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ファンタジーゾーン
©Sega 1986
©NEC Avenue 1988
Release : 1988-10-14 (¥4900)
HuCard (2 Mbits) H49G-1001
Shooter / Horizontal
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Released in America as
FANTASY ZONE
( TGX020017)
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Fantasy zone is a side scrolling shooter by NEC Avenue,
conversion of Sega's arcade game originally released in 1986. The player takes
control of a cute little flying ship called Opa-Opa and his mission is to restore
peace to Fantasy Zone and to find out who is behind the invasion. Fantasy Zone
actually borrows some core gameplay mechanics from Atari's Defender and Opa
must destroy a given number of bases in each stage in order to proceed to the boss.
Opa can use to different weapons - the first one is a standard vulcan-twin-gun that fires
quickly and decimates enemies, the second one is a powerful bomb that can only be dropped downwards.
Defeated foes drop coins that the player can collect to purchase upgrades in various shops hidden
inside red floating balloons. There, Opa can purchase goods such as speed boosts
(big wings, jet engine, turbo engine...), extra lives, upgrade his main weapons
(wide beams, laser beams, 7 ways shots...) or his bombs
(twin bombs, smart bombs...). New weapons, however, have a time limit and
need to be purchased again at a higher cost.
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Fantasy Zone is an arcade game originally released by Sega in 1986 (Picture on the left).
It was later ported to countless home systems such as Sega Master System (1986),
Famicom (1987), MSX (1987), PC Engine (1988), X68000 (1989),
Sega Game Gear (1991). A sequel called Fantasy Zone II Opa-Opa no Namida was
released in 1987 and was also ported to several home systems of the time such as
Sega Master System (1987), Famicom (1988), MSX (1989) and included
new features such as the warps and a sort of life bar - the arcade game however
used a scaled down version of the hardware and doesn't look as good as the first episode.
Two spin-offs followed and took the franchise on radically different paths - Opa Opa
(aka Fantasy Zone The Maze in the west) was a maze game influenced by Pac Man
and released for the arcade and Sega Master System and Galactic Protector was a
shooter where Opa Opa had to protect planet Earth by spinning around it.
Various other games exist in the series - Fantasy Zone (Sega Game Gear, 1991),
Super Fantasy Zone (Megadrive, 1992) and the unreleased Space Fantasy Zone (PC Engine CDRom²).
Interestingly, two compilations were released for Sony's Playstation 2 -
Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 3: Fantasy Zone came out in 2003 and included a 2D/3D makeover.
Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 33: Fantasy Zone Complete Collection was released in 2008 and
featured most of the early Fantasy Zone games and an 'enhanced' version of
Fantasy Zone II Opa-Opa no Namida - a sort of homage to the game and to the way
it would have looked if Sega had taken advantage of their arcade hardware back in 1987.
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Teaser text from the American version:
An evile force has overcome this beautiful land of awesome colors and peaceful people.
Plundering Golden Rubicom coins, your enemy is an intergalactic band of thieves. Armed
with cannon and bombs, you must recover the stolen coins to buy expanded powers. But
be careful! The alien Super Boss waits in ambush. restore order to the Federation or kiss
the galaxy's favorite vacation place good-bye!
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Game Staff (Copied from the game's documentation) :
Producer
Shigenobu Nanbu
Director
Toshio Tabeta
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Assistant Director
Kouji Matsuda
Programer
Bit's MASAS.
Graphic Designer
Bit's-Tadashi Sou
Toshio Tabeta
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Rescorer
Yukihiro Too
Assistants
Takashi Ozama
Kaoru Murohoshi
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Special Thanks To
Noriyuki Watanabe
Hiroshi Fukuda
Takako Aoki
Yoshiko Ikeda
©SEGA 1986
©NEC Avenue 1988
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O
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Click on picture to enlarge |
S
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INVINCIBILITY
During the game, pause (RUN) and press
(I) once, (II) twince, (UP) 3 times, (down) 4 times,
(RIGHT) 5 times and (LEFT) 6 times. Unpause the game (RUN)
and you are now invincible. You must repeat this tip
for every new stage.
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LK
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cosmos99
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P
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Fantasy zone is a fun and playable shooter. The first thing
that strike the eye are the surreal, yet imaginative, graphics. It's not
for everyone, granted, but if you like candy and marshmallow graphics
(if this does make any sense) then Fantasy zone is right for you.
Fantasy Zone is unique and hides a tough shooter underneath a façade
of brightly colored scenery and cute enemies. I must warn you, the sweet exterior
hides a devious interior and the game will be hard on you. Opa Opa has a
sort of inertia and you have to anticipate your actions in order to fly him where
you want. You sort of get used to this feature after a while but it never really
became second nature to me. But all in all, Fantasy zone is a really cool
game that has aged remarkably well - the game's ending is quite a surprise
too but I won't spoil it here.
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Here is another gem for the PC Engine system, technically polished,
colorful with an excellent soundtrack - as long as cotton-candy is
your cup of tea though ^^ but if it does then the game is a treat. One dark
spot, however, is the high difficulty level and the lack of continues (which is
a plague common to a many PC Engine games...), but cheating
(pause -pause -pause ^^ and the cheat code) and perseverance can get you to
see the end of this one, and believe me, this is totally worth it !
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