Zanac EX (MSX2, Compile, 1987): its lineage, descendants, and standing in Japan
01What this origin is
Zanac EX is the MSX2 edition of Compile's Zanac, released in Japan in 1987 per Steam's own listing, a shooter whose enemy waves adapt in real time to how the player is performing, one of the genre's earliest experiments in a reactive, dynamic-difficulty shmup. It is not a new Compile production but the same 1987 game preserved and republished on Steam by D4Enterprise's EGGCONSOLE label, a legal emulation-based reissue service for classic Japanese computer games; Compile itself went bankrupt and dissolved in the early 2000s, and D4Enterprise operates under license to the IP. Creator Junichi Terayama of TERARIN GAMES named Zanac, alongside Compile's Aleste, as a direct inspiration in an interview with Game*Spark; Blaze of Storm does not reuse this game's assets or code, only the shmup lineage he says he grew up on.
02Sources
03Buried gems that carry this root
Blaze of Storm Buried gem
Per Steam's own listing, in the year 794 of the Cyber Century, the nation was run by a giant computer called Elixia, which had ended war and poverty by controlling politics, economy, and the military, until unidentified enemies appeared in cyberspace and began eroding its systems; cyberdiver Ayame Crow, one of the rare people who can connect their consciousness directly into cyberspace, boards the cyber fighter Image Striker to investigate and finds a human calling himself Phantom, who uploaded his own mind into cyberspace to seize Elixia and drag humanity into a chaos he calls freedom. Built around that story, it is an arcade-style vertical-scrolling shmup where you fly through cyberspace facing more than 20 unique bosses across 7 stages, choosing among five distinct sub-weapons, satellite, diagonal napalm, an enemy-piercing charge shot, and a directional shot among them, each suited to different situations, and per Steam's own text, every sub-weapon hit detonates an explosion that keeps dealing damage, so chaining that explosion well is the key to clearing a stage. Made and self-published by TERARIN GAMES, the solo alias of creator Junichi Terayama working with two composers, it marks, per Steam's own announcement text, 'the 10th anniversary of TERARIN GAMES, a solo developer who has continued to release new shmups every year,' this being his 10th title after ten years of solo development following a prior corporate job; in an interview with Game*Spark at the 2025 Digige-Haku indie expo, Terayama named Compile's shmups, specifically Zanac and Aleste, as his direct inspirations. It supports online leaderboards and lets you switch between two music modes, original or Mega Drive-sound-chip chiptune. Released February 18, 2026 at ¥1,700, it is Positive at about 95 percent over 38 reviews (36 positive, 2 negative per Steam's own review API), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with Steam Achievements, no AI-generated assets, and per Steam's own content descriptors, nothing sexual. It supports English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese, and while about 18 of its 38 reviews, some 47 percent, are already in English, and an English-language interview site (Tech-Gaming) has covered Terayama directly, it remains a small, self-published solo shmup with barely three dozen reviews to its name, run by a developer whose main audience so far has stayed niche shmup circles rather than mainstream Western press.