get in the way and must be at least partially destroyed to pass through. Destroying structures also often releases falling hostages which can be caught  to power up the tengu's attacks, eventually activating a one-use smart bomb. Unlike many shmups the player actually has a life bar (indicated by tengus vs. skulls) which takes quite a few hits and seems to be slowly regenerated via scoring points. Difficulty is ramped up significantly by various hazards (in stage one they seem to be lightening rods) that appear intermittently and can reduce your life by a huge amount. Good timing will allow the player to sneak past them.

The music fits the energetic and bizarre atmosphere and seems to be the same in both versions of the game. The graphics are great and tengus are just so charming that I wish the game had made it here unchanged. Admittedly, it probably sold better due to the changes but when it comes to artistic vision, even in the absurd, I'm usually quite the purist.

Oh, and developers? Never localize a game to be easier unless it's just plain broken.

For more information, see MobyGames, Wikipedia and Zombie Nation's Manual.