Merry Christmas! Yes, I'm quite early, about a week ahead. I hadn't planned these sprites for the 25th of this month, so I ended up posting them earlier. Actually, it's because I'm considering taking a break from the internet between the 22nd of this month and the 3rd of next month, some people call it a detox, I just call it giving my mind a rest ha ha ha.
Anyway, I wish you happy holidays this Christmas and at the turn of the year to 2026. Enjoy getting together with your family and friends, the older we get, the harder it is to gather everyone... Oh, I almost forgot, tomorrow is Friday and I still have my last post of 2025.
I went back to playing today and wow, what a huge Map 01. It's full of destructible walls with dark holes in them, many paths that feel like labyrinths. If I try to guide myself by the yellow map, I get lost, I need to press Start all the time to be sure where I'm going.
In Stage 04, there are three new enemies, the alien dog that looks like a doberman, a blue silhouette that throws grenades and an alien that, when it shoots you, reduces your speed, increasing the danger and forcing even more caution. There's also a new weapon, Snoman, which is the Flamethrower from the previous game.
I found a not very inviting door and an elevator to the north of the map and at the far east of the map an incredible train with the alien's underground city in the background. The textures are amazing, such a shame that there was never a complete version of the prototype. I took some screenshots to show below.
The train is accessible and must take you somewhere, but instead of taking it, I'm going to take the elevator to the north.
The elevator takes me to Map 02. Here the map is smaller and has more rooms with doors. I found a new weapon similar to the Flamethrower, but with the cool name Fire Dragon. After exploring the whole map, I only found another train. Instead of going back to Map 01, I'll take this train.
It drops me off at Map 03. I explore the map, killing all enemies, opening secret passages with ammo and equipment, then move on to the next train.
Now on Map 04, this place is infested with alien dogs, especially in closed rooms. Since I found a Bullet Proof Vest in the central room to the west, I took advantage of it and used the Rocket Launcher after open every door. This weapon is way too strong, but it damages you. After clearing everything, I went to restore my protection and headed to the train again.
Now on Map 05, there's a new weapon called Gunrock, it's a grenade launcher. If I pick it up, my Grenade ammo disappears and it only holds 10 rounds of Gunrock ammo, but it has the advantage of launching grenades far away, whereas throwing them by hand requires backing off to avoid taking damage. Here I find an elevator at the south of the map. I try to go through it, but there's a bug when going to Map 08 that throws me outside the map limits. It's like an error in a teleport event from one map to another in RPG Maker. So I go back to the train again.
The train then takes me back to Map 02.
In other words, its route is 02 ➡ 03 ➡ 04 ➡ 05 (bugged elevator to 08) ➡ 02.
That makes me go to Map 01 and take the other train, which leads me to Map 06. I ended up picking up one of the Flamethrowers, I should have taken it earlier. It's really worth using here against many enemies. After exploring Map 06, I went to the train.
It took me to Map 07. I had difficulties here, at this point in the stage I was already running low on ammo. After exploring the whole map, I entered an elevator and went through it, but it throws me into another Map 07 at the limits of the game. So I decide to go back to the train, but it takes me to Map 01. That is, this line is 01 ➡ 06 ➡ 07 (bugged elevator to another Map 07?) ➡ 01.
When trying to restart, I accidentally triggered the stage results screen, just press A, B and C at the same time on the map screen or during pause.
So we're stuck in this stage. If I knew how to access the game files, I might try to fix some of these bugs during the stages I mentioned. I even searched the internet to see if someone had done something like that and released modifications or passwords for all the maps, but no luck.
Crazy as always, I decided to go through the elevator that leads to Map 08. When trying to jump between maps, the character takes damage, so I let her die, chose another character, and then returned to Map 08, managing to move around it with the same weapons, but unfortunately outside the map. It's unfinished, and if I go to the far west, I suddenly get teleported to a closed room in the west where there’s a red X in the image, full of enemies and some items on the ground.
I decided to play the first build to recall the differences... There are some differences in the maps, like enemies outside the map, making it impossible to kill all enemies in Stage 01, differences in item placement on the ground and Stage 03 doesn't exist, from 02 we go straight to 04, with poor color palettes, red silhouette enemies and invisible enemies that throw grenades...
There's also Zero Tolerance Underground or Subway. I played, it's just one stage with nine maps. There's even an animated train passing through the station in the first map, but it doesn't work the same way as in Beyond, entering the train there takes you to other maps, which doesn't happen in Underground. The enemies and weapons are the same as in the original, the difference is the map structure and the wall textures to resemble a subway. They also increased the game's difficulty by making the worst weapon in the original the main one, a light tap of the fire button can result in two or three shots, wasting ammo, forcing constant resupply, accuracy is poor and they increased the game speed, making it harder to hit enemies and causing you to take a lot of damage quickly from just a few enemies.
It was a long playthrough of what could have become a franchise. So, to "record the achievement" of completing Zero Tolerance + Underground and almost Beyond Zero Tolerance, I decided to make pixel art of them, the characters I chose to complete the missions in both games.
I couldn't find concept art to create them, so I used references from their ID photos, the hands and legs shown in game and the final image from the first game. By the way, I didn't know this, but it was possible to play cooperatively with another Sega Genesis/Mega Drive via cable and the companion sprite that appears is the same sprite as the enemies in our corporation building who wear green and brown military uniforms.
People8_5~8, I decided to put all three together in one post, since they represent Christmas. It's strange to think that the RTP VX Ace has such a modern Character set for a medieval fantasy theme.
For Noel's design, I decided to add more detail, giving him visible eyes, a hat with dithering, gloves, a belt and black boots to create better contrast between the colors, the original has too much red.
For the Reindeer Costume, I wanted to enhance its texture and colors, I think I did a good job.
Santa Lady, this one seems special to the original author, I understand. The design followed the original with small differences in the white details of the outfit.
