Zool

Description

Zool is a video game originally produced for the Amiga by Gremlin Graphics as a rival to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. It was heavily hyped upon its initial release in 1992, including being bundled with the newly launched Amiga 1200, although not the AGA version with enhanced graphics which followed later.

Zool is a "Ninja of the "Nth" Dimension" who is forced to land on Earth. In order to gain ninja ranking he has to pass six lands. Gremlin has asserted that the name "Zool" did not refer to the supernatural entity Zuul from the film Ghostbusters.

The game is a pure arcade platform game, relying on smooth, fast moving gameplay, colorful graphics and a popular soundtrack by Patrick Phelan which overlaps with the Lotus 3 soundtrack and has inspired several modern electro/techno remixes. The game also contains a number of embedded minigames, including several arcade games, a scrolling space shooter and a game accessible only by making Zool play a certain tune on an in-game piano.

Zool was also ported to the Atari ST, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive, SNES, Master System, Sega Game Gear, Amiga CD32, PC, Acorn Archimedes, Jaguar, and RISC OS platform.

Reviews for the Amiga version of the game were extremely positive. However some criticism was aimed at the blatant and pervasive product placement in the game for lollipop company Chupa Chups, in the first three levels (known as 'Sweet Zone'). Another frequent criticism of the game was that it was allegedly excessively difficult. Some contemporary reviewers complained of not being able to get further than the second level (Music Zone).

In the early 1993 after Zool became the Amiga's 1992 best-selling game (nearly beating Sonic 2 sales). Commodore was then very interested with the character and wanted the upcoming new Zool game to be bundled with the new Commodore Amiga CD32. However, the game was only 40% complete 3 months before the release of the Amiga CD32 and Gremlin couldn't make the deadline in time. So as a last minute decision by Commodore they decided to bundle the console with Flair's Oscar and Millennium's Diggers.