Trivia / Zero Wing

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: "Somebody set up us the bomb" is often misquoted as "Somebody set us up the bomb", since the transposed words are incredibly similar.
• Creator Backlash: One person involved in development of game did not care much for it.
  Tatsuya Uemura: Zero Wing was based on the Hellfire engine and was made by new recruits as part of their training, but we stopped doing horis after that. I think we realized we just didn't know how to make a horizontal shooter interesting. Later we were told by many users that they really liked Zero Wing, but to be honest, I don't know what they liked about it.
• Creator's Oddball: This and Hellfire (1989) are the only two horizontal shmups made by Toaplan, while the other 15 shmups they produced are vertical.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The rights to to Toaplan's library including Zero Wing have been a mystery for a very long time ever since Toaplan closed its doors, factoring into why it and its port haven't had an official rerelease for three decades despite the notorious "All Your Base" meme. Currently, the rights, along with that of the rest of Toaplan's catalog, belong to Tatsujin, a company founded by a Toaplan ex-employee. In 2020, American publisher Retro-Bit managed to sort out the rights and re-released the Genesis/Mega Drive port, marking its first ever export in North America, as a Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition... of Genesis/Mega Drive cartridges for original consoles.
  • As of June 2022, the game has been released on Nintendo Switch as part of the Sega Genesis Online service.
  • In February 2023, the game, along with a few Toaplan classics, has been released on Steam and GOG.
  • In July 2023, Zero Wing is one of two featured games in the Zero Fire Compilation Re-release by M2, alongside Hellfire.
• Late Export for You: The 1991 Genesis/Mega Drive port was released in Europe in 1992 and, as stated above, in North America in 2020. The infamous introduction is in this version.
• Meme Acknowledgement: The intro cutscene including the infamous "All your base..." meme has been acknowledged by the game's later publishers and rights owners (due to rights issues with Toaplan's catalog, this took about 20 years):
  • More than half of this game’s segment in the Nintendo Switch Online trailer is its infamous intro, stopping at the ever famous line to show a scant few seconds of gameplay. Nintendo's official PR statement about the game also ends with "For Great Justice!"
  • "All your base" was prominently used in the marketing for the Steam version. A post-launch update even adds a remake of the intro cutscene it's from.
• No Export for You:
  • The PC Engine CD-ROM² port was released in Japan only.
  • The Toaplan Arcade Garage / M2 ShotTriggers Compilation Re-release, which includes this game and several ports thereof including the above-mentioned PC Engine port, was released only in Japan.
• Referenced by...: Now has its own page.

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