Like the last game, but now you can just get lost in all the warp zones, things move even faster, and this game has learned absolutely zero lessons of the last game, even down to the boss rush and final boss requiring the heavy weight to beat the game.

It's not learning anything from Fantasy Zone and slapping another gimmick on top that makes me rate this lower than the last.

Increased shop variety in that they're spread out across shops, but it's still a "good luck beating this without relying on it" game.

Played via Lost Judgement.

The sequel to Fantasy Zone is more Fantasy Zone. A lot more Fantasy Zone. Maybe too much more Fantasy Zone.

The core game is exactly the same—search horizontal scrolling levels for special enemies, which you have to destroy before fighting a boss—but this game shakes things up by adding warp icons that take you to new screens within levels. Every new screen multiplies the length by that much, and it can be tedious to navigate the warp system. The icons are always blue, and there's usually two on a screen—there's no way to tell where you're going without memorizing what each icon leads to, so you'll often jump from cleared screen to cleared screen looking for the screen that still has enemies to destroy on it. Even though the warps persistently take you to the same place, it feels like the Lost Woods or something because of how easy it is to get lost—the only distinguishing feature between the two jumps on each stage are if they're on the left or on the right. When you land in another stage from these jumps, you're somewhere away from the warp icons, so you can't really tell which one will take you back to the one you came from. This system makes the game really tedious—not only is there a lot more enemies to kill before you get to the next boss, but the warp system is confounding. I wish there was something in place to stop you from getting lost—either have the warp always take you to a level with enemies to kill, or use different colored warp icons so I can distinguish them easier. Once you kill all the enemies, the boss room unlocks—these have red warp icons, but you still have to navigate to the stage with the boss icon. There's no indication that you've killed all the required enemies either, so you might try the boss icon, find it doesn't work, then have to search the level for the remaining bad guys to kill.

The bosses themselves are as fun as the first one. They're usually pretty interesting shooting game bosses where you have to hit a weak spot or a bunch of weak spots to take them down. The exception is the final boss, which moves to the left and will crush you if you can't kill it fast enough, which you can't unless you're way better at this game than I am, or unless you're beefed up on upgrades before going into it. In general in this game it feels like buying upgrades is a lot more necessary than it was in the first game, as the required enemies are real bullet sponges for your regular attack but will melt away if you've got an expensive weapon. Money is never an issue, but its tedious to go back to the store constantly.

I have to say I like the sequel to the Fantasy Zone a bit less than I liked the original, but it's still bright and feels pretty fun, even if it gets a little tiresome. I played the Master System version, but the arcade version looks pretty different (and less tedious), so I might check that one out.

Another nice Egg Boy Shmup. DX might blow the Master System one out of the water but it's still very enjoyable, on par with the first arcade game.

Levels are a bit slower paced and more segmented than they were before; now you have to go through warpgates to be able to get rid of all the bases. Shops are also at fixed points rather than just coming in when the game feels like it. If you die, it's a bit tougher getting to where you were beforehand, so naturally it's way easier once you remember which gates lead to where. Also important are the Red and Blue bottles which are costly, but let you take more than one hit if you can find them.

The game gets really crowded from round 5 onwards like the first Fantasy Zone did, though even before you get to that point, you'll likely find yourself getting walled by bullets once or twice. It's kind of intense, but I eventually figured out how to put up with it! Also like the first game, you'll want to actually rely on special weapons more; it's really satisfying to get rid of half the bases in Chaprun with two or three Fire Ball shots, for instance.

Most of the bosses are easier than the stages for some reason, but they're still nice. Once you've made it to Wolfin, you could tear through like half of them with the aformentioned Fire Balls if you wanted to. You can actually beat the final boss without needing a special bomb this time, which is a plus.

Fantasy Zone II. Good game. Not much else to say.