Developer: Bits Laboratory Publisher: NEC Released: 1989 Genre:: Shooter
I’ve loved most of Sega’s major arcade games dating back to the late 80s but the two that I have the least attachment to are Hang-On and Fantasy Zone. In the case of Fantasy Zone that would be because I came to the game late. My first exposure to the game came from the Tengen black cartridge for the NES. While that version was decent it only captured a fraction of what made the game great. The Turbo Grafx-16 port is one of the best versions of the game and a solid romp for shooter fans.
The first thing you’ll notice about the game is its presentation. The alien worlds look like someone’s weird acid trip come to life. Each world definitely lives up to the word alien as the creatures and scenery almost defy description. It is beautiful in its weirdness and manages to avoid the standard video game tropes when it comes to level design. The TG-16 version is a pretty good match when it comes to richness in color, big bosses and detail in its backgrounds. Something had to be sacrificed and that would be the parallax scrolling unfortunately. Otherwise it would have been near perfect.
Fantasy Zone has more in common with Defender than your typical shooter. As Opa Opa you have a set number of enemy generators to destroy to face the end level boss. The simple controls are easy to learn with the one caveat being your forward momentum; you never stop. This is annoying as it is easy to run into enemies since the screen can’t keep up. But as frustrating as it is you get used to it. The map is free roaming and loops around. Thankfully there is no clock which allows you to milk the levels for gold. To a degree control the game’s pace. Overall this is an arcade game though which means that it is short. Despite its eight levels a reasonably skilled player will blow through it in 15-20 minutes. I like the content I just wish there was more of it.
Fantasy Zone differs from most shooters in that you must purchase your power-ups. These items fall into three categories: engines for speed, bombs for ground targets and special weapons. The different engines come with a number of trade-offs to consider. Faster engines enable you to scoop up coins quicker but will also cause you to fly into random enemies. Slower engines allow more maneuverability but obviously are not much for speed. Truthfully I didn’t bother with the different bombs that much. They are not very good and the other weapons are so much more powerful.
There are only a few weapons available but all are very powerful. The wide beam, laser beam, and 7-way shot are your only options but boy are they effective. The 7-way shot in particular covers such a wide swathe you can clear levels fast with a modicum of skill. The only drawback to these weapons is that they last such a short time. You can get around this somewhat by buying more than one weapon; once the current option runs out a balloon will appear enabling you to switch. This does get prohibitively expensive however. You will rarely enter a boss battle with one due to the way shops are paced. I would have preferred a longer weapon duration but considering this is an arcade game I can kind of see why it is this way.
The difficulty is higher than you would expect considering the game’s cheerful presentation. Aside from the cheap deaths brought on by the slow scrolling you’ll spend a large portion of time relying on the default cannon since special weapons last for such a brief period. It isn’t so bad when dealing with normal enemies but is a bit unfair during boss battles. Some of the later bosses are incredibly aggressive (specifically the boss of Pocarius) and having to deal with them using a pea shooter feels like an artificial challenge. Gold is fairly balanced so you can purchase extra lives and weapons frequently but the cost rises each time. Smart players will wait until the end to buy extra lives, especially since there are no continues or passwords.
In Closing
Fantasy Zone is a pretty good port of a solid game. As much as I like it it has the misfortune of being on a system with a very strong shooter library. As good as Fantasy Zone is I don’t see most picking it up over Blazing Lazers or Super Star Soldier unless they have nostalgia for the arcade game. It’s a bit sad but that is reality.
