This week's Arcade Archives release is... Zing Zing Zip (Allumer,
Once again, we're back on the vertical shmup battlefield but things are a little different this time. Everything's a little goofier, a little sillier, a bit more light-hearted. First, your choice of player side matters- 1P's ship has faster vertical movement while 2P's ship has faster horizontal movement. This might be a key factor in utilising the rolling technique, where holding left or right then pressing the opposite direction has your ship do a roll which gives you a little invincibility. There's some weapons to pick up too, including homing missiles and shots that can be angled depending on which direction you're moving. Get to it, Zing Zing Zip, the enemy army won't defeat themselves!
It's an interesting time for Arcade Archives releases- outside of the vague promise of Taito's Solitary Fighter and DINO REX coming in the future, announced after their inclusion in Taito Milestones 2, there's been no teases for any future releases as far as I'm aware. That means there's no clue as to what could be the game in any given week, and that's pretty exciting! This is one I've only really seen in passing, but similar to Mad Shark, this has connections to Seivu Kaihatsu- as mentioned by Gosokkyu, ex-SK programmer Kanazawa worked on this game, although as clarified in the replies, unlike Mad Shark this wasn't a MOSS joint but Kanazawa freelancing. It's actually pretty interesting- the rolling mechanic is pretty unique- but the big draw is the presentation, with goofy pilots, explosions with comic book-style sound effects and most importantly, silly voices- get shot down and you'll hear "OH MY GOD!", use a bomb and the game screams "C'MON, JELLY BEAN!" at you, and more. Just looking at the screenshots might make you think there's nothing of interest here, but you might want to give it a chance.
I feel I should add that Zing Zing Zip is an extremely punishing game—think Tatsujin-Ou-esque spongy enemies with first-draft Psikyo patterns everywhere, basically—and you've really gotta enjoy chewing gravel to get anything out of it... it's not quite as ludicrous as Hacha Mecha Fighter, to use another ACA game as an example, but it's pretty close.
