Fantasy Zone is an arcade game developed by Yoji Ishii and released by Sega in 1986. For my review, I played the version ported to the Sega Master System. Fantasy Zone falls into the category of a side-scrolling or horizontally scrolling shooter in which the screen scrolls horizontally as the player moves. The protagonist is Opa-Opa, a sentient ship whose mission is to “rescue the ‘Fantasy Zone’ from its enemies.” To do this, Opa-Opa has the ability to fly up and down, as well as both right and left and shoot enemies trying to attack him. In each level, the goal is to destroy objects that generate the enemy creatures. When creatures and generators are destroyed, they drop coins which can be used to buy power-ups for both flight mechanics and weapons. Once all generators are destroyed, you move on to defeat the boss for that level. True to its name, Fantasy Zone features a background of surreal mountains and flowers and a plethora of small creatures to shoot.
One of the main mechanics in Fantasy Zone, and something that surprised me when I first played, is that Opa-Opa has the ability to fly both left and right. Prior to this time, almost all horizontal shooters had forced left to right scrolling. Additionally, the scrolling speeds up if you move left or right across the screen and stops entirely if you stand stationary on the ground. This control over the central movement of the game gives players a lot of choice in how they approach the game. For example, one could stand on the ground, where often enemies can’t reach you, and only fly up when it feels safe to do so. On the other end, one could zoom through a level, trying to do as much as possible as quick as possible to reduce the amount of time you have for an enemy to hit you. This customizable experience makes the game both easy enough that new players can enjoy but presents an optional challenge for those who want it.
As I played through the game, I recognized a lot of choices that seemed to draw from, or respond to, other popular media at the time. In creating Fantasy Zone, Ishii was asked to make a game to rival Konami’s scrolling shooter game Gradius (1985), a more classic space shooter. In doing this, Ishii borrowed mechanics from the earlier space shooter game Defender (1981) such as the left and right movement and the wrapping screen.
However, to set Fantasy Zone apart, starry backgrounds were replaced with the fantastical planet Menon. Instead of shooting ships, Opa-Opa must battle a wide variety of creatures and machines that look much more cute than scary. I think that the visuals featured in Fantasy Zone are one of its greatest assets. Rather than drawing from its side-shooter predecessors, the landscape and especially the enemies remind me more of those in the Mario universe. Both take place in a brightly colored, surrealist worlds. While maybe not intentional, I think that utilizing these colorful, fun, “Mario-like” graphics in a new format evoke some of the familiar feelings from playing Mario games and create a added layer of enjoyment. Visuals were very carefully chosen for the bosses at the end of each level. Ishii comments that he wanted Fantasy Zone to be a “boss game” and was excited to have the ability to make large bosses given Sega’s new hardware. With this in mind, each boss was designed both visually and mechanically to match the level it followed. At the end of the game, you discover that the final boss is Opa-Opa’s missing father. Here, we see another reference to works outside of Fantasy Zone, this time, Star Wars. Like Luke learning that his father is Darth Vader, Opa-Opa discovers that his father is the one causing all of the destruction on Menon and must defeat him, leaving him with mixed emotions. Additionally, the game begins with the scrolling text “long ago, far away in space” which bears a strong resemblance to the opening of Star Wars. The references and callbacks throughout the game create both a sense of excitement in being able to recognize them while managing to combine and transform them into something novel.
One interesting theme and mechanic throughout the game is money. In the intro to the game, the player learns that the problems facing Menon are caused by the collapse of the interplanetary monetary system. This seems like little more than a backstory detail until you’re in the game scrambling to collect more money. When an enemy is killed, it releases money that can be used to purchase upgrades to Opa-Opa’s weapons and engine. The money and shop mechanic are interesting in that you as a player have to actively work to get money and open the shop. Ishii made a conscious choice to make these power-ups purchasable rather than equipping them solely by touching them as had been done in Gradius. While enemies drop coins when killed, the player does not immediately earn them and instead must chase them around the map before they disappear for good. Even when you beat the boss and tons of coins scatter the ground, Opa-Opa still has to scramble about and collect as many as possible before moving on to the next stage. The shop itself is somewhat of a scarce resource. It appears on the screen occasionally as a red balloon and can only be accessed when the balloon is present. This requires the player to think strategically about what they buy when in the store as that might be the last time they have access to it before the next boss or next level. At this time, an in-game shop was a somewhat new mechanic. Fantasy Zone uses it well in that if you’re strategic, buying the right items will make you much more successful in your run through the game. However, with the inclusion of the buying mechanic, the game makes you think about money and what you are buying. The game ends with the question, “was my victory really worth the price I had to pay?” This is in reference to Opa-Opa’s defeat of his father but looking at the game mechanics and the overarching story of economic collapse, we can see it as a broader question about money in general. The game seems to ask us if spending all that time chasing after money is really valuable and to think before we spend, both in and out of the game.
Fantasy Zone is a game that was able to combine both familiar and new designs into a very unique experience. The game has wonderful balance of both challenge and fun and makes choices that helped define a genre and influence many games after it.
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