Zombie Shooting Star is a Third Person Shooter with a heavy focus on platforming. It is set in a universe where a massive battle just took place between the planet Unia and an unknown invading object. Humanity won, yet a piece of the enemy’s debris survived. As fate would have it, the debris is on a collision course with another world, and humanity makes a last-ditch effort to destroy what they now call the Mutant Core. At least, this is what I garnered from the poorly translated store page. Not helping matters is that the in-game plot is barely existent. It may just be best to disregard it and accept that a big-breasted anime girl is shooting zombies in levels that could be featured in Sonic the Hedgehog.
That last sentence wasn’t a dig at the game. I’m all here for that type of madness. The developer isn’t one to take the plot seriously either and allow it to limit his ideas. You’ll soon see that Zombie Shooting Star is jam-packed with features, but first, let’s rewind a bit to the beginning of the game. We are a super-soldier named Rudy. Unluckily for her, we were teleported straight in front of zombies guarding a door. Dispatch them and directly aim at the door’s sensors. I haven’t seen a system like that since the original Halo, and the precision required to aim at them will quickly make the player decide whether to go with a gamepad or keyboard & mouse. It’s a clever way of making it clear that this title focuses on accuracy before stepping out of the first area.
Our first weapon is an assault rifle that will be our go-to tool when facing large hordes. The damage isn’t great, but its large magazine and this title’s limb destruction system go hand in hand. Just fire into the legs of a zombie horde sprinting toward you, and they’ll be reduced to simply crawling their way after Rudy. If you’re confident in your aim, a single headshot can take a zombie down. That is difficult to do with the spread of the assault rifle unless you are already too close for comfort. Range is our friend. If anything gets close, things rapidly become chaotic as you try to handle it and avoid others closing the gap. Gameplay was unexpectedly dynamic, as things can and will change at a moment’s notice. It only amplifies from there once new enemies and weapons are introduced.
All of the weapons share a single ammo pool. The white circle at the bottom right of the screen shows how many magazines you have left. It will gradually recharge over time, but much too slowly to be depended on. You can speed up its recharge rate by damaging enemies and destroying crates. Zombie Shooting Star is not a title that wants you to play safely. It wants you to constantly push forward and get through a stage as quickly as you can manage. There is no reward or benefit for doing so, however. If you want to take it slow and not run straight into the arms of a one-hit-kill chainsaw-wielding zombie, that is just as viable. Something I saw in a Steam review was someone calling late-game enemies bullet spongy. This is true, but it comes down to it not doing a good job of teaching you the ideal ways of using your weapons and gear. Grenade in arachnid mouth = instant death. Sniper can one-shot most enemies if aiming at a weak spot. If you always go in blasting with your basic rifle, that will quickly get frustrating.
While on that topic, I have no idea what the Shotgun is best for. It uses far too much ammo in a single blast for the damage it dishes out. A proper tutorial mode would have gone a long way, as we don’t have much breathing room. This is a difficult title that never really lets up. It will always be trying to throttle your neck both fairly and unfairly. Such an environment is not the best for learning or experimenting. Our final weapon comes in the form of a gravity gun to pick up and fling objects. Its secondary fire turns it into a rocket launcher. That is the only gun with an alternate fire. Every other weapon reserves that button for iron sights and more precise aiming. The rocket launcher can only be fired twice in succession and does not use the shared ammunition pool. It recharges over time, so feel free to blast away when things get too dicey.
Interestingly, much of this violence can be avoided unless you are flat-out locked in a room requiring their death. Our character Rudy can double jump, wall run, dash mid-air, and lasso toward grappling points. We are given many movement options to avoid close-quarters combat or conflict in general. With the proper player knowledge, Rudy can become an unstoppable killing machine, but she is not a tank. Even a lowly zombie can quickly rack up massive damage that can’t be healed until finding a green crate. You typically have two options if you find yourself face-to-face with a foe. The first is to dodge roll out of the way. Your second choice is to use your melee attack and absolutely obliterate them. Her melee is no joke and will deal huge damage to even the most difficult of foes. The trade-off is that it will deplete a significant portion of your Stamina Meter, which is also used for all your other movement options.
