Zook Hero Z

Zook Hero Z
Zook Hero Z's title screen.
Publisher	Vast Fame, Li Cheng
Developer	Vast Fame
Console	Game Boy Color
Date	1998, 1999
Sound engine	Minakuchi Engineering (Mega Man V)/Kouji Murata
Alternate names/hacks	Zook Z Zook Hero (路克英雄) Rock Hero Rockman DX6

Zook Hero Z (Chinese title: 路克英雄 Z) is a platform game developed for the Game Boy Color by Vast Fame based off Capcom's Rockman / Mega Man series. It is the first title in the Zook Hero series and was released in 1998, 1999^{[citation needed]}.

Story

The following is a summarized translation of the intro in-game and the back of the box:

Zook is a policeman for a city. One day, Doctor Mitt deploys his evil army of robots to advance on the city, his first step in conquering the world. Zook tries to stop the robots, but ends up getting shot and is in critical condition. With his life at risk, Dr. Meki chooses him for a robotic human project, thus giving him a new life. Continuing with his fight to protect peace, Zook Hero is then born.

Overview

The game is a basic Megaman clone, with fifteen stages in total. The main hub has six selectable stages, each with a robot master that gives you different abilites once defeated. Once three stages are passed you are taken to three other stages that must be beat in order to finish the final three, which then leads to another final six "Dr. Mitt's Fortress" stages before the final boss.

An English version was released as "Zook Z" (though it is still called Zook Hero Z in-game). All the game's text is translated, but has occasional spelling/grammar errors as well as certain parts of the dialogue having large gaps inbetween lines. Certain names were also changed (probably due to imperfect translation); for example Dr. Mitt is called Dr. Meet, and Dr. Meki is called Dr. Steve (the protagonist is referred to as Zook). It also contains the V.Fame copyright at the title screen (which certain releases removed) but aside from these changes the rest of the game's pretty much the same.

Trivia

• The soundtrack from the game was used to replace the soundtrack in a hacked version of Zook Hero 2 called Rockman X3.
• All text in-game is in Japanese, despite the box and title screen using Chinese. The majority of the text is also incomprehensible, with incorrect characters, grammar and constant misspelling of words. In addition, the Japanese in-game text always refers to the hero as Rock.
• Though the character is officially known in English as "Zook", the Chinese name for Zook, 路克, actually translates to Luke. The English version's manual uses the latter translation, and refers to the game itself as "Luke the Hero Z" and the antagonist as "Dr. Mean".
• The game appears on an 8-in-1 Vast Fame multicart under the title 路克英雄 ("Zook Hero") without the Z. The copyright was removed.
• Some of the stages have their layout copied from Mega Man/Rockman 6, for example, the underwater stage's layout comes from Centaur Man's level while the plant stage's layout is stolen from Plant Man's stage.
• There is a glitch that can be activated if you slide near the beginning of a stage by scrolling the camera to where it stops, until a new area is opened up of an extremely long running room leading to the boss chamber. This is also present in Zook Hero 2.
• There's a glitch where you can perform the air dash without the leg upgrade.  It usually happens by quickly hitting the jump and directional buttons in a certain way.  This also occurs in Zook Hero 2 despite the ability being removed from the game.
• A title hack of this game called "Rockman DX6" was released by Li Cheng. It has been dumped and released on the internet, fully playable.

Gallery

Complete copy of the Taiwanese V.Fame release.

Back of the Taiwanese V.Fame release's box.

Taiwanese version with copyright present.

English version's cart (named Zook Z on the cart).

English version's title (with copyright)

V.fame multicarts featuring the game.

Translucent Rockman DX6 Cartridge