Wow. Just look at this cover! Wham, right in the face as you open this article: one of the most amazing illustrations (credit to Giant Bomb for clueing me in that the artist is Katsuya Terada, who also illustrated the Super Famicom port of Prince of Persia – I thought the character style looked familiar!) to grace a video game box. It has pure late 80s/early 90s anime OVA energy in spades. Plus, it made it me think of Streets of Fire, for some reason.

Rumble, Rumble in the Tokyo Jungle

Welcome to the 2020s – the near future from a 1993 perspective! And even after a devastating economic collapse in 2010 and the eruption of Mount Fuji in 2020, Tokyo survives and thrives – albeit in a wilder way than before. Biker gangs rule the roads and control the streets of this rebuilt Neo-Tokyo, with one all-female gang, the Bishin, dominant over all the others.

Step forward our protags, boyfriend and girlfriend Koji and Risa, into this chaotically matriarchal cyberpunk gangland unleashed in 1993 by developer and publisher Magifact.

When you start playing Zoku (as I’ll shorten its name to) you get to choose one of them to play. The other will be the one who’ll get kidnapped by the Bishin gang, whose animosity toward the couple was fuelled by Risa’s refusal to join them.

Now, here’s where things get interesting: Zoku is a racing-brawler hybrid. It wouldn’t be the first to try to mix racing with other genres; Overlander and Outlander for home computers and Mega Drive in the early 90s both incorporated a mix of first-person Mad Max-style point-to-point ‘survival racing’ and rather poor on-foot action sequences. Thankfully, Zoku does a better job of mixing up the two.

In my playthrough, I picked Risa, and jumped into the driver’s seat of Koji’s Speed Racer-ish ‘Cobra 429 Custom’ future-car. I must say that Zoku’s graphics are lovely throughout, with detailed pixel art in the introduction and the between-stages cutscenes.

The character designs and dialogue breathe personality into the various gang members and zone bosses you’ll encounter along the way – and face off against. The manual goes into further detail on the Bishin gang, not only naming the bosses you’ll go toe-to-toe with, but also giving you comprehensive information on their unique fighting styles.

Before that, though, we’ve got some driving to do.

A-Maze-ing!

The hot sun blazed over the Mode 7 deserts of this Neo-Tokyo’s first stage, its climate obviously shifted toward the apocalyptic thanks to the volcanic eruption.

Mode 7 works well here, giving me F-Zero vibes right away. Unlike that racing game, however, our goal isn’t to beat other racers to a finish line, but to beat the clock. You’ll have only so many minutes to drive from one dot on the mini-map to the other, your goal to ultimately reach a gang meet-up. And here’s where things get tricky, and ultimately, quite annoying at times: the racetracks are all confusing multi-directional mazes.

Groan, why did it have to be mazes?

I’m not sure why they chose mazes for these ‘racing’ sections, and after playing through all of those that Zoku has to offer, I sincerely wish they hadn’t. The twisting, turning nature of the maps left me convinced I was doing something wrong, once I sussed out what I was doing and where I was going, as I kept hitting dead ends by following what initially felt like a linear path.

I guarantee you’ll time out on your first try as you stare at the little square on the mini-map and wonder which route to follow as it zigzags chaotically toward your goal, sometimes moving toward the goal, sometimes, frustratingly, away from it. The multi-environmental maps will throw you a bone in turbo-boosts to pick up and smack you over the head with one as gang vehicles swarm to take you down. Your only weapon is the reinforced bumper of your car; smash them off the road!

It’s during some of these races that the first form of brawling is introduced. Should you hit the side of the roads or other vehicles enough times to spin out, you’ll be thrown from your car and the game will enter ‘brawler mode’.

Surprisingly Solid Brawling

Okay, so, I wasn’t especially sold on the maze-racing, and honestly, going into this game completely blind (apart from knowing it was a racing game and beat-em-up combo), I wasn’t expecting much from the brawling bits as some of these genre-mashing games tend to be a jack of all trades and master of none.

Colour me surprised! Not only does the strong pixel artwork continue on into the brawling sections, but it’s a pretty solid brawler too with some technical depth. In these ‘random battles’, you’ll face off against a handful of enemies (usually five), all while the clock continues ticking down. That’s right, the race is on to put down the gangers and jump back into your car!

Both Koji and Risa have different fighting styles, with Koji favouring fists while Risa preferring to put the boot in with a variety of kicks. It adds some replayability as it does change how you tackle opponents, especially the gang bosses with their unique attacks, who you’ll face off against once you reach your goal within the overall time limit. Once you’re there, there’s no time limit – phew!

I was genuinely impressed by the brawling. There’s a nice feeling of impact to each hit and just enough move set complexity. The only thing I wish for is greater enemy variety and relief from the numerous palette swaps and repeated enemies. You’ll face off against numerous near-identical attack waves of gangers in the on-road battles on the maps that allow them, and they can get a bit boring if you’re particularly struggling with a maze and getting thrown out frequently.

Eight stages and bosses lie between you and your kidnapped love, each with their own unique biome, from deserts and forests to hills and volcanic mountains. There are also a few different urban cityscapes with different architectural styles ranging between contemporary to cyberpunk futurism, all reflected in the brawling environments – a welcome touch.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it has a tournament fighter mode, too!

In the vs. battle mode, you can choose from a selection of the bosses (and the protags) to face off against either a computer opponent or a second player. As a vs fighting game, it’s nothing special, but it is nice to be able to play as the bosses and crush them with the moves they tried to smash you down with. It’s a welcome bit of ‘added value’ and longevity.

Final Thoughts

I came away pleased with the time I spent with Bishin Dentsetsu Zoku, a little over an hour and a half to reach the end, and was more impressed than I initially anticipated. It feels like a little passion project, an idea that someone had that just had to come out, and meant enough to the devs to tap one of the best cover artists in the biz for it. The maze nature of the driving sections will be a sporadic source of frustration, and the game would benefit from a handful of additional gangers with unique names, but hey, as a package deal? It’s a little gem that’s worth digging up and playing yourself.

See you on the highways!

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