With Kirby’s Dream Land beaten and SolarStriker finished, I turned my attention to Battle Unit Zeoth, another Game Boy game, and like the latter, another shoot ‘em up. I purchased it with SolarStriker, and didn’t really play it until this week. It was developed and published by Jaleco in 1991 and perhaps thanks to this later release, Battle Unit Zeoth is a little more progressive than SolarStriker. I say this primarily due to its level design and it’s usage of infinite continues.

The game is composed of five stages. The three odd-numbered stages are traditional side-scrolling affairs, with the screen auto scrolling horizontally. The two even-numbered stages however scrolled vertically with my movements, but required a lot of platform navigation. I thought these were pretty unique stages for this type of game. Shoot, even the traditional horizontally scrolling stages featured a notable amount of verticality to them. My control of the mech seemed pretty progressive too, as I was able to shoot in all four directions, and with enemies coming from all sides, I often had to.

That being said, the game was made easier than SolarStriker thanks to the infinite continues. Instead of having a reserve of lives that would increase with my score, I only had access to one life. But, when I died I could continue from the beginning of the stage I died on, albeit, without the upgrades I had collected. That was an important loss too, as the upgraded weaponry had a much larger impact than it did in SolarStriker.

Between the two, I think Battle Unit Zeoth is the more interesting shooter, design-wise. But, it’s also the easier shooter, which may rub some the wrong way. Still, being able to complete a game is nice, and games in this genre are very replayable. So, I think I’m done writing about Game Boy games for the moment. I am playing something on the platform currently, although I’m not sure an article will come to fruition as a result.