It took a while for me to remember play this since I mixed the name up with Space Harrier (Welcome to the Fantasy Zone!) and the character with Twinbee so I kept thinking I played it already.

It's a pretty game that sounds well and has a great trippy aesthetic, but everything that makes it an arcade game is also everything that hurts it. Your ship is always moving meaning you have to account for that in your positioning. Bullets can flurry at you from the other side of the screen without you even knowing they are coming. Hitboxes also aren't exactly lenient, meaning one touch is your doom.

It's also a what I want to call "Momentum shmup". As in, if you manage to get the ball rolling you're good to go, but if you don't then you're out of luck, especially in later levels where even with modern gaming's rapid fire (a rapid fire weapon was an upgrade but imagine the pain of pressing shoot every time you wanted to fire) the main ships are super bulky as you're barraged with homing shots from all angles. You also need money to buy upgrades, which you get by going to the ground after defeating enemies. But if you're fast, you'll get more money. Play the stage slowly, and you won't make all that much. In the shop itself you have very little time to actually think, as you only have 30 or 10 seconds seemingly based on how the game feels. That doesn't acocunt for cursor navigation time to even click and buy your item, and the items aren't even all on one screen, it has to scroll too! You aren't allowed to use Continues in Lost Judgement, but I doubt I could 1CC it like this.

Also to any shmup with foreground elements hazards can hide behind: Stop doing that.

Back when I played TwinBee, I had a pretty good time with it, as my first proper experience with a cute-’em-up, but at the same time, it was pretty basic for a cute-’em-up, and not something that I would think of coming back to afterwards. But then, I discovered Fantasy Zone existed, I played it, and I decided that TwinBee is too boring for me, and Fantasy Zone was enough to fulfill my needs and desires way more in comparison. I’m sorry TwinBee, but it was just never going to work out for us in the end, because, I mean… do you SEE what you are up against? It’s not you, it’s me. So yeah, I really fucking enjoyed Fantasy Zone, and I thought that it was great. It may not do too much to innovate the genre, and there were frustrations here or there with the game, but that didn’t stop me from having a great time throughout most of it.

The story is “aliens are attacking, go stop them”, which is basic enough, but there is a twist that you wouldn’t expect for this type of game, and while it is ridiculous and somewhat dumb, it did catch me by surprise, and it did make me feel bad for Opa-Opa (I mean, as bad as one could possibly feel about a ship with pegasus wings), the graphics and art style are very well done, and super appealing, being just as weird and goofy as this game should be, the music pretty good, even if the sound effects can drown it out at times, the control is pretty solid, being similar to other shoot-’em-ups at the time, and it works as well as it should, and the game is your usual take on the genre, while throwing in several elements to make it stand out from other games at the time.

The game is a horizontal cute-’em-up, where you take control of Opa-Opa, a sentient flying and walking spaceship (I have way too many questions that will never be answered), you fly around in a Defender-like fashion, shooting plenty of enemies and enemy bases, getting plenty of money and helpful items/upgrades along the way, and taking down a set of colorful, whacky bosses that stand in your way. It’s all pretty familiar, but it is all enhanced by plenty of additional graphical and gameplay elements. On the graphics side, everything looks so vibrant and colorful, which is impressive for the time, and I love the artstyle and colors much more then, say, what TwinBee had to offer, even if that was also very well done in the graphics department.

In terms of the gameplay additions, that’s where the game ultimately wins me over. You have your basic weapons, such as your regular dual shot and bombs, while moving at a snails pace, but, as you defeat enemies, you can collect a buttload of money, and whenever you see the appropriate balloon, you can enter a shop and purchase a lot of different upgrades. These upgrades can increase your speed and mobility, with different engines and even wings, different weapons for you to try out, such as with lasers and a seven-way shot, and different types of bombs, like fire bombs and smart bombs. It doesn’t need to be said, but getting these upgrades and using them to your advantage is not only very helpful, but also EXTREMELY satisfying, with you being able to mow through plenty of enemies and bases with certain weapons. Yeah, the weapons have a limited amount of use at a time, and you lose them all when you die, which is pretty lame, but for the time you do get to use them, it is very helpful, and definitely worth the purchase.

Despite the fact that I am now a certified Fantasy Zone fan, I didn’t enjoy everything about the game. For the most part, I had a pretty good time, and the game wasn’t too challenging overall, but then you get to the last stage, where everything starts to go downhill. Not only does this stage only consist of a boss rush, which I don’t need to explain to you why it isn’t needed here, but the bosses are now harder then their original fights, which doesn’t sound too bad, but trust me, it was a pain to get through these fights again, especially with how fast they can start moving, making it almost impossible to win. Not to mention, you don’t get any gold from beating the bosses again this time, so if you die at all, and you lose all your weapons, you are pretty much fucked. If there were any other complaints that I could throw at the game, I would say that it also is a little repetitive, but that didn’t bother me that much, and even then, the last stage was enough to overshadow that little issue.

Overall, despite the final stage and boss rush being a load of garbage, the rest of the game was really fun, and I am glad that I finally decided to play this game after putting it off for months while thinking about it. For those who are a fan of space shooters, or those who wanna experience more of what classic Sega has to offer, then I highly recommend Fantasy Zone, as it is worth checking out, and it holds up extremely well to this day. Now, let’s just hope this level of quality is kept for the games following this, and Sega doesn’t… well, Sega it up, as they usually do.

Game #266