3D Fantasy Zone

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1

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Review:

Fantasy Zone is a Shmup originally released in Arcades in 1986 and later ported to numerous other platforms over the years (including Nintendo Switch), with the 2015 Nintendo 3DS release of the game adding stereoscopic 3D. This game features bright, colorful levels, and gameplay that has you moving on a repeating landscape (like Defender and Choplifter) taking out enemy bases and fighting a boss.

Visually, Fantasy Zone stands out in the genre thanks to its colorful graphics and imaginative landscapes, and these visuals have aged pretty well more than three decades later. The game also has an upbeat, memorable soundtrack. Unfortunately, the Nintendo 3DS version runs into another problem because bullets and especially coins can be small and difficult to see, sometimes blending in with the background. As for the gameplay, it’s a bit hit and miss. The game makes use of an inventive mechanic where enemies drop coins that players can use to purchase power-ups from a shop at the beginning of each stage, doing so in a way that’s not quite like other upgrade systems I’ve seen. However, the flipside of that coin is that the weapons players can purchase have limited ammo, and players can’t swap weapons to conserve ammo, meaning that it’s pointless to buy a weapon to use against a stage boss since you’ll run out of ammo well before you get to the boss. The Nintendo 3DS release of the game adds a few extra features, such as the ability to play the game with different international versions, screen settings, button reassignments, save states, and some other features that are unlockable.

Overall, I really want to like Fantasy Zone, but as creative and appealing as it is, it suffers from frustrating issues that hold it back, including some problems with the Nintendo 3DS screen just being too small to be able to see things on the screen. I can see some people enjoying this Shmup, but it’s not one I recommend.

tl;dr – Fantasy Zone is a Shmup originally released to arcades in 1986, and some parts of it have aged pretty well, like its presentation. Other parts of the game, like its promising but frustrating upgrade system… not so much. While this is mostly a solid port with a good amount of features, the tiny screen can make it hard to see some gameplay elements. Overall, while it’s not terrible, this isn’t a game I recommend on Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: C

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