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.
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.