In 1985, a game called Impossible Mission was released for the Commodore 64 computer by the American company Epyx. Though considered an innovative classic by computer gamers, attempts to release it to the larger console audience failed for a number of reasons. Foremost among these, arguably, is that console gamers were generally unused to the stereotypically overcomplicated Western style of gameplay, something which Impossible Mission exhibited in spades. Considering this, it would’ve been sensible for a Japanese developer to create its own version of Impossible Mission to fit the tastes of its audience, and so it’s no surprise that Sega did just that a couple of years later with Zillion.
Zillion is a tie-in for an anime of the same name that also happened to be sponsored by Sega at the time. Indeed, this anime featured then-current Sega mascot Opa-Opa as a character, and the design for the SMS’s lightgun was drawn from the anime. However, knowledge of the anime is not necessary to understand the game’s simple plot. You are JJ, a member of the White Knights, a group sworn to defend Earth against the evil Norsa Empire. Your people have found a secret base on Planet X containing five floppy disks (ah, the 80’s) with information vital to defeating the enemy. Your mission is to procure these disks and then cause the base to self-destruct without you inside of it. And since your partners Apple and Champ are apparently being held prisoner somewhere in there, it might be a good idea to rescue them too.
As has already been said, the basic gameplay of Zillion is much like that of Impossible Mission. You make your way down elevators, along corridors, and through rooms in search of the floppy disks and the main computer capable of blowing up the base. The whole base is swarming with robot guards, laser barriers, mines, and other nasty things determined to slaughter you before you can accomplish your objectives. All you have to help you out are your Zillion zapper gun and your computer hacking skills. Beyond defending yourself, what you’ll mostly be doing throughout the game is destroying containers holding pieces of a four-part keycode that you need to open up doors and activate elevators in each room.
Gameplay centers around the computer terminals that are found in most of the base’s rooms. Here is where you input the four symbols (out of ten, each of which correspond to Arabic digits) of the keycode for each room. It’s also where you can use ID cards found in some of the canisters to hack into base security. If you input four of the same symbol into a terminal, you can do various things such as look at a simple map of the base, turn off the barriers, tripwires, and such in the room you’re in, and even commit suicide (not that you’d want to). You’ll also sometimes get secret messages by doing certain things in certain rooms, some of which lead you to hidden power-ups and passages. All of these things cost ID cards, but you can find plenty around the base, and if you’re really desperate you can go back up to the surface and get one from your mothership.
Hacking into base security won’t get rid of the guards, though, which is where your gun comes in. The guards range from idiots who can’t crouch and shoot at the same time to elites who take multiple shots to take out. You can jump and crawl to dodge their shots and get into position, and you can also find power-ups for your gun to make the guards easier to kill. A fully-powered gun can even destroy landmines so you don’t have to risk jumping over them. Your gun also has to be powered up to destroy certain containers, meaning that you’ll have to juice up your weapon anyway in order to proceed through the game.
Where Zillion really parts ways from Impossible Mission is in the leveling system. In addition to the gun power-ups, hidden around the base are copies of Opa-Opa, the little spaceship from Fantasy Zone and a good friend of the White Knights. Picking up an Opa-Opa increases your level, making you faster, more resilient, and more agile. By the maximum level of eight, you’ll be able to jump half the height of a room and run through barriers with little difficulty. There are also infrared goggles hidden that allow you to see tripwires that sound an alarm when you run through them. These things make Zillion more like Japanese adventure games like Metroid or Metal Gear, a refreshing change that makes the game less monotonous.
If you wish, you can also rescue your buddies Apple and Champ from their heavily-guarded jail cells. If you do so, you can switch over to them at any time, exploring the base and leveling them up just like you would JJ. Apple is naturally quicker and weaker than JJ, while Champ is stronger and not as swift. Sadly, at max levels JJ is as good or better in most stats than either of his pals, and you’ll be nearly maxed out by the time you rescue Apple, so there’s no compelling reason to ever change between them. On the bright side, they do give you insurance in case JJ gets killed. You also get a slightly better ending if you complete the game with all three White Knights alive, which might encourage you to balance the load between them.
The worst thing about Zillion is its uneven difficulty. Early on, when you only have a weak JJ, you’ll have a hard time making your way through the base without getting killed and having to use one of your three continues. Laser barriers especially do massive damage at low levels, and computer wizardry can only turn them off for so long. This is exacerbated by the fiddly jumping control, where pressing the button sometimes sends you flying straight into the ceiling and other times barely lifts you off the ground at all. This makes it frustrating to avoid mines in cramped spaces. But later in the game when JJ is strong and you have the other characters in reserve, you’ll be able to destroy mines and walk through anything else with only a slight bit of concern.
There are unfortunately a lot of great Western games released for computer systems that never got the attention they deserved because of the size of the audience. A number of publishers have since tried to combat this problem by making acclaimed computer-game franchises more friendly to the lowest common denominator in a process derisively dubbed “consolification.” However, there’s no reason to think that it’s impossible for a Western computer game to be successfully transformed into something more appealing to console gamers. Despite being twenty years old, Zillion proves the validity of the idea with a fun mesh between two very different styles of game design.
