Zybex is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up inspired by Side Arms and Nemesis/Gradius. The players took control of prisoners trying to win freedom from a galactic prison. At the end of each level they earned a crystal, opening access to the later levels of the game.

There are 16 levels in total, with numbers 2-12 immediately available after completing the first - the player can go through them in any order. However, levels 13-16 are locked until the player earns enough crystals.

The weapon system is quite unique - the player constantly fires, and the fire button is simply used to change the current weapon. The basic weapon is the Orbiter, which the player always has. Picking up weapon icons increases the power of a weapon by 1 up to the maximum of power level 4. Dying reduces the current weapon by 1 power level, or loses it if the weapon is power 1 (with the exception of the Orbiter). As the weapons get more power, their fire rate becomes faster and the bullets stronger. The five weapons are Orbiter, 8-way (upgrades from 2 to 4 to 6 to 8 way fire), Railgun (powerful single bullet which gets longer) Pulse (fires straight forward and gains diagonal fire at power 3/4) and Wall (another forward fire, which gains size).

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