Comix Zone 1995
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
1 day
Last played
May 7, 2022
Platforms Played
Comix Zone is something I really wish I could love rather than mildly enjoy, it's entire presentation is something to behold and such a fantastic representation of 90s comics with it's overly roided up superheroes, mutants, green slime, swearing and dirty grunge music.
The Genesis' hardware feels tailored made to run a game like this. It's more limited color palette and chunkier graphics only manages to make it look even edgier and aid in it's comic book visuals, and then there's Howard Drossin's fucking amazing soundtrack that takes advantage of the hardware's rough sound to produce an incredible grunge atmosphere. By the way, same guy made the Sonic Spinball music that everyone always memes about. Enjoy that info. The voice clarity is also shockingly nice for the Genesis, everything from Sketch Turner going "oh yeeeah!" at the end of a stage to a guy screaming when he's defeated sounds fantastic.
"Your kung fu is good!"
The game even has it's own CD album with vocals and live instruments, it's really fucking cool.
The game itself plays like a blend of both beat'em up and adventure, it's something I feel can totally work. But what absolutely fucks the game of course is the terrible punishing difficulty and heavy reliance on memorization in the last episode. No doubt the "War on rentals" mentality which also claimed the life of the horrific localization of Bare Knuckle III, and was probably pushed even moreso since the game only has six stages. The sparsity of the iced tea (health potion) power up, no health refill between sub-stages and the fact you take scratch damage from punching objects out of your way just adds up way too quickly, especially when bosses can absolutely decimate you and throw you right back at the title screen with your ONE LIFE.
Sometimes you can continue, but I think Mortis only lets you try again on like 2-1 and 3-1.
The execution was a bit botched especially with making the player memorize where to find items with Roadkill to use for puzzle-solving, but I do think Comix Zone is a fun game to try just for it's vibe.
Once again, presentation goes a long fucking way.
The Genesis' hardware feels tailored made to run a game like this. It's more limited color palette and chunkier graphics only manages to make it look even edgier and aid in it's comic book visuals, and then there's Howard Drossin's fucking amazing soundtrack that takes advantage of the hardware's rough sound to produce an incredible grunge atmosphere. By the way, same guy made the Sonic Spinball music that everyone always memes about. Enjoy that info. The voice clarity is also shockingly nice for the Genesis, everything from Sketch Turner going "oh yeeeah!" at the end of a stage to a guy screaming when he's defeated sounds fantastic.
"Your kung fu is good!"
The game even has it's own CD album with vocals and live instruments, it's really fucking cool.
The game itself plays like a blend of both beat'em up and adventure, it's something I feel can totally work. But what absolutely fucks the game of course is the terrible punishing difficulty and heavy reliance on memorization in the last episode. No doubt the "War on rentals" mentality which also claimed the life of the horrific localization of Bare Knuckle III, and was probably pushed even moreso since the game only has six stages. The sparsity of the iced tea (health potion) power up, no health refill between sub-stages and the fact you take scratch damage from punching objects out of your way just adds up way too quickly, especially when bosses can absolutely decimate you and throw you right back at the title screen with your ONE LIFE.
Sometimes you can continue, but I think Mortis only lets you try again on like 2-1 and 3-1.
The execution was a bit botched especially with making the player memorize where to find items with Roadkill to use for puzzle-solving, but I do think Comix Zone is a fun game to try just for it's vibe.
Once again, presentation goes a long fucking way.