XIIZEAL Reviews

a simple but fun shmup. probably the best triangle services shootemup as it is more fluid than others and less genmeric. it is ok but not a great shmup It has 4 types of attacks. normal shoot, backward shoot and side attack. the side attack in the arcade was made may going one side and then the oposite direction. Fortunaly this port has a button for that as it is bad for wrists in long playing sessions. the game maybe also the most hard of the company. There is a limit of 3 credits and i suspect many gamers will not reach the last stages wich is a major con, because all gamers should have oportunity to play all the game. The graphics and sound are probably the best in the series. I think the price tag is a bit high considering the quality of the product, consider a discount of 40%.

It's pretty damn good, and even has vertical monitor support. Shmup veterans will feel at home, as the game isn't ball-busting, yet offers a good challenge in later levels. And the graphics are fantastic. I bought this one out of the blue, as I've never even heard of this game prior to scrolling past things on Steam, and my money was not wasted.

XII Stag is a really good game all around. I don’t know if it was released before or after DeltaZeal, as they were both released in 2002 to arcades, but it’s an impressive offering from Triangle Service in their early stages. I love the horizontal attack, the difficulty moves back and forth throughout to let you breathe a little, and the bosses are really fun. My only complaint is that the graphics get a little distracting at times, cloud cover over bullets and whatnot. I don’t have a lot to say negatively other than that. It’s just a great, straight up shooter, and is fun for all levels of players.

Xiizeal is probably the most impressive gimmick Triangle Service has come up with. The waggle is just a cool idea, although I prefer this Steam version where it can be bound to a button. The fact is that the mechanics in this game are just fun and cool ideas. The way your side shot is uber powerful compared to your regular shot. The way you can use your bomb to temporarily shield an area to spam the hell out of the side shot to wreck bosses. Even the level design where the popcorn enemies will come from behind and run into your ship's boosters, which actually do damage themselves in this game! It's not a mindblowing game, but it's easy to see why this one gets recommended the most out of the Zeal series. If you like this one, Trizeal is my favorite and worth a try as well.

This game has some unique mechanics with side attacks and back thruster attack. The enemy bullets are similar to the bullets in Raiden, they're really fast. When I first opened the game and looked at the UI, I was like, "Are you kidding me?" but it's understandable considering the company financial situation. All the basic functionalities are there, like screen scaling and rotation. The default arcade mode gives 3 credits. After you beat one stage, the score attack mode for that stage will be unlocked. So, it can be considered as stage selection for practice. After playing for a while, the game somehow gives an additional credit so the next run and onward you will start with 4 credits. I still don't know what triggered that. The original arcade name is called XII Stag in case if you want to emulate this game.

cant make the game work in 60 fps mode, beware if you have a 144Hz or similar display everything is on speed.

XIIZEAL is the first game of the 'Shooting Love series' of Triangle Service, also known as XIISTAG - the original arcade game. Here are the Pros and Cons about the game: The Pros: + The graphic is very good, the actions on screen are very-well animated. You can play either pixel perfect or with filtering mode to smooth out the graphic. Very classic. Very intense, even lots of bullets on screen, the game still runs smoothly at 60FPS. + Simple control scheme. Play with controller or keyboard is up to you. You can config the function of each button to suit what you need. + The music is good, especially the title music is really funky. Not top-notch but still good. + The gameplay is very simple, you shoot and dogde. But the enemies will come at you in every directions so your fighter will be armed with: ~ Normal frontal vulkan shot. ~ The exhaust is also a weapon to attack to enemies from behind but it really weak so be careful when large enemies approach from behind. ~ The strongest weapon in the whole arsenal, the side-firing guns from the left and right wings of your craft, by moving left or right and then go with the opposite direction immediately with the analog-stick. But doing that will make it hard for you to retain control so there is a button will allow you to activate it without using analog-stick. This attack is really strong that can make really quick work on all enemies, including bosses. ~ Finally, if you find yourself in danger, activate the black-hole bomb will create a field that grands you temporary invunerability and cancels all bullets that hit the field while the bomb is activating. Really good during boss fights, and also a method for scoring. + The scoring mechanic will be based-on how well do you use your side-firing shots and the exhaust, everytime you kill an enemy with those 2 weapons mentioned above, a multiplier will appear from 'x2' to 'x12', the longer you retain the multipliers, the more scores you earn. The black-hole bomb can help you get tons of points by cancelling enemy bullets, from 10 points to maximum 1000 points of each bullet hit the field. Use your bombs wisely, as survival tool and also as scoring tool. Collecting bombs when fully stock will give you 10000 each and for power-up orbs will be 1000 each. They drop very frequenly so collect as many as you can. + 7 decent long stages with multiple sections in each stage serve as hidden routes through out the game. And lots of secrets for extra replayability. + Difficulties are just right, even Easy is still hard to chew. Attempting for 1CC is a real challenge, so get ready to die... alot and try hard. The Cons: - Although the visual is clean but sometimes bullets will blend with background make them hard to see. Even worse when the background scroll really fast. - Missing many visual and sound effects from the original. Overall, the game still delivers solid challenging gameplay, with lots of actions on screen, many WTF moments. With the achievements will keep you busy for awhile, lots of secrets to find and many more. Grap this game along with rest of the collection on sales because they are really cheap. Great game. Final score: 8.5/10.

