Sega Ages Fantasy Zone

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Fantasy Zone is a Shmup originally released to arcades in 1986. It 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.

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.

This release of the game includes an “Upa-Upa Mode” that fixes this problem… but replaces it with another. This mode does away with the shop entirely and allows players to swap between weapons whenever they choose, with all weapons beyond your starter weapon sapping your funds as they’re used. It’s an inventive system that does a great job of building on the core game’s shop… but unfortunately, this mode has a much greater difficulty level, with more enemies, projectiles coming at you from every direction, and a starter weapon that’s weaker than the one in the original version.

Because of the flaws in each of these systems, it’s hard to enjoy the most promising elements of the gameplay here, which is a shame because this was otherwise a pretty promising Shmup.

As usual, developer M2 has done a fantastic job with the port of this game – beyond the Upa-Upa mode, there’s also a new time attack mode with online leaderboards, the ability to switch between Japanese and US versions of the game, save states, replays, display options, and a music test mode. If you’re a fan of the original release, I don’t think you could ask for a better conversion on the Switch.

It’s a shame the game’s difficulty and some ill-conceived design issues prevent Fantasy Zone from truly meeting its potential. Fans of Shmups and those looking to enjoy the nostalgia of playing a genre classic may still find it worth their while, but most are probably better off leaving this game in the past.

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 a solid port with a good amount of bonus features, it’s ultimately still a game most will want to pass on.

Grade: C+

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