I don’t know how many people reading this have played Section-Z, but it’s always been a game that holds no small fascination for me. Before I had played Metroid, I borrowed Capcom’s shooter from a friend and got my first taste of non-linear exploration. Sort of. I never actually finished this one myself, because I had to return it the next day, but sometime later I watched as my friend slaughtered L-Brain. That’s kind of like beating it when you’re a stupid kid who’s still trying to figure out how a danged D-pad works, OK?
Around that time, a schoolmate heard us discussing the game during gym class and swore that he had seen the game in an arcade in Las Vegas, and that it was totally weird. We thought he was lying, but turns out he actually wasn’t. Godspeed, forgotten dude from gym class. MAME has vindicated the tall tales of your wasted youth.
Never heard of it. I was like 5 years old when it came out. I watched video of it and I want to play it now, but I can’t. It reminded me of Dark Void. I wish that Dark Void creators had played this and maybe it would have been more interesting.
This was one of the first NES games I owned. It was really bloody hard, at least at the time. I could never remember which path to take. I’d usually play through a few levels and then my attention would wander.
The thing it did do was influence my taste in sci-fi forever. For years after I’d love playing RPGs and other games starring heroes in flying exoskeleton suits. I just wonder how things would’ve been different if I’d picked up Mega Man that day at Wal-Mart instead of good old Section Z.
Didn’t this one star Captain Commando, at least in the NES version?
I had a lot of fun with Section Z when I rented it as a kid. It had enough good ideas that it held my interest but it has become one of those games that you wouldn’t give more than a few minutes if you fired it up in an emulator. The early NES Capcom music and the control scheme were pretty awesome but definitely a product of the system limitations.
My cousin had a small treasure trove of NES games very early in the system’s life and Section-Z was one of them. The cover art sticks out in my memory more than the actual game.
Is Section Z the one where each button makes you fire in a different direction?
Yeah, that’s the one. It was an ancestor of sorts to Forgotten Worlds.