Originally titled "Fantasy Zone Gear: Opa Opa Jr. no Bōken", this game is technically a sequel to the first Fantasy Zone, but got released under the same name outside of Japan. Like the other Fantasy Zone titles, this is a side-scrolling shooter where you can fly through the levels in both directions, with a boss fight waiting after you destroyed all "base" enemies (they are bigger than the regular enemies and static). Along the way you can upgrade your ship in shops, if you collect enough coins from destroyed enemies.
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Very similar gameplay to the original title, but suffers from some slowdown.
Every game in this series so far has achieved such beautiful visuals on it's hardware and this one is no different. Just as fun as the original game and has alot of the same charm. Kicks ass
All you get for beating this is a “thanks for playing” screen. I actually missed the Freudian bullshit that comes with beating the first two for the SMS. Sometimes you really don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
"Fantasy Zone Gear", a handheld follow-up and not a port, but like Super and II (DX), the foundation and execution are near identical, with the differences being the content, imagery and foes that populate the dreamscape.
Unfortunately, Gear is probably the most butchered of the mainline entries, held back by both the Game Gear's limitations and Sega staff's unfamiliarity with the hardware's strengths. Constant slowdown, flicker, unintuitive hitboxes, screen crunch, and herky-jerky scrolling all exacerbate the original Arcade/MS game's weaknesses even further. Enemies are often totally unmemorable rehashes of other entries' popcorn and don't have the same aesthetic staying power. Bosses vary heavily in quality, from having almost nonexistent attack patterns to being incessant time wasters; Stage 5's boss only takes bomb damage, and if you grab the wrong bomb powerup, it can take nearly 8 times longer than expected to finish it.
There's still a few positives here though. Background art is gorgeous and really flexes the strengths the GG color palette had over MS and even arguably the early MD, and could easily pass for a pastel-coded SNES game with more detailed character sprites. And for a series' first, the new Back Shot weapon DOES NOT HAVE A TIME LIMIT. It doesn't cost much either, which makes you wonder if it was a last-minute game balance fix. At that rate they should've just removed the timers from all the weapons: It's a handheld game, who gives a shit if it's short and easy? Mario Land made a chungillion dollars.
I wouldn't play this again over the other Fantasy Zones but the charm makes up for it. 'Charm's an easy buzzword to throw around as a way to dish evanescent affection to games, but it's the fairest way to describe the form factor and thematics that set this apart from its peers. It's perfectly ok.
Unfortunately, Gear is probably the most butchered of the mainline entries, held back by both the Game Gear's limitations and Sega staff's unfamiliarity with the hardware's strengths. Constant slowdown, flicker, unintuitive hitboxes, screen crunch, and herky-jerky scrolling all exacerbate the original Arcade/MS game's weaknesses even further. Enemies are often totally unmemorable rehashes of other entries' popcorn and don't have the same aesthetic staying power. Bosses vary heavily in quality, from having almost nonexistent attack patterns to being incessant time wasters; Stage 5's boss only takes bomb damage, and if you grab the wrong bomb powerup, it can take nearly 8 times longer than expected to finish it.
There's still a few positives here though. Background art is gorgeous and really flexes the strengths the GG color palette had over MS and even arguably the early MD, and could easily pass for a pastel-coded SNES game with more detailed character sprites. And for a series' first, the new Back Shot weapon DOES NOT HAVE A TIME LIMIT. It doesn't cost much either, which makes you wonder if it was a last-minute game balance fix. At that rate they should've just removed the timers from all the weapons: It's a handheld game, who gives a shit if it's short and easy? Mario Land made a chungillion dollars.
I wouldn't play this again over the other Fantasy Zones but the charm makes up for it. 'Charm's an easy buzzword to throw around as a way to dish evanescent affection to games, but it's the fairest way to describe the form factor and thematics that set this apart from its peers. It's perfectly ok.