Mazinger Z (Arcade)

Mazinger Z
Developer: Eleven Publisher: Banpresto Platform: Arcade (Cave 1st Generation Hardware) Released internationally: July 1994 This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences. This game has a prerelease article

Mazinger Z is a shoot 'em up based on the immensely popular and influential Mazinger Z franchise. Play as Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, or Grendizer (or, rather, play as their pilots piloting those units) and stop Dr. Hell from his most dastardly scheme yet - stealing your quarters!

Unused Graphics

Koji	Tetsuya	Duke

Normal and damaged icons for the three playable pilots. Palettes are incorrect or nonexistent. These are early, and they can be seen in early screenshots. The final game's portraits lack their pilot outfits, although they can be seen wearing them in the cutscene graphics.

An unused graphic for Garada K7's name, the first stage's miniboss. Although all bosses have their name shown before the fight, Garada does not get this treatment. Doublas M2, the miniboss appearing alongside Garada, does not have its name in the game at all.

An unused name tag for Grendizer that spells its name wrong.

Regional Differences

Japan	English

The Japanese logo features the standard Mazinger Z logo, while the English version has an all-new logo and centers the Z. The copyright text is also different between the two; the Japanese version has it as a full graphic, whereas it's just standard text in the English set.

Japan	English

The Japanese version has text in the demo for the Photonic Power Lab (Mazinger Z), the Science Fortress Institute (Great Mazinger), and the Space Science Laboratory (Grendizer). The English set removes these.

Japan	English

The English set has a tutorial of sorts in the demo, featuring a joystick and buttons that react to the demo's movements. The Japanese version lacks this entirely.

Japan	English

Strangely, the joystick in the service menu changes color between regions. The blue version is unique to the English set, with the Japanese getting red. Stranger still is that the joystick in the demo was red, so why bother changing it...?

Oddities

When the demo starts and the unit is flying in, the name in the scoreboard briefly shows Great Mazinger's name tag, regardless of whether the demo features Mazinger Z or Grendizer. The actual game does not do this, so it's unknown why the demo does.