The year is 6216.
Your name is "Opa-Opa."
Your mission? Racapture the Fantasy Zone!
The next game in my TurboGrafx journey is Fantasy Zone!
Fantasy Zone was originally an arcade game developed by Sega and released in arcades in 1986. Along with Twin-Bee it helped start the "cute 'em up" genre of cutesy-themed shoot em ups.
You can see some of my gameplay from the arcade version in the following YouTube video:
Ports of Fantasy Zone were released on several home consoles, including Sega's own Master System, the NES and the TurboGrafx-16.
In Fantasy Zone, the player pilots their ship left or right across the screen, similar to the arcade classic Defender, and looks for "base" enemies that must be eliminated before the stage boss appears.
As enemies are defeated they drop coins which can then be used to purchase in-game powerups that range from speed boosts to more powerful cannons, smart bombs, and even extra lives.
Once the "base" monsters are all defeated, the music changes and the stage boss appears. Upon defeating the stage boss the player moves onto the next stage.
This is true for all levels in the game, except for the final level, which is structured as a boss rush, having the player defeat all of the bosses in a row, one right after the other.
Once all previous bosses have been defeated, the player then faces the true final boss. If this all sounds pretty difficult, it's because it is. While Fantasy Zone starts out fairly easy, it certainly gets difficult by the end.
You can see some of my gameplay of the TurboGrafx version of Fantasy Zone in the YouTube video below:
While the TurboGrafx is the best home port of the game, I would say the NES version is also very solid, even if it doesn't compare graphically.
You can see some of my gameplay from the NES version in the YouTube video below:
In terms of home console ports, however, the least enjoyable version (in my opinion) is the Sega Master System version. While the other ports of the game are highly playable, the Master System version has quite a few issues, including that some enemies don't have movement animations (like the "base" monsters on the first stage) and this, along with the color of the backgrounds, makes them almost blend in, and leads to certain death.
Add to that the fact that the ship just doesn't seem as mobile and the first boss has an absolutely brutal bullet spread, and I never even made it past the first boss, which is certainly not true for the other versions.
You can see some of my gameplay from the Sega Master System version in the YouTube video below:
One thing I found is that if you enable the invincibility cheat code (listed below) you can really sail through the entire game and its pretty fun as a novelty. Not only are you invincible, but simply making contact with your ship makes all normal enemies die, so you can just fly around the levels crashing into everything until the boss appears. Now you can't insta-kill bosses, but you can sit right in front of them and unload with all your weapons and their shots won't hurt you at all.
Overall that's certainly not the way the game is meant to be played, but I thought it was pretty fun to sail through the whole game that way. At least I got to see everything. Oh, and by the way, if you are going to try it, just remember you have to input the code each time you start a new stage.
Fantasy Zone Cheat!
To enable invincibility, plus enable your ship to kill non-boss enemies on contact, pause the game and enter the following code:
press II, press I, press Up three times, press Down four times, press Right five times, and then press Left six times
If done correctly you'll hear a blip sound and your ship will be invincible for the stage you are on. Note that you'll have to reenter the code when the next stage starts, AND bosses don't seem to take damage from contact with your ship. You'll still need to shoot them, but you can get up close and personal and unload both your twin shot and bombs using the turbo function for utter destruction.
Now that I've played Fantasy Zone, the next game on my TurboGrafx journey will be...
Galaga '90!
Until next time Turbo Troops!
There's also an updated version of Fantasy Zone on the TurboGrafx Mini called Near Arcade version. You might want to check that out sometime as it's closer to the arcade version, especially music sounds great. There's also Near Arcade versions of Gradius and Salamander and a few other hidden games that you can access when doing button combinations on the TurboGrafx Mini.
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