I remember after the meme became popular around 2000 or so I was randomly playing my Megadrive, and one of the games I had was Zero Wing. It's pretty alright, but the eggplants at the end are weird.
My brain refuses to accept that the amount of time since the Zero Wing meme appeared to the present day is longer than from when Mega Drive Zero Wing came out to when the meme appeared.
Damn good game. I think the ability to Galaga-beam small enemies was a clever idea and I think went a long way in keeping it from just feeling like an R-type derivative. Genesis port is a significant improvement on the arcade in most respects.