Game 416: Formation Z

After the surprisingly decent ivory deck inductee Exerion, we go right back to mediocrity with scrolling shooter Formation Z.

 

I suppose the game is fine on a technical level. Multiple levels of parallax scrolling gives Formation Z's stages a convincing sense of depth, though these visuals are pretty drab and plain looking. Your Macross-inspired transforming robot moves slowly but responsively, and none of my deaths ever felt like it was the fault of poor controls or bad collision detection. In fact, the game is rather easy, apart from two things - some obscure stuff toward the end of a loop, and that my trigger finger got really tired from the nonstop repetitive shooting.

Fact of the matter is, in the first few seconds of gameplay, you've already seen 80% of what the game has to offer, and the next nine minutes is mainly spent shooting the same waves of the same enemies over and over again. Most of them don't even threaten you as long as you're on the ground, which is where you should be as much as possible - flying costs fuel, leaves you vulnerable during the transformation animation, and makes it impossible to aim up and down without pitching, which is a much more useful defensive ability than the any of jet mode's maneuverability. Jumping is best avoided as much as possible too, as you completely lack air control and might find yourself floating right into an enemy - it's better to blow up obstacles than to try to jump over them.

Eventually, you'll have to transform, which costs fuel - all the more reason to stay on foot when you can.

 

Don't get too excited. It doesn't last long, and the action doesn't get any less repetitive. You'll land in the desert and fight more robots.

 

After a few minutes of this, you'll take off again and fight the miniboss.

The first time I reached this, I died to its spread-shot attack, but never again; I learned to hang back and dodge while firing rockets.

After destroying it, you have to dock with a shuttle, but the game doesn't explain how. You must fly in front of it and slowly back in - take too long, as it did my first few times when I futilely tried to dock with its underside and then with its hood, and you have to repeat the boss fight.

And now you're on the moon!

I wasted a lot of time here. On my penultimate run, I must have spent over twenty minutes endlessly scrolling forward, mindlessly fighting wave after wave of the same robots with no change in tactics or scenery, and I wondered if this part even ends.

Turns out it does. I'm not quite sure what triggers it, but you have to be in jet mode - make sure you have ample fuel first - for the next scene to start.

Pretty soon you'll face the boss. I beat him on my first try. And then I stopped playing.

It loops after this but I didn't even bother.

I didn't even bother sticking around for the second loop.

GAB rating: Below average. Borderline bad, honestly. Formation Z is functional, but holy space mackerel is it boring. I've never played it before and I can't see myself ever playing it again.