Ex-Zodiac sees you trying to blow up every member of a terrorist organization, hurtling across occupied cities and shooting anything that tries to stop you.
The Sanzaru Star System has been overrun by the organization Zodiac, and they’re causing all kinds of trouble on multiple planet. As Kyuu, you’ll pilot an array of ships and vehicles as your rush toward your enemies, blasting them down with lasers and bombs. These low-poly battles will probably look pretty familiar to anyone who’s played a certain game about foxes and galactic bodies, too. Hopefully some of those hours spent freeing other star systems will transfer over if you’ve played that certain game before.
You’ll want to get familiar with several weapons if you’re to have any hope of taking out a fleet yourself. Your lasers fly straight ahead, and can be powered up to do quite a bit of damage. They work well against slow or stationary foes, as you’ll have to keep adjusting your ship position to avoid getting shot, which changes where your lasers are aimed. You also have lock-on missiles you can fire, although it takes a few seconds to get your target set. Once you do, you’re free to fire wherever you like and they’ll find the target. Finally, bombs are limited, but they’ll take out a ton of things that are close by. Picking which to use and constantly changing your strategy will keep you busy as you rush between buildings, across alien planets, and around the massive weaponry of the game’s bosses.
Ex-Zodiac keeps things very close to the game that inspired it, but in doing so it strives for that same level of quality, intuitiveness, and challenge. With six levels and several bonus stages that use other vehicles, it will keep you busy saving star systems as the developers work on the full release.
Ex-Zodiac is available now on itch.io and Steam Early Access.
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Really cool gem in the new vein of Star Fox kinda games, such as Whisker Squadron or Omeganaut. Each with their own style. What a time to be alive!