Zombie Nation

Overview

Zombie Nation, or Abarenbou Tengu, is a strange NES shooter developed by KAZe and published by Meldac in 1990. In the game the player controls the giant severed head of the samurai Namakubi. He is on a quest to recover the lost sword known as Shura, and destroy the evil alien Darc Seed. Darc Seed crash landed on Earth in a meteorite, and then using magnetic rays turned the population of the United States into zombies. Darc Seed also used these magnetic rays to gain control of several powerful weapons, including the most powerful of all, the sword Shura. Only Namakbi is powerful enough to recover this equally powerful weapon.

In the Japanese version of the game, the floating head is that of a mythical Tengu.

Gameplay

From the onset of the game the player is allowed to choose which stage to start out from. The four stages are in the four cardinal directions of the lower 48 states and include New York City in the east, a cave in the north, a factory in the south, and a desert landscape in the west. In the New York City stage the player has to fight the Statue of Liberty, which is being controlled by Darc Seed. The head of Namakubi flies around the stages shooting eyeballs out of its eyes, and shooting vomit out of its mouth. Both of these projectiles do massive damage to the structures and enemies present in the stages. There are also lasers placed in the stages that damage Namakubi if he touches them. He can also get caught on pieces of the landscape or sturctures and get crushed between the obstacle and the edge of the screen as the game scrolls. Survivors will jump out of buildings when Namakubi destroys them, and the player can catch these survivors by touching them. Doing so gives the player points and restores health.