shmups.system11.org

Seem time to sell my Sega Ages Vol. 03 FZ and trade in for this.

Any sites offering the music box edition? *-neo

^PLAY ASIA

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-r-49-en-15-FANTASY+ZONE+DX-70-2w3g.html

Pricey. The game itself is fortunately relatively cheap.

What was on that Sega Ages Vol. 3 compilation? Just a few Fantasy Zone games?

Volume 3 isn't a compilation at all. It's a remake of the original Fantasy Zone.

Thanks nem - I already have that game then. Just need Vol. 33.

Trial version of the new System 16 FZII playable on Windows:

http://www.mtwo.co.jp/fz2trial/fz2trial.exe

Wonderful game!

Now with official T-shirt. Available from Sept 11th.

http://www.the-king-of-games.com/gr/series007.php

The is a complete run-down of everything you might want to know about Fantasy Zone Complete Collection over at smspower.

It looks like there are two new games on the collection. Besides the FZII System 16 remake, there is also a Fantasy Zone Neo Classic

Thats a great link. Many different pictures to feast the eyes on. This retro release sure has substance to it. Its almost out!

shipped

Holy crap, this is a great collection. $29!? I only had time to check out Super Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II, but they looked fantastic on the PS3. I was surprised by how good they look, actually. I'll definitely be spending some time with this.

Ya there is bunch of 480P options within each game. Also 480P with scanlines. I love these enhanced television features of the sega collections.

Well, this is real cute: 5 days after "confirming" that my order was shipped on Sept 12 (prepaid in full back in July), PlayAsia informs me that the key piece of the order; the Music Box, is not available.

Did any of you guys get the ebten DX pack?
Or has anyone seen one of the actual music boxes, and not just a mock-up?

Got my standard version yesterday. Is the 'Fantasy Zone II: New System 16 Version' included the PS2 Fantasy Zone II DX that started this thread? I just can't find any record of Fantasy Zone II DX as a standalone release for the PS2...

The Musicbox was delayed. It was stated on Sega's website on the Ebten page. I wouldn't worry about it.

@spadgy: Fantasy Zone II DX was the title which was intended for this Ages release about 2 years back. The final release title is "Fantasy Zone Complete Collection", so there's no standalone version besides this collection (apart from the early 3d'ish remake of FZ for the PS2).

Thanks Fudoh - that's what I had suspected.

Likewise.

Though, I also half suspected PlayAsia had taken in too many pre-orders and was getting the manufacturer to kick out another batch of music boxes, for an exclusive PlayAsia supply. Glad that's not the case.

Got my copy yesterday. This collection is beyond awesome and it heavily sabotages my desire to play Rayforce for STGT this week. Some questions remain, though:

Is Fantasy Zone II (System 16) an arcade remake of the Master System game or an unreleased/extremely rare arcade game of which the SMS version is a port? There are some very fundamental differences between the two games (i.e. the darkside/lightside mechanic of the System 16 game).

What's this "System E" you can select as machine on FZ, FZ2 and OpaOpa? European Master System? If yes, why are there 3 versions of OpaOpa/Fantasy Zone: The Maze (Mark III, SMS, System E)? They all look the same to me.

x

Good to hear it's fully worth the money.
Shame I'll have to wait till TFVI ships to get this title, since I ordered both in 1 deal.

I suppose I should stop reading this thread for just over a month now...

There needs to be more talk about Fantasy Zone II System 16.

First of all, it's really not a remake in the strict sense of the word. It's re-imagined from the ground up with the original game as only a loose guideline to help them answer the question "What if Sega targetted System 16 for FZII instead of SMS?" It makes a ton of changes. Half the bosses are different, a lot of the enemies are different, the gameplay system has changed a lot, with a dark path that's a lot harder and worth more points (also leads to a better ending). New last boss... I mean it's really a whole new game.

Second of all, it's the first sequel worthy of the original arcade FZ. The original FZ2 was a step up from the home port, but never stood up to the original, and Super might have gotten in the ball park, but it never quite had the color or charm of the original and it added next to nothing in terms of gameplay. This is actually different enough to stand on its own, but still builds on what made the original great.

It's really the best shmup I've played in a while.

The levels are way shorter than in the original SMS game. Thankfully, the confusing warps between different zones are gone, even if diversity takes a blow. The light/dark mechanic kinda compensates for that, though. I like how they updated the bosses.

Do you have to complete the whole game on the dark side to get the better ending? Or is it enough to defeat the last boss in the dark world? Doing the whole game on the dark side would be very tough. The second boss already gave me a lot of trouble.

Not to mention that you can't continue which makes it hard to train the higher levels. The game isn't this long, but after starting over from Lv. 1 for the 10th time it tends to get a bit boring.

A very nice collection. Having multiple versions of the games is a cool touch, and I love the System 16-ish remake of FZII. You tell some real effort went into making it look and sound like it came straight out of that time period and hardware. Having all that artwork and music at your fingertips is a great bonus as well. My first Japanese PS2 game certainly has proven to be a great intro to the PS2 import world.


It's odd that Super Fantasy Zone has all its text in Japanese, yet the Japanese MegaDrive version that I own has the text in English. I wonder why they changed it.

All the text? From what I tried, the MD Super Fantasy Zone is one of those games with both the JP and English built in, but I only noticed JP text in the intro when played in Japanese mode. The menus and status info were still in English.

Poor wording on my part.

It's not a big issue or anything, it just seemed odd since my Japanese cart is completely in English in-game, while this PS2 collection has the opening (and ending/other areas?) in Japanese. I haven't tinkered with all the various options in the games yet, so I don't know if there's a menu option to change the language in the PS2 collection for SFZ. But it's just something I noticed and wondered about.

I'm really impressed that Sega would take an old 8-bit Master System game, Fantasy Zone II, which was also an 8-bit arcade game on their System-E board, and remake it into a 16-bit game.

Not for the 16-bit Mega Drive/Genesis, but much more impressively, for the 16-bit System 16! (via PS2 emulation).

They also had it running on an actual System16 board for arcades. Apparently it's a System 16 or 16B with extended RAM and that's discribed as 'System 16C'.





from the smspower.org thread:


Seriously, when has Sega ever done anything this cool ?

Sega could've easily just given Fantasy Zone II a 3D makeover like they did with the original FZ on PS2, but they chose to do something more meaningful, they made FZII as if it was 1987, 1988 or 1989 on their workhorse 16-bit arcade platform.

This makes me want Sega to take other old 8-bit & 16-bit arcade & console games, remake them as System 16 or Super-Scaler games. And also make System 16 or SuperScaler sequels to existing 16-bit arcade games.

Take the best SMS and MD/Gen games, remake them in higher quality!

And I wouldn't mind sequels to Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Shinobi, Shadow Dancer, Alien Syndrome AfterBurner, Thunder Blade,
Galaxy Force. etc.

If we even get just ONE more quality game in the same fashion Sega did FZII on System 16, I'll be thrilled.

The System 16C FZII is much better with the simplified warp system- this makes the pace of the game a lot faster, with none of that "OOPS! Wrong warp!" business going on. In SMS/System E FZII, you can abuse the warps to pull off some cheap escapes.

If you fight the first boss in the dark side, the way the logs move around is a cool touch. It would've been interesting to see a mock Mega Drive port of this FZII added on as yet another extra.

I'd like to see the Megadrive E-SWAT sequel (IMO, it should've been called E-SWAT II) get a similar upgrade. This one is actually better than the arcade E-SWAT in some ways.