Formation Z

The player controls a robot named Ixpel with the capability to transform into a jet fighter. The robot may move forwards, backwards and jump but cannot fly, and the fighter may travel anywhere on screen but has limited fuel in which to do so. Fuel status is indicated at the bottom right of the screen presented as numbers from 100 (fuel full) to 0 (fuel empty) which proceeds to decrease while playing as jet. When run out of fuel, the jet will fall but if the player is fighting where the ground is present he can revert to robot to avoid crashing (flying too low an altitude will still cause crash, however).

If the jet is above an ocean on the other hand, it will crash and the player loses a life. Also the fighter cannot revert to robot when it is flying too high an altitude (on the center top of the screen directly below the top score indicator will tell the player whether he can revert or not). The combination of two performances must be used to avoid obstacles, as well as to destroy any on-screen enemies for extra points. As with typical arcade games, the robot/fighter will die in one hit from anything.

According to the Japanese magazine Game Machine, Formation Z was only a moderate success in arcades.