Developer: Pixel Publisher: Tengen Release: 1990 Genre: Shooter
Fantasy Zone was one of many Sega titles I played on the NES before learning they were Sega titles. Thanks Tengen. Even at the age of eight I was a proud console warrior and thought it was amusing to play the competition’s games on my little grey box. Ah to be young and dumb. While it does not compare to the excellent Master System and later Turbo Grafx ports the NES edition of Fantasy Zone appears to be a decent conversion. However in Japan a far superior port exists leaving the North American version an oddity.
The controls take some getting used to. Your ship is always in motion even when you are not taking direct control. The screen only scrolls when you approach the edge of the map and unfortunately in this version you must be right at the edge. The reduced enemy count makes this less of an issue but it is still annoying. You have two weapons, a twin laser and bombs. Although you fly Opa Opa can walk along the ground although his speed is greatly reduced.
The gameplay in Fantasy Zone has more in common with Defender than your traditional shooter. Every level is one continuous map that loops around. The goal is to destroy six bases in order to face the end level boss. Sadly the radar that indicates the location of bases is gone. But the levels are so small it makes little difference. In between regular enemies of all stripes and sizes spawn and drop coins once destroyed. These coins are for the shop that appears randomly to buy power-ups. Items fall in three categories; engine, bombs, and weapons. There are numerous options in each category and you can choose which ones to equip. Unfortunately you lose any upgrades when you die which is particularly brutal during a boss battle.
The item selection is not as abundant as it appears. There are more engines than weapons if you can believe it! Everyone likes a little speed but some of the choices available make the game nigh unplayable which reduces your options further. In addition there are only three weapons: lasers, wide beam, and the rare five-way shot. I am not a fan of the limited weapon duration. As soon as you leave the shop they last twenty seconds which is nothing. It is not as if they are so powerful that they break the game. And chances are you will enter every boss battle with the default twin laser as a result. There are different varieties of bombs but I will be honest, I rarely used them. In fact I went long stretches and forgot bombs were even in the game.
Because there are so few enemies the balance of the game is a bit off. There is no time limit so the natural inclination is to linger around to build up cash to buy power-ups. But the levels are so bare you have to actively seek them out. This is a far cry from the arcade game which was so intense it was scary. Under normal circumstances this means money would be hard to come by. But generators grant a lot and bosses drop plenty of money bags. After two levels you are more or less set for the rest of the game. You can destroy the six generators in two or three minutes making the game incredibly short. Boss battles present the only challenge, especially if you die. But overall this feels like a sanitized version of the original.
The graphics are an interesting point of discussion. Of the two versions Sunsoft’s game is closer to the arcade. Considering the difference in hardware the artists did an excellent job recreating the art and detail. Tengen’s game captures the spirit of the levels but removes a lot of detail. However the color palette is more vibrant. Unfortunately it suffers from terrible slowdown and flicker that affects gameplay. The flickering is so bad that during boss battles your shots will not display! I am surprised it was released in this state, it is very noticeable.
In Closing
Tengen did a respectable job with Fantasy Zone but the presence of a much better version of the game makes it obsolete. It would have been simpler to localize the Sunsoft version of the game but considering they were releasing unlicensed titles at the time I suppose it was impossible. There is no reason to bother with this version of the game at this point as better versions are easily available now.
