Z-Exemplar

What an excelent game this is. If you ever had a ZX Spectrum and loved R-Type then you really should get this as all the graphics and music recreate that and so much more. There was a bug concerning the controllers but thats been fix with in 1 day of me pointing it out so the service is top dog. Well worth the money and your time.

I've spent about 14 hours playing the game and now I'm ready to share an opinion on it. I'm a die-hard fan on R-Type and I've played it on literally every platform it came out (there are more than you think) and I've played it a LOT on ZX Spectrum, which was my 8bit machine of the childhood. I must say - Z-Exemplar is really, really close to ZX Spectrum's R-Type. So, spend your bucks and get one if you loved R-Type on ZX. There are some cons and pros though: + The game plays and feels like R-Type really - The graphics are good, but could benefit from some pixelart polishing + The stages, monsters and setting are original - Irem's ones had a bit more style in them (no suprise, that's legendary Irem after all) + Music is perfect - Sound effects sometimes don't fit the theme and fill all channels with nasty repetitive waveforms + The game is really fun to play in the beginning, grinding levels for money for upgrades... - ...until you realise that you've beaten just 14% of game and mad gr...

Taking its aesthetic from the much admir'd ZX Spectrum port of R-Type this nonetheless steers its own path away from long, scrolling levels and instead presents the player with a hexagonal "board" to be conquered bite-sized level by bite-sized level, starting almost "casual" and heading towards "hardcore" with the player able to upgrade in-game weapon options as they go. A brilliant, entertaining shooter and seemingly more than just a "retro" feel.

Now that I've given this game a full go through, let me give you guys a rundown on it. It's a retro inspired, slightly more archaic R-Type, where you control a pilot in a ship with customizable weapons, be it support drones, a large force-like probe that assists in shooting stuff (which can be controlled remotely away from your ship) and various support missiles. The game makes no effort to impede your creativity, as you can choose so many different options in many different ways. Level-wise, there's a good variety to choose from, and the map you start out with can be imposing. Expect some repetition as the levels start out easy, and then get much harder. By the end of this game, you'll be feeling like you're on the hardest difficulty setting of Touhou. Overall, the journey through the game was something I'd consider unique and worth the time I put in. With that said, there are issues. To level up your ship and weapons, you need currency called zogs, which you can find in levels. Ho...

Where do I start? Why don't we start by saying that this game calls back to several classic games, as well as a classic system that passed the test of time in the 80s. No knowledge of the ZX-Spectrum (yes, Z as in proper british Zed) is required to play the game, but the colour scheme and pacing as well as the audio draws (and screams) authenticity as if you're using it to play this game. Control schema is very simple. Two keyboard setups, SPACE as a command button, along with simplistic gamepad support (directional buttons + A on a XBox controller - or in ZX terms, FIRE). The tutorial is simple enough explaining how to use the controls. Audio sounds just like it's coming from the audio chip in a ZX-Spectrum; the graphics also the same, with the intricate shading. Gameplay? A mix of the firing and option mechanics from R-Type with the powerup selection akin to Gradius/Nemesis. You collect Zogs (the game's currency) during a mission to activate powerups as well as to purchase upgrade...

EDIT: I posted my original review after an hour of play. It's now 13 hours later... JUST BUY IT! As a kid who owned a Spectrum 48k in the early to mid 80s, and the fact that I love R-Type, this game felt like it was designed for me. I dropped a few $ expecting a little shoot-em-up that would get my nostalgic juices flowing, and found a schmup that has all of that including a depth and a difficulty scale that is going to have me coming back for more and more. I can't recommend this game enough. Even if the Speccy vibe doesn't interest you, if you love schmups there is a lot to recommend here. (P.S. Loved the Horace, Willy and Jetman in the tutorial!)

I just completed this game, and I have to say it was a lot of fun! This game is made as a homage to those of us who grew up in the 8bit computer era (and specifically to those having a ZX Spectrum) playing titles such as R-type. The game visual style is done in the style of ZX spectrum games with its original palette and respecting some of the original constraints (although I wish an original ZX Spectrum could run a game as complex as this!). The gameplay combines elements of classic arcade shooter-em-ups (and again, specifically R-Type), with modern elements such as collecting coins ("Zogs") for buying upgrades, getting your ship to be more and more powerful every time. The game features a very extensive collection of upgrades, and I did not manage to buy all the different weapon types in a single play through, so, there is definitively a lot of replayability value here, trying to play with different weapon configuartions. Concerning the difficulty: the game starts easy, but bit by...

Best horizontal shoot 'em up for the ZX Spectrum 😎

You may be a bit baffled by what makes this game special if you never had a ZX-Spectrum, or you had but never played R-Type on it. If you loved the ZX version of R-Type, this is definitely the game for you. The original was a little programming miracle, and one of the best arcade ports on the Speccy; this game is structured differently, but is clearly a love letter to that game. If you have no familiarity with the original its still a solid little retro style left-right shooter. You might have a little trouble with the movement of the ship, but there's a couple of options for that. The difficulty can be a bit old school, but the levels are fairly short, bite-sized chunks of gameplay. I am only a few hours in but love the style of it even though I suck at it. Without the nostalgia factor you may not see its value as easily, but its a little gem of a game.

Great game in the in Sinclair ZX Spectrum style. Lot's of references that only those who were there back in the day will get. My only complaint is that I wish I could reduce the volume of the sound effects so I could hear the music.