Zanac

Zanac
North American NES box art
Developer(s)	Compile
Publisher(s)	JP: Pony Canyon NA: FCI
Designer(s)	Masamitsu Niitani Takayuki Hirono Koji Teramoto
Programmer(s)	Takayuki Hirono Masamitsu Niitani
Artist(s)	Koji Teramoto
Composer(s)	Masatomo Miyamoto
Series	Zanac
Platform(s)	MSX Family Computer Disk System Nintendo Entertainment System PlayStation
Release	MSX JP: November 28, 1986 Famicom/NES JP: November 28, 1986 NA: October 1987 PlayStation JP: November 29, 2001
Genre(s)	Shoot 'em up
Mode(s)	Single-player

Zanac (ザナック) is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Compile and published in Japan by Pony Canyon and in North America by FCI. It was released for the MSX computer, the Family Computer Disk System, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and for the Virtual Console. It was reworked for the MSX2 computer as Zanac EX and for the PlayStation as Zanac X Zanac. Players fly a lone starfighter, dubbed the AFX-6502 Zanac, through twelve levels; their goal is to destroy the System—a part-organic, part-mechanical entity bent on destroying mankind.

Zanac was developed by main core developers of Compile, including Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, Koji^[1] "Janus" Teramoto, and Takayuki^[2] "Jemini" Hirono. All of these developers went on to make other popular similarly based games such as The Guardian Legend, Blazing Lazers, and the Puyo Puyo series. The game is known for its intense and fast-paced gameplay, level of difficulty, and music which seems to match the pace of the game. It has been praised for its unique adaptive artificial intelligence, in which the game automatically adjusts the difficulty level according to the player's skill level, rate of fire and the ship's current defensive status/capability.