Fantasy Zone (NES, Tengen)
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| Fantasy Zone (NES, Tengen) | ||||||||||||
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 Come to see glitchy graphics in the zone called fantasy.
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Fantasy Zone is a 1986 arcade game developed and published by Sega, and it's the first game in the Fantasy Zone series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the NES. This one had two versions, the licensed one from Sunsoft released only in Japan and the unlicensed one from Tengen. While the Sunsoft version is well received, the Tengen version is infamously known for its many problems.
Why It’s a Bad Fantasy
- For starter, this port is filled with glitchs that ruin the game completely, or even suffer from some other problems that are so bad that it will make this port incredibly frustrating and tedious to play, despite being a bit easier than the Sunsoft version, these will be talked about in the next pointers.
- Because of the large amount of sprites (enemies, Opa-Opa and enemy shots) on screen, the game will suffer a lot of slowdowns. This is more noticeable in boss battles.
- Because of the massive and frequent slowdowns, sometimes using turbo buttons will not make any effect, as the ship will fire in single mode. This also holds true for controllers and/or emulators with rapid-fire functions, as the controller(s) acts too fast than the game engine itself.
- As stated in WIABF#1, there's a huge lot of glitchs, and while some we're present in the original version, it wasn't to this extend, in fact there is a lot of list, making the game feeling like it wasn't finished at all.
- The graphics, while they look decent, are the worst offender for how glitchy the game is, since they will always flickering and worse, it will shudder, making it for some cheap deaths and some of the most frustrating moments of the entire game, and it isn't even a joke.
- Some of the bosses had collision issues, as sometime it look like you did hit them but they didn't get hit, this is especially easy to see in the final boss of the game that is the worst boss, and is miles worst than in the Arcade and Sunsoft version.
- The enemies shots sometime blend with the backgrounds, making you having cheap deaths in the worst way ever possible, and also this isn't helped by the fact that the shots sprites is incredibly small, making it even worse.
- Absolutely atrocious hit-detection that is so much worse than the other versions of the game, as sometime it look like you will hit a boss or an enemy but they doesn't get any contact with your attacks, despite clearly looking like they got hit, but this isn't even the worst, the absolute worst part of it is when you escape from an enemy that stand, in which it doesn't look like it hit you, but it did and you die, making it for a horribly frustrating game that is nearly unplayable thank to this.
- Even if you are using an engine, Opa-Opa will move really slow in a boss battle.
- The bosses, instead of dropping coins when they die, they drop money bags and while it isn't a bad thing, the bad part id that if you don't have an engine, it will be very hard to pick them all up, if not impossible.
- Speaking of the engines, they are almost necessary for further levels and bosses, as the game can become extremely hard or even impossible to beat without them and taking into account that the store appears rarely, this is a really big problem.
- Unlike the Sunsoft and Arcade versions, the title is not animated, which is dissapointing, and is a bit unnaceptable considering that the Sunsoft version came out in 1987 and this port coming in 1989, so it doesn't really make senses that it isn't animated.
- Instead of pressing start to pause, you press select, this is incredibly akward since you will never know this, and this just doesn't work.
- The box art is pretty ugly and it doesn't resemble Opa-Opa in-game, also it had a terrible art style, not just for Opa-Opa but also for the backgrounds.
- There is no auto-fire function by default and it can get really tiring for your thumb to press B a lot of times, and this isn't helped by the fact that the shoot here are underpowered, compared to the other versions, and also this will make the game harder.
- While the graphics are decent, they have a few problems.
- They are very glitchy, as stated before.
- The colors palette is not as good as the Arcade version or even the Sunsoft Famicom port, since some of the colors are washed out and some of the sprites are overall weaker than both of these versions.
- Some of the backgrounds can be bad at times, such as in some of the boss fights.
- The game will begin right away after pressing Start, giving you very little reaction time, much like some games from Action 52.
- Some enemies can pop-out outside of the screen borderlines instantly and it can catch you off guard very often, this make for some very frustrating moments, and while the other versions had this too, it wasn't to this extend like here.
- The store appears rarely and if you die, it will not appear until you get to the next level, lose a single life or reset the game.
Redeeming Qualities
- Despite WIABF#12, the graphics are fairly decent for the times, since it still look colorful and detailled.
- The soundtrack is really good and pleasing to listen to; it also is even better than the Sunsoft version and could be the best part of the game.
- Instead of destroying eight or ten enemy generators per level like the other versions, here you only need to destroy six of them, making the game less unbalanced in difficulty.
Reception
While the other versions received positive reviews, this Tengen port received negative reviews by critics and players and is considered to be the worst version of the game due to how glitchy it is, or for being more frustrating.
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