Zero Wing

n/a

Zero Wing
System(s): Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo Switch Online
Publisher: Toaplan (JP), Sega, Retro-Bit
Developer: Toaplan
Original system(s): Toaplan System 1
Sound driver: Cube
Genre: Shooting
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1991-05-31 ¥8,000 (8,240)8,000e T-40023 EU 1992-07 1138-50 UK 1992-07 £39.9939.99 1138-50 SE (Rental) 199x AU 199x US (Retro-Bit) 2020-10-18 $44.9944.99 EU (Retro-Bit) 2020-10-18 €39.9939.99 JP ▼ 2022-07-01 US ▼ 2022-06-30 EU ▼ 2022-07-01 UK ▼ 2022-07-01 AU ▼ 2022-07-01
Non-Sega versions Arcade CD-ROM²

---

This short article is in need of work. You can help Sega Retro by adding to it.

---

Zero Wing (ゼロウイング) is a Sega Mega Drive horizontal shoot-'em-up game developed by Toaplan. A port of the developer's titular 1989 arcade game Zero Wing, it was first published in Japan by Toaplan themselves in May 1991, and was brought to Europe by Sega in July 1992. In modern years, the game was re-released worldwide by Retro-Bit in October 2020 as part of Toaplan Shooters Collector's Edition. Zero Wing is notable for being one of few Mega Drive ports developed by Toaplan themselves, and for the infamously-poor English translation of its opening cutscene - spawning one of the earliest internet memes, All your base are belong to us.

Gameplay

and fire the player's weapon. While the game has an autofire option, a higher firing rate can be achieved by manually tapping the button. fires a suction beam that will pull certain enemies towards the player ship for use as a shield, and can which be later launched forward to destroy other enemies.

Like other Toaplan games, Zero Wing defaults to the Easy difficulty setting.

Power-ups

Some enemies will drop power-ups when destroyed; the first power-up dropped per life will always be options to further assist the player.

• Red: Spread shot
• Blue: Laser shot
• Green: Homing shot
• Orb: Bomb (fired with )
• Speed Up: Increases ship speed

Levels

	Natols
	Legrous
	Pleades
	Aquese
	Submarine Tunnel
	Barracade Zone
	Bellon
	Gerbarra

Legacy

The infamously poor translation of Zero Wing's English releases has seen the game become the star of community parody. A line in the game's introduction, All your base are belong to us, was heavily featured in a fan music video for the song Invasion of the Gabber Robots by The Laziest Men on Mars (itself a cover of the game's song Open Your Eyes.) This video, compressed and heavily shared in the early days of the web, gave rise to one of the very first modern internet memes.

Production credits

Zero Wing Original Staff

• 68k Side: T.Ota, H.Furukawa
• Z80 Side: T.Uemura
• Graphics: S.Nakaoka, N.Ogiwara, M.Hayashi, S.Nito
• Music: T.Uemura, M.Yuge, T.Tomizawa

© Toaplan 1991.

Source:

In-game credits

Magazine articles

Main article: Zero Wing/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1991-03: "March 1991" (1991-02-08)
also published in:

• Mega Drive Fan (JP) #14: "March 1991" (1991-02-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1991-05: "May 1991" (1991-04-08)
also published in:

• Mega Drive Fan (JP) #16: "May 1991" (1991-04-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1991-06: "June 1991" (1991-05-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1991-07: "July 1991" (1991-06-08)
also published in:

• Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1991-08: "August 1991" (1991-07-08)

Collector's Edition (Retro-Bit)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

{{{{{icon}}}|L}}
Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 80 Aktueller Software Markt (DE) 72 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 80 Console XS (UK) NTSC-J 77 Computer & Video Games (UK) 93 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 7 (RU) 40 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 87 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 70 Games-X (UK) 92 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 60 Hobby Consolas (ES) 86 Joypad (FR) PAL 90 Joystick (FR) 86 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) PAL 72 Mega Drive Fan (JP) NTSC-J 66 Mega (UK) PAL 70 Mega Force (FR) 80 MegaTech (UK) 82 MegaTech (UK) PAL 82 Mean Machines (UK) 91 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 91 Player One (FR) 79 Play Time (DE) 68 Sega Power (UK) NTSC-J 100 Sega Power (UK) PAL 88 Sega Pro (UK) 78 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 77 Sega Force (UK) PAL 86 Sega Opisaniy i sekretov (RU) 66 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 75 Super Gaming (US) 67 Supersonic (FR) 85 Tilt (FR) 80 Video Games (DE) 67

	78
Based on 34 reviews

Zero Wing

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart PCB

Mega Drive, SE (rental)

Mega Drive, AU

Mega Drive, (Retro-Bit)

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 89b744a3 MD5 5f4f2fb8c7b8c50efbc6eed57ce3dae3 SHA-1 98335b97c5e21f7f8c5436427621836660b91075	1MB	1990-08	Cartridge (EU)
✔	CRC32 7e203d2b MD5 9647d8ec9183f3ec9f944d5ea49a99a9 SHA-1 fad499e21ac55a3b8513110dc1f6e3f6cdeca8dd	1MB	1990-08	Cartridge (JP)

References

NEC Retro has more information related to Zero Wing