One of the most influential games in the shoot ’em up genre is Space Invaders. I still remember being awed by the colorful sprites and difficult enemies and cool looking spaceship. Ever since that game was released, many developers have copied and tried to capture the essence of Space Invaders. Some have and some haven’t. Zeroptian Invasion for the PS Vita is a game that tried to capture the essence, and in a way, it did, but I feel that it needed something to set the game apart from its inspiration.
The game’s story is simple: You are tasked with defending with F-1 System against the hostile Zeroptian aliens. Uou are using a “state of the art” space ship to defend and defeat the army of aliens. I really liked the presentation. You can see bios like a boot with some numbers, just like the arcades of old. Then you get a small intro with the game’s story and up you go.
Once I got into the gameplay, I saw that my expectations were a little high. I understand that is a homage to a classic, but why does it have to be like the classic? The ship’s speed is average, but the abysmal speed of your shot is where I was lost because I pressed the button and the laser (or bullet) was fired, but I couldn’t fire another shot until the first one disappeared from the screen. To be able to shoot a little faster would’ve been nice. The Upgrade System is something I don’t understand, or maybe its something that could’ve been more polished? You get three types of power-ups: (S)It adds a shield (one hit) to give you at least a chance to continue without losing a precious life. (P) allows you to fire an extra bullet, but is still slow, and (–>) supposedly offers a speed boost. I say supposedly because in my playtime I couldn’t notice it. My ship was still a slug.
Graphically, there isn’t much to say. I like the minimalistic style chosen, and I like that in later levels you get a nice change of color from the white to red or even blue. But the core basics continue the same with a little variation here and there about the enemy attacks, but that’s it.
The music is okay. It is what I had expected from the game, so no complaints here. The Boss fights were a nice change of pace but easily forgettable. One thing worth mentioning is that you can play in TATE mode in your vita. You just need to go to options and change the screen direction, and you are golden. This is not enough, but its something.
Bottom Line: Zeroptian Invasion is a game that played it a little to safe in my opinion. If it tried to do things differently than the game it took inspiration from, I think the experience would’ve been better In the end, I can only recommend it to those who want to get a dose of retro nostalgia or trophy hunters.
A Review code was provided for this review.