Zarzon

Zarzon is an arcade machine from 1981, the peak of the golden age of coin-ops, when every month brought new attempts to follow up on Space Invaders and Galaxian. It was developed by SNK of Japan – the company that would become famous many years later for the Neo Geo – and reached American arcades through Taito. Zarzon is commonly described as the overseas version of a cabinet SNK released at home under the name Satan of Saturn.

The gameplay matches its birth year: a side-view shooter, waves of attacking enemies and a chase for the highest score. There is no story and no ending, because a 1981 cabinet had exactly one goal – to keep the player at the screen and pull another coin out of their pocket. The entry lists support for more players, which in practice meant the classic ritual of taking turns at a single machine.

For genre historians Zarzon matters mainly as a record of SNK's earliest output. The company was still searching for its own signature at the time, and its machines travelled the world through distribution partners, exactly as they did here through Taito.

Cabinets like this no longer stand in arcades, and forty-year-old circuit boards cannot be trusted forever, so emulation is their only future. You can fire up Zarzon straight from its OldGame.cz page – the machine boots right in your browser.