Fantasy Zone
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 Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.
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Fantasy Zone is a 1986 arcade video game by Sega, and the first game in the Fantasy Zone series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy invasion in the titular group of planets. The game contains a number of features atypical of the traditional scrolling shooter. The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as Sega's first mascot character.
Plot
Many years ago, there was a "Fantasy Zone" beyond the universe. The hero Opa-Opa (this is you) has risen determinedly to protect this Fantasy Zone from the evil hands of the enemy.
It is now Space Year 6216. The official currency between the planets was disturbed, and all the planets fell into panic. From the official investigation of the Space Association (Space Guild), it was found that someone manipulated the Menon aliens, made them steal foreign currency, and used it to build a huge fortress in the Fantasy Zone.
In order to thwart the enemy's ambitions, Opa-Opa immediately heads for the Fantasy Zone, but...
Why It's A Fantasy
- The graphics are impressive for the time, as it is very colorful, detailled and look still great to this day, no matter the version, it will never be ugly graphically at all.
- The Master System port also had extremely good graphics for a 1986 Master System game, sinve it is just as detailled and colorful as the Arcade original, thus it would have been a great way to advertise the Master System with this game along with Alex Kidd to impress customers and having more sales.
- The sprite work is nice, and also is very memorable, due to being simple but good looking, this is especially true with the Opa-Opa sprite that is one of the best sprite of the game.
- Tight and responsive controls, the controls always respond when you use them, and they are very simple to learn, you had two buttons for both the shooting and the bombs, no matter the version, the controls will always be responsive and solid enough to make the game fun.
- Great characters design, especially Opa-Opa himself.
- The Master System and PS2 versions are unique in their own way:
- The Master System version is way easier than the other versions, and the shop is less expensive than the other versions, also some of the bosses got reworked because of console limitation, and some of these are actually better than the original bosses.
- The PS2 remake is quite good and probably the best Sega Age game, since it is in 2.5D instead of being in 2D, and there are new levels and some levels that take elements from the cancelled Space Fantasy Zone game, which is neat.
- Fun gameplay, that is very fast paced and even had some strategy in it, this is especially true when you get upgraded, and the levels also are very fun for the most parts despite how hard and short they are.
- Great soundtrack that sound very catchy and is memorable, much like Doraemon on the Famicom.
- Great bosses.
- There's upgrades that you can buy in the stores, and these ranges from new weapons to upgrades on your bombs, or the smart bombs, most of these are needed to make the game easier and to defeat the bosses easily.
- Awesome boss rush that is yet simple but pretty good, and would be a staple in the series, since you can buy upgrades before starting and the bosses aren't more difficult than usual, well, for most versions.
- The game overall popularised the cute 'em up genre and also the boss rush trend, and these would be exploited a lot in the 90s, thank to this game, and thus making it an important game despite being forgotten nowadays.
Bad Qualities
- While most of the ports are good, the NES port by Tengen is terrible, as it downgrade the framerate, the graphics (though they are still decent), the controls and difficulty balance, and is a major insult to the Sunsoft Famicom port.
- While still a fun game, the game at one point can become extremely hard in the later levels, especially in the Arcade version, where it is so hard that lot of peoples will had a hard time until they do save state or even cheats.
- In fact the Arcade version had many difficulty problems.
- The bosses sometime are extremely annoying and painful to beat, since their attacks are fast and could be very hard to dodge, and the fact that you die in 1 hit doesn't help either.
- In some levels, especially the later ones, the enemies can move horribly fast to the point of being almost impossible to dodge until you're a pro in this game, and sometime there are way too much enemies and that could result in a easy death.
- In fact the Arcade version had many difficulty problems.
- There are no continues, even in the Arcade version,this is a problem considering BQ#2.
- While the ending isn't bad and actually good, it is a bit too dark, since it do say that Opa-Opa killed his own father, though fortunately he didn't since he returned in Fantasy Zone 2.
- When you die, you lose all of your upgrades, which will be a problem in all the games of the franchise.
Reception
Upon release, Fantasy Zone received positive reviews by critics and players, and is considered to be one of the most unique shoot 'em up of it's time.
Trivia
- As stated before, Opa-Opa is Sega first mascot before Alex Kidd.