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Ready for one of the foundational cute-em-ups?! Sega's Fantasy Zone is up this month
http://www.racketboy.com/together-retro ... ntasy-zone

I've never really been a fan. But I'm not sure I've ever spent much time with it.

Outside of emulation, what are my options to play this via PC or Xbox One?

I love this game! But it's BRUTALLY difficult. I've only beaten the arcade version on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection by abusing save-states.

The SMS version is one of my favorite "causal sit down and play for a while" shooters. The graphics are cute, the music is fun, and the action gets intense. I don't think I'll ever beat it, but I love it just the same. I'll give it a go for TR and post my high scores!

I love Fantasy Zone. (In fact, I love the whole series!). The SMS version is better than the arcade original, but you won't go wrong with either. (Also - and as Bone and I were discussing last night - the NES and Famicom version are also both unique games, and the NES version, at least, is pretty good.)

My high score in the arcade version is 5,185,380.

I don't have my high score from the SMS version handy, but I looped it twice on a single credit before quitting.

Finally, 3D Fantasy Zone II W is one of the best shmups on any system, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is simply sublime.

Oo, I love Fantasy Zone. I've got Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II for SMS, and I have Fantasy Zone for NES. I'll probably play through all three at some point this month, both for Together Retro and to review for my blog.

Count me a fan.
I tend to play the SMS version the most, via emulator on a GBA SP. I can get pretty far when I turn on the turbo fire.
I own the four 8-bit versions (NES, Famicom, SMS, GG,all cart only) and the remake via Sega Classics on PS2; not to mention the sequel on SMS and 3DS (Sega 3D classics, which I have not played yet).

Love all verions I have tried. Happy/trippy shmups are awesome.
Love weird bosses.
Love stage 2 music.

Tips for the SMS version of the game:

- Never choose a speed boosting power up other than the big wings, they're far too uncontrollable.

- Heavy bombs can 1 hit kill anything, including many of the bosses. The opnly bosses who survive it are ones with multiple hit boxes, in which case it can one hit kill any of those hitboxes.

- Don't buy too many weapons early on other than the double bomb and the occasional wide beam or laser

- By level 4 or 5 you should have enough cash to trigger this cheat, which I will put in spoilers in case you don't want to know it. Once triggered, you basically want to beat the game from this point without dying because it costs too much to do it again.

Have any of you tried the Sega 3D Classics Collection on 3DS? Fantasy Zone is one you can get on the Nintendo eShop; Fantasy Zone II is on this collection: http://games.sega.com/3dclassics/

Noise, you can play it on the Sonic's Genesis Collection for 360; that's got to be backwards compatible.

Blu wrote:Have any of you tried the Sega 3D Classics Collection on 3DS? Fantasy Zone is one you can get on the Nintendo eShop; Fantasy Zone II is on this collection: http://games.sega.com/3dclassics/

Noise, you can play it on the Sonic's Genesis Collection for 360; that's got to be backwards compatible.

It is unfortunately not backwards compatible on the Xbox one.

Anyways I tried this one out in the arcade in Yakuza 0. I'm not very good at it, not very good at SHMUPS at all actually.

strangenova wrote:

Blu wrote:Have any of you tried the Sega 3D Classics Collection on 3DS? Fantasy Zone is one you can get on the Nintendo eShop; Fantasy Zone II is on this collection: http://games.sega.com/3dclassics/

Noise, you can play it on the Sonic's Genesis Collection for 360; that's got to be backwards compatible.

It is unfortunately not backwards compatible on the Xbox one.

Anyways I tried this one out in the arcade in Yakuza 0. I'm not very good at it, not very good at SHMUPS at all actually.

Brilliant, thanks strangenova. That's how I'll end up playing this one. Just need to go find the Club SEGA that it's in.