FZ: Formation Z is a remake of the legendary arcade side-scrolling shooter Formation Z from 1984. The game is quite unknown to the general public, partly due to its age and partly because it was released in America under the name Aeroboto. The remake aims at a modern audience while striving to remain faithful to the original.
You are the pilot of the mecha codenamed Ixpel, which you will transform into a spacecraft and vice versa as needed to navigate through various obstacles. In mecha form, you will have a machine gun and two melee attacks at your disposal, while the spacecraft will only have machine guns and rockets. To transform from one form to another, you will press and hold the jump button - which can sometimes create unnecessary problems when you accidentally transform in the middle of a fight, guaranteeing death.
Although you might think it would be easier to just fly over the entire mission since you are much more agile and powerful, keep in mind that in spacecraft form you are constantly consuming energy, and when it reaches zero, you will transform back into the mecha, which can be fatal if you are above a body of water or, heaven forbid, an active volcano. Although you can regenerate energy by collecting E-items, you won't find them very often, and every special attack you perform also consumes energy, so you need to keep that in mind constantly.
The game consists of only 5 levels, which is too little content to keep you engaged for long. There are also only two modes available, Story and Score attack - in which you can replay levels only after completing them in Story mode, and try to score as many points as possible. You can play on several difficulty levels, but that doesn't present a special challenge either. At any difficulty level, just one hit is enough to send you back to the last checkpoint. There are also various collectible items you can gather and different endings that should encourage you to replay the game, but I gave up after a few rounds. Simply put, I got bored.
You will be able to customize and upgrade your Ixpel, and in addition to the starting one, you can buy two significantly stronger ones with credits you collect through the levels and by completing them. You will also be able to design your pilot or Ixpel and decorate it with colors, stickers, and additional parts. All these customizations are purely visual, and all Ixpels look very generic, just like the enemy units you will encounter.
Although the backgrounds are very beautiful, detailed, and pleasing to the eye, all units in the game are generic, which is a real shame because there could and should have been much more creativity in the design of mechs and spacecraft. The explosions of larger buildings are well done, but every destroyed enemy (including you) disappears in a uniform fireball. The music is dynamic and gives a retro feel, the sounds of machine guns, lasers, and rockets are of good quality, but the explosions are too quiet and practically inaudible in the overall cacophony of sounds.
If you are not a fan of the genre, FZ: Formation Z will not keep you on the screen for long, and if you are not frustrated by sudden difficulty spikes in the middle of levels, you will probably find that after two or three attempts you won't know what to do with the game anymore.
Nintendo Switch 2 copy of the game for review purposes was provided by the publisher Clear River Games.
