As of now, the cabinet has several issues despite being playable. Gun 6 has had the coin slots taped over due to the aim failing. The audio was functional briefly, but is now silent except for the gun towers. Most concerningly, the left Laserdisc is having an issue where it loses sync with the right side and seemingly skips back to the start if the track. This happens most often on the Zolgear Brain Core, but occasionally affects the title screen in the attract mode.

According to Fun World's Facebook, the Laserdisc player was sucessfully replaced today. Full functionality has apparrently been restored. I will report back when I have verified this.

So it turns out that if you ask the technician there, he can turn the theater on for an hour. The reason it's not always on is because of a fault that develops on the left side, presumably due to a failing laserdisc player. The sound is screwed up too. However, the game is still enjoyable in it's entirety, and efforts are being made to fix the issue.

Quote from: Framed_Niner on April 30, 2025, 04:34:06 AM

Hey DarthNuno, they seem to want your help on Twitter. Just letting you know.

Goodness, I'm having a bit of trouble finding my way around using X/Twitter  . Could you point out what kinds of requests there are?

https://x.com/v9938/status/1917090029337485529

I have found a tweet presumably from this arcade.
https://x.com/v9938/status/1916302090055356871
Interesting, they use Windows XP machines to run the LD emulator?

I read up on this. Remember earlier when there was a later revision of Project Dragoon that was missing a ROM? They found it. The whole game is now dumped.

I've been playing for a bit longer, and would like to retract some of my prior statements.

I have come to appreciate the gameplay far more than before. There is a significant element of strategy here. Different enemy types do different attacks and must be prioritized based on threat level. Some enemies shoot and must be eliminated quickly. Others fire missiles and can be spared, but you must stop their missiles. A third type of basic enemy kamikaze attacks and must be shot before it hits you.

The branching paths are a great feature. You can choose different areas to fight in by vote. Exia Metropolis and Zolgear Gravity Organ are the easier levels in my opinion, whilst the boss encounters in Environmental Control Center make it the obvious hard level. This adds depth; a struggling player can choose an easy path whilst a successful player can challenge themself.

The balance and difficulty curve are great. The game rewards memorizing the enemy patterns.

One secret that only experienced players will know is that holding down the trigger is not very effective. If you mash the triggers and thumb buttons, you can fire faster and drill through enemy and boss alike. The final boss has weak points. Aim for the eyes on the shields on the brain core, then aim at the core itself when exposed whilst making sure not to let missiles destroy you. The mistake of not effectively hitting weak spots cost me tonight's run, so I won't make that mistake again.

On the topic of learning from mistakes, that is one of the beautiful things about Attack of the Zolgear. If you lose, it is not because of the game being rigged like others in the genre (cough cough, CarnEvil, cough cough). Also, when you lose shield, it's game over, no continues allowed. This is a game purely of skill, you cannot bribe your way to victory.

The environments are unique and graphically pleasant. Although the technology that powers the amazing graphics has not aged well (damn you left LaserDisc player, stop failing), the visuals themselves are still great.

I am glad that this game is now alive once again. I am privileged to live reasonably close by, I won't say how close for fear of some nefarious actor doxxing me. But I can always come back. I will be back. And soon enough, I will succeed in beating Attack of the Zolgear.