ZuPaPa! is an arcade-style, comedic Elimination Platformer developed by short-lived Japanese company, Face, and published by SNK.
Players control a masked, waddling head-esque alien creature, the titular ZuPaPa (in two-player mode, ZuPaPa has a twin named ZuPiPi) across multiple levels, each with a different theme and all of them filled with enemy mooks ZuPaPa needs to defeat.
Like other arcade-based single-screen platformers at the time, ZuPaPa doesn't have much of a plot besides "defeat enemies and bosses"; unlike its contemporary competitors like Bubble Bobble or Snow Bros., instead of using projectiles ZuPaPa (and ZuPiPi) instead begin the levels locating and picking up tiny, Mini-Me version of themselves called Zooks, where they then throw at enemies. Landing enough hits turns a mook into an exploding projectile (called a Star Bomb) whose proximity deals with other surrounding enemies. As expected, players with good timing can complete stages in seconds.
Originally scheduled for a 1994 release, ZuPaPa was delayed before obtaining a 2001 release for arcades; it was ported decades later to the Nintendo Switch, Android, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.
This game contain examples of:
- Chest Monster: There's an enemy type in the last stage which resembles one of this. The arena seemingly contains multiple chests but no enemies, and then the chests begin moving.
- Circling Birdies: The Zooks will see circling stars if they suffer damage, but unlike ZuPaPa they're invincible and gets up unharmed shortly.
- Classical Movie Vampire: The haunted castle stage ends with battling one of these as the boss, looking like some Hammer movie vampire - pale skin, red cape, nice black suit and hair slicked backwards, etc.
- Equippable Ally: The Zooks. Your only means of defeating enemies is by throwing Zooks at them and turn them into Star Bombs.
- Faceless Eye: The space station's boss is a giant mechanical eye. Who can fire Eye Beams at you (either energy balls or a thick beam covering a straight line). And then it can produce (and withdraw) a skinny body from a lower hatch...
- Goomba Stomp: How the Zooks target enemies - a group stomp by a small cluster of Zooks that somehow hammers them into a Star Bomb ZuPaPa can then activate.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: In the horror-themed stage there's an enemy resembling a chibi-fied Jason Vorhees wielding a cleaver.
- Idle Animation: The individual Zooks, if not tagged in time or picked by ZuPaPaor ZuPiPi to be used against enemies, will dawdle around with a cute animation. Like juggling balls pulled from nowhere, sitting down to take a nap, yawning, tapdancing or practicing a victory pose.
- Inflating Body Gag: The giant teddy bear boss from the toy stage will comically inflate itself periodically to float to higher platforms, though this only make him more vulnerable to damage.
- Kabuki Theatre: Japan's boss, after you spend entire stages taking on ninja, sumo wrestlers, and animated Daruma dolls, turns out to be a giant Kabuki dancer.
- Man-Eating Plant: The rainforest/valley stage ends with facing a giant sentient fanged flower boss. It's chibi-fied like everything else in the game, of course.
- Mecha-Mooks: The last stage is sci-fi themed and set in a spaceship, where all your enemies are cute chibi robots.
- Ninja: An enemy in the Japan level. They're among the fastest mook-grade enemies and can leap between platforms with enough speed to rival ZuPaPa.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: Springboards shows up in plenty of levels, allowing you to access higher areas.
- Stalked by the Bell: Waste too much time on a level and the game will flash a "HURRY!" onscreen. When the timer hits zero, if there's any enemies left the game will send a chibi-Big Red Devil after you.
- Sumo Wrestling: There's a stage based on Japan with enemies resembling sumo wrestlers.
- Synchronization: Once tagged, the Zooks will follow ZuPaPa's movements almost perfectly, whether he's jumping or running. If separated (like falling off platforms or when ZuPaPa throws them at enemies) they're untagged and needs to be tagged again.
- "Test Your Strength" Game: One of the mini-levels between stages is a Hi-Striker, where ZuPaPa needs to throw Zooks to raise the bell enough causing bonus items to drop down.
- Toy Time: There's a toy-themed stage filled with living toys, aptly placed after the haunted castle level. With animated tin soldiers, toy trains, Cymbal Banging Monkeys and a chubby teddy bear boss. Yeah, this game's adorable.
- Waddling Head: ZuPaPa, ZuPiPi, and the Zooks are alien creatures resembling roly-poly giant heads with arms and legs.