I don't even know where to start. I'm extremely happy that this game has come to steam. This is a really really really good shmup by Triangle Service a company that makes these games as a labor of love more than anything. To me this is by far the best shmup on steam, it's full of cool secrets that you'll take forever to discover and have fun doing so. The game isn't particularly punishing which is encouraging for newer players as well. The scoring mechanics on a chain multiplier are fun and easy to adapt to. The soundtrack though, dear lord NAOTO is a god for composing something like this on hardware as bad as he did back when this was in arcades. It's absolutely incredibly and fits the atmosphere of each level perfectly. I've played tons and tons of hours of this in its Xbox 360 iteration and I'd be happy to do so again on steam.

Classic shmup featuring 4 attacks: shot, side, exhaust and bomb. The graphics and music are good, but where the game stands out is the gameplay. Your mission will take you through 8 levels full of various enemy craft and tough bosses. This Steam version features autofire buttons for shot and side attack, which makes the game somewhat easier - though you can play using normal fire buttons if you desire so. There are also some modern goodies implemented, like leaderboards and TATE mode. Recommended!

Over the years we've grown accustomed to hanging out near the bottom or the far left of the screen. Why? To dodge the 100s of 1000s of 10000000s of bullets that accost us. Naturally, numerous scoring systems all but demand that we get closer to the top (or the right side) of the screen. Still, for the most part it's easier to just stay as far away as danger as possible, and give those bullet-spreads room to...well...spread. XIIZEAL is an oddity in many ways. First off, the level of difficulty fluctuates greatly. Normally we go through X number of stages, each one offering a steady increase in challenge over the last. Here? The first two stages are a cakewalk, the third is a sudden jump, and then the other stages are like hills and valleys (as opposed to one tall mountain). To balance this out, there are only three lives (no extends or hidden 1ups). To balance out the lack of lives, the bombs are exceptionally useful. Not only are they plentiful and offer a good bit of invulnerability, but with proper placement, they can absorb enemy bullets and you'll collect gobs of points. Then of course there's the side-attack. The forward cannons are actually rather weak, and the enemy spawns as well as bullet-patterns don't really benefit those who just want to hang way in the back. Your best method of offense is always getting next to an enemy and "wiggling" them into oblivion. The side-attack also massively affects your score (up to a 12x bonus). Throughout the game it is repeatedly drilled into your head that you must use the side-attack, as well as the upper 2/3rds of the screen. It's a shame performing the side-attack will turn your wrists, keyboard, d-pad, and/or joystick to butter. Thankfully the weapon can also be used by holding down a button. There's no need to perform more motions than a fighting game tournament just to complete a stage. The bosses are a bit more traditional. They're large, take a little bit of punishment, and will throw a great many bullets on the screen. However, they can be easily defeated if you have a nice stack of bombs. Throw a bomb, mash the side-attack, repeat. Hell, for the most part you likely won't have to repeat much, because the bosses can be destroyed very quickly. However, in the interest of scoring, you'll probably want to use those spare bombs to milk the boss for awhile. In a lot of ways, XIIZEAL was designed to be the antithesis to what we take for granted in a shmup. After awhile all these bullet-hell/danmaku titles start to blend together, and it makes the genre seem a bit stale. Triangle Service opted to create something different, and in that regard they succeeded. However, these ideas, while intriguing, might not be palatable for most 2D-shooter fans. Other concept-driven games (like Ikaruga) have a high level of depth to them. Each stage is very different from one another, and problems can have multiple solutions, or players develop slightly different tactics. With this game it's like a concept still in the early stages of development. There's the side-attack, knowing when to throw out a bomb, and that's about the extent of it. On the other hand, XIIZEAL isn't nearly as demanding (I forgot how many times I replayed the first stage in Ikaruga just to get a piddly A rank), and there's still enough of an incentive to keep playing for score. I believe this is a worthwhile entry in the genre. The concept doesn't get quite the exploration it deserves, but there's enough merit in replaying stages to capture that hi-score. Mechanically it's a solid little game, and offers some interesting ideas. There is also a certain (masochistic?) satisfaction in mashing the stick to perform the side-attack. I suppose this dates back to the time when gamers actually had to press the button repeatedly if they wanted rapid-fire. Back when I played Darius Gaiden on the Saturn, I mapped the fire button to A & C, and would get a higher rate of fire by alternating between the two. Part 2D shooter, part track & field videogame? Okay now I'm just rambling.