User Reviews

This is the sequel to the hugely popular 1986 arcade game. This game was made for the Master System and then ported to Sega's System E Board for Arcades. The System E Board is very similar in power to a Master System. The first Fantasy Zone ran on the System 16 A board which is comparable to early Mega Drive\Genesis titles. In other words this game was step down in terms of graphics and sound.

The game is very brightly coloured like its predecessor and is hugely influential, along with Konami's Twinbee in setting the aesthetic for "Cute 'em up" games like the later Parodius and Deathsmiles titles. As far as Master System games go it isn't pushing the system to its limits, but it is a good looking game. As far as 1987 arcade games go it is a step backwards compared to Sega titles like Shinobi.

The arcade version despite being graphically and audio diminished I still rank higher than the first game. The gameplay seems much fairer. It is still rock hard and a challenge even for schmup experts, but shops are more frequent and the enemies are a bit more evenly spaced out in early levels. However. it has an annoying warp mechanic which is frankly excessive.

The Master System version is a slight step-up from the first game. The first being an Arcade port albeit a very good and faithful one. This one makes the most out of the hardware.

The game has a cult following and boxed copies can be expensive, but not silly money. Out of the two versions the Master System is the one to play. A DX version was made for Playstation 2 as part of their Fantasy Zone Complete Collection. This was a Japanese only collection which runs on System 16 B hardware. Fantasy Zone II DX is absolutely fantastic and brings out the best of this game technically. I would say play the Master System version if you are a schmup fan and absolutely play the DX version if you are simply an arcade game fan.

Update: I've finally won this game, fought the four spider robots, then I glitched the very last boss to cornering it and destroyed it with bomb attacks, the ending was ok, but the music was beautiful.

I have bought this game for the Wii virtual console hoping it would be a fun shooter game boy was I wrong. This game is frustrating and super hard unless you play the Sega 3D Classics Collection on 3DS with save states.

You start off with 2 low lives and very low HPs and go very slow. You control your spaceship and shoot and drop bombs at monsters so you can go into warp zones, aliens which bombard you very fast and most of the time you die in one hit. Also the boss fights are super hard to fight and after you win, you don't have much time to collect money.

Yes the game could be enjoyable if you have powerups including the auto fire, fire bombs, laser, fire shot, big shot, big twin bombs, weight drops, red potions and blue potions jet engine, turbo engine, rocket engine which makes it hard to control, and you hopefully don't lose energy and die.

Also it's very hard to grind for money and choose which items you buy in stores which gets very expensive and the worst part, is the shooting and bomb weapons have a time limit which makes it very pointless to buy them unless you use it quickly on the boss and this game is very unforgiving. If you lose all your lives then you start all over back at level 1.

Also the continue item is worthless because if you lose all of your ships, then you go back to low HPs. Also buying extra lives is a waste of money on the Sega 3D Classics Collections since you have save states. Also the smart bomb items are worthless, the weight bombs could work but they drop down vertically so I don't use them much but it's highly recommended to use on the last spider boss as they're hard to shoot at and they try to trap you in the web lines.

There's an arcade version of this Fantasy Zone II game which is much different than the Sega Master System version it's on Sega 3D Classics Collection, there's a light zone and dark zone you can warp to, 3 different endings either good ending or bad ending and updated graphics and music but the game's still hard to play not to mention that shops only come and go.

Although the art graphics are funny looking and the music is beautiful but that's the only good things I can say about this junky hard challenging game.

Whatever you do, do not play Fantasy Zone II for Sega Master System or the former Wii virtual console unless you have a save state feature. Thankfully there's a 3DS game called Sega 3D Classics Collection which allows the player to use a save state which is the version I highly recommend for players.

But it doesn't change the fact that I'm still very disappointed in the game developers for designing this piece of junk Fantasy Zone II is without the save state features. It had high potential to be a fun game but nooo, the creator of Fantasy Zone II had to make it freaking hard as hell, even with the save states it's still annoying to get killed by the enemy.

If you want to see the mediocre ending to this game, watch it on youtube or play the Sega 3D Classics Collection on 3DS with save states, otherwise save yourself the trouble of playing through this video game torture.

The original Fantasy Zone was a good game; but this one is excellent. It's a definitive improvement over the first one. Even though at it's core it's just a basic side scrolling shooting game; what set it apart is the bright, colorful and cute graphics; and that you can guide the screen movements in both directions (left and right) It also has some standard platform like qualities (that may count as an extra setting apart quality) Visually is reminiscent of Super Mario World (for SNES); although obv not being a platformer. And like the previous one; Super Mario Bros; it also has hidden warp points throughout. Even the enemies are quirky, funny, weird, and adorable. Bosses are more memorable still; like something you'd find in a MegaMan game. I wonder if it's similarities are by intentional design; ummh... Besides the main straight shooting attack, there's an auxiliary one; a dropping bomb. Upgrades for them and the ship itself can be purchased with money dropped from "dead" enemies throughout too. Music and sound FX were not all that, but slightly more than OK. And I have only played the SMS conversion, hence I don't know about the org arcade, or any other port. So in summary, it's a unique fun shoot'em up worthy of a look around.