Fantasy Zone (NES)
| Fantasy Zone | ||||||
 |
||||||
| ||||||
- For other games in the series see Fantasy Zone. For the Japanese Famicom release, see Fantasy Zone (FC).
Fantasy Zone is a free-roaming horizontal-shooter. It was originally developed and published by Sega as an arcade game. It was ported to the NES by Pixel and published as an unlicensed title by Tengen. A Famicom version by Sunsoft was previously released in Japan, but these are two different conversions of the same game.
In the game, the player takes the role of Opa Opa, a sentient spacecraft who must protect the various planets from the Menon alien invaders. There are seven rounds in which the player must destroy all the bases which spawn enemies. After destroying all the bases, they are faced with a boss that they must defeat in order to move on to the next round. Dispatched enemies will drop coins. These coins can be used to purchase both movement and weapons upgrades at the shop. The shop can be accessed via a floating orb with "SHOP" on it, which is seen at rare times during a round. At the end of the game, Opa Opa finds that his father was the one who was behind the attacks; a somber ending noted by most players.
The NES version is a mostly faithful port to the arcade, but of course, had to be scaled down for the limitations of the NES. For example, the graphics aren't as colorful, backgrounds during the boss battles are reduced to a single color background, and the death animations of the enemies were removed.
The game's sequel was released for the Famicom in Japan, Fantasy Zone II: Opa-Opa no Namida (FC).
Screenshots
.png)
Music
Fantasy Zone borrows its entire soundtrack from the arcade original, which was mostly scored by Hiroshi Kawaguchi. Someone known as "Kawaguchi's Superior" did the Game Over and Shopping tracks, but their identity has never been revealed. It is said that Kawaguchi took over for his superior.
The music was arranged to the NES by Masaharu Iwata, known for his work with the game audio group Basiscape. The power of Iwata's sound driver makes for a very nice arrangement of the songs, as well as the high accuracy of Iwata's arrangements. According to Iwata, he wrote music in assembly macros. Due to Iwata not being a Sega employee, he most likely had to learn the songs by ear.
The song names and track orderings are from the album Sega Game Music Vol.2, which in turn the song names are acknowledged by the game itself.
Recording
| # | Title | Composer | Arranger | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Opa-Opa! | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 2:22 | Download | |
| 02 | Shopping | Unknown | Masaharu Iwata | 1:39 | Download | |
| 03 | Keep On The Beat | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:17 | Download | |
| 04 | Saari | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:17 | Download | |
| 05 | Prome | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:30 | Download | |
| 06 | Round Up | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 0:05 | Download | |
| 07 | Hot Snow | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:43 | Download | |
| 08 | Don't Stop | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:04 | Download | |
| 09 | Dreaming Tomorrow | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:31 | Download | |
| 10 | Boss | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:09 | Download | |
| 11 | Ya-Da-Yo | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:31 | Download | |
| 12 | Victory Way | Hiroshi Kawaguchi | Masaharu Iwata | 1:01 | Download | |
| 13 | Game Over | Unknown | Masaharu Iwata | 0:09 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: MrNorbert1994
- Recorder: Doommaster1994
- Game Credits:
- Unknown Composer: Unknown
- Uncredited Composer: Hiroshi Kawaguchi
- Uncredited Arranger: Masaharu Iwata
(Source: Verification from Iwata, archived website; game lacks credits.)
Like its arcade counterpart, the game has no credits. Hiroshi Kawaguchi has identified himself as composing the game's soundtrack, though he explained that his superior originally did the game's soundtrack. However, Sega was not fond of this person's soundtrack, and had Kawaguchi do the music instead, although the two songs were kept in the game.
As for the NES version, we have received personal verification from Iwata that he did the arrangements, but he also listed the game on his Basiscape profile, in which he gives himself the role of "sound effects" and "transplant."
Game Rip
|
Format |
Download |
|
|
Ripping NES music is a very arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site.
Releases
Links
- mobygames.com/game/8220/fantasy-zone/ - MobyGames.
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/958302-fantasy-zone-tengen/ - GameFAQs.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/488.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).
- ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ファンタジーゾーン - Wikipedia (Japanese).