As Zombie Shooting Star progressed, I couldn’t help but think they were far too stingy with the Stamina Meter. This isn’t a slow, methodical game like Dark Souls, where you have no one but yourself to blame if you can’t dodge roll anymore. Stamina only refills quickly when standing entirely still, which does not fit in with this type of gameplay. Considering nearly everything drains it and even slowly walking prevents it from rapidly refilling, this was my biggest pet peeve throughout. They should have had it fill faster as you deal damage, like with the weapon reloads. I believe it was done to stop us from spamming that powerful melee attack, but this is a lousy way to accomplish that. It’s primarily an issue in combat as much of it is horde based, and they typically spawn relatively close to you. Being unable to roll or dash will likely be your leading cause of death.
Something important to know about this title is that it assumes you like pain. As briefly stated before, it will not always play fair and will gladly sucker-punch you. It quickly becomes clear early on when you are zooming down a ramp, and suddenly a zombie spawns between you and the platform. According to Steam’s Achievements, less than 15% of players completed the 36-level campaign. This is not a negative. There is an audience for that. I merely want to let everyone know since this does not come off as a ‘rage bait’ game from the store page. There is an option to toggle Auto HP Recover for those not wanting an insane challenge. It restores health so quickly you may as well be invulnerable. And from what I’ve garnered, the developers have already reduced the difficulty quite a bit since Zombie Shooting Star released. Good god, I’m so glad I waited off on playing this, as the last thing I need is to suddenly find myself with a head full of gray hairs and a deep fear of jiggle physics.
Yeah, you may have forgotten by now this is an Adult title. It has jiggle physics that would put even Dead or Alive to shame. That alone is not enough to get it above your typical M rating. What I think did it was that you can see Rudy’s butthole if you zoom in enough at the right angle. I doubt it was due to the CGs you get when defeated. They were incredibly tame and didn’t even have any nudity. All of them had blood splatter PNGS placed over the regular in-game assets, but they were unremarkable. If they were trying to appeal to ryona fans, more is needed. I’ve seen more violence at the local McDonald’s. Do not purchase this expecting worthwhile hentai content. Funnily enough, there is a Streamer Mode available. If you turn it on, Rudy will have a cardboard box covering all of her body. It then becomes pretty safe to play this title outdoors if you want, as it is Steam Deck verified.
Now here is by far the most significant flaw—those absolutely dreadful vehicle sections. There are cars, bikes, and a wide range of other things to ride. The last time I saw vehicle controls this bad was in the early Earth Defense Force games, which is honestly still better than this. None of them have any traction on the ground and feel more like you’re sliding them toward a general area. Despite that, they are so stiff it’s like your car is set to park while driving and is somehow still speeding up. It was nothing short of game-saving that you can skip most of these driving sections without penalty. The key word there being ‘most’. We have no such luck for the two tank sections. Only two out of 36 total campaign levels doesn’t sound bad, yet those were excruciating moments I wish I didn’t experience. There are no words in the human language to accurately describe how terrible the tank controls were. It was a big mistake not to make these sections optional as well.
As much as I’ve been bashing on the vehicles, it does show how varied the developer tries to keep things. Every level felt unique, thanks to various gimmicks or platforming layouts. My favorite among these was when they tried making most of the environment destructible. It was truly memorable to see the surrounding scenery collapse as you battle it out with a boss or just regular foes. If you thought the 36 campaign levels were all there was to see, you’d be dead wrong. There is an Arcade mode with an additional 30 stages to complete of equal quality. They have a similar tempo to the campaign levels, but focus mostly on combat and lack platforming. I didn’t even mention our ability to slow time, place automatic gun turrets and other features. This game is packed with content for those willing to brave its brutal nature. It has fantastic music and anime body physics for days. Zombie Shooting Star has flaws, but it is still worth playing for those who enjoy pain and searching for a heavily experimental third-person shooter.
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