The team at M2 continues their highly commendable job of revitalizing and re-presenting Sega classics of old. Last week, we got the release of two more Sega Ages classics on the Switch: Fantasy Zone and Shinobi. The latter game I was quite familiar with and still own my original boxed copy of on the Sega Master System. But Fantasy Zone? I had heard of it, always appreciated its bright pastel color design as being something fresh and different at the time of its original release thirty-five years ago, but I actually never played it, until now.
Fantasy Zone would at first glance appear to be a pretty normal left-to-right side-scrolling shoot’em up (SHMUP) in the vein of Gradius that it was created to compete against, and in some respects it is certainly that type of game. Fantasy Zone did more than just change up the presentation style with cute colors and characters, including the little ship named Opa-Opa. The gameplay actually had several things in a SHMUP that I don’t believe I had encountered before, such as giving the player the ability to go back and forth to find enemy bases to destroy; reminded me of Choplifter a little bit in that regard actually. Anyhow, players are tasked with using their blasters and bombs to take out the enemy bases and ships, collecting money along the way to spend at stores to purchase power-ups and weapons. These come in handy against the bosses who are challenging across the eight levels that make up Fantasy Zone.
Having not played Fantasy Zone in any capacity before — arcade, Sega Master, or even the PC Engine release — it was a cool experience to play this sort of hidden or forgotten gem so many years later. And, knowing the pride and quality that M2 puts into these Sega Ages releases, just like they used to do on the 3DS for the 3D Classics games, I knew I was playing a faithful representation of Fantasy Zone and that was special. Even beyond that, you have the curated, amazing extra effort that M2 puts into Sega Ages releases and that once again shows with Fantasy Zone. Though it would have been great if they had included at least the Sega Master version of the game, you still get some impressive goodies here including 4:3 and 16:9 support as well as various screen filters. That’s nice and all, but the Upa-Upa mode that (having read about it) was first debuted on the 3DS’ 3D Classics release of this game returns here. This allows you to play the game with a Opa-Opas brother, and it nixes all of the item shops but collecting and spending gold is still vitally important. Instead of having to stop in at the shops, you have access to all weapons assuming you have the gold enough to “purchase” and use them. This takes the original gameplay and puts a pretty cool twist on it and gives ample reason for additional replay time. There is also a Time Attack offering that I dabbled with just for a few minutes. Of note, online leaderboard support is included, too.
In sum, and it should hardly come as a surprise, Sega Ages: Fantasy Zone is another solid release that retro gamers should strongly consider picking up.
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