Hi, I'm presenting a TAS of Fantasy Zone 2 for Sega Master System.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.7.4

Comments

In this game, the player's goal is to knock out all the stational enemies and access the red warp to fight the boss. However, unlike other Fantasy Zone entries, the stages are separated into few submaps connected with warp. As some stages aren't linear, backtracking is unavoidable and the player must consider the shortest path.
Another distinct feature of this game is that the shops don't have all the items in the first place. Each shop has only six of them; usually the higher the stage number is, the better. Sometimes there're more then one shop in the stage, so I had to visit them frequently on the way to upgrade the equipment. Speaking of which, most of weapons and bombs in this game are useless because they have fairly short time limit and unlike Super Fantasy Zone, you can't buy and stock them more than twice. Also, if you're out of ammo, the game will switch your equipment to default even if you have better weapons in your hand, which means you have to waste more time on shop just to manually change the weapons. So only effective weapons are Big Shot that has no time limit and twice as stronge as default weapon, and Fireball that kills anything which it touches but has very short time limit (10 seconds).
A thing that bothered me the most in this run, though, is that this game's got lots of lags thanks to a number of objects on the screen. Thus, one must consider to shoot and remove objects to reduce lags, but not so many because it'll take too much time to do so.
"Over-scrolling glitch" is what I found during the production of this run. Basically, if you have Turbo Engine or faster one, going one way and briefly pushing the opposite direction makes the screen move too fast, eventually passing your plane. While this makes player teleport to other side of the screen, you have to wait the screen roll at least a second, which is quite a huge loss. So practical usage of it was only in stage Wolfin, where I have to pin at the edge of the screen to shoot one of the bosses in proper position.

Stage by stage comments

Pastaria

A shop here sells Twin Bomb and Normal Engine that cost 3200$ in total. Enemies here drop 500$ bill, so shooting down six of them and collecting a coin from a flock of small ones barely makes the price (500*6+250=3250). The boss fight is pretty much a joke.

Sarcand

There're numerous lags on this stage and Normal Engine isn't fast enough to make object dissapear. Therefore, I had to kill enemies or collect money to decrease the lags. The boss has six bodies to take off. Removing the upper part first is a lot easier to deal with.

Hiyarika

I visited two shops in this stage. In first one, I bought Jet Engine to boost faster and Laser Beam because it's less laggy and deals a little more damage than default. Later I exchanged this with Big Shot in hidden shop for it's better in the long term.
Interestingly, boss here has a health divided into 15 levels, which alters its graphic as it takes damage. Other than that, nothing special.

Bow Bow

Bought Turbo Engine for even faster speed. Lag management was quite awful here. The boss in this stage also has a health divided with levels, but massive shots and bombing killed him in a second.

Chaprun

The first stage I used Fireball because it has suitable enemies position to utilize it. What I did here is basically money grinding, shooting one Fireball and follow what it left behind on its way. The sum of money I collected here and leftover from previous stages is enough to purchase the best equipments in this game: Rocket Engine and Twin Big Bomb. Luckily, with this set, it's possible to take the boss down in one phase.

Fuwareak

There isn't much things to say here, just lots of lots of lag management.

Sbardian

Here I bought Fireball and increase the time limit with secret clock item, which allows me to carry this item to the last stage. Also, the boss fight here is a lot simple with Fireball.

Wolfin

This stage's supposed to be the last challange where the player must confront all the bosses without any extra HP recovery, but the existence of Fireball makes this stage unintentionally hilarious. Even the final boss doesn't stand a chance.

Other comments

Special thank goes to Sonikkustar, whose Super Fantasy Zone speedrun made me interested in this series.

Suggest screenshot

3737

turska: Judging.

turska: Audience feedback is mixed with 8 Yes votes and 3 Meh votes. The levels, while fast, are somewhat boring, but the boss fights are great.
I think the highly entertaining boss fights with good stylistic decisions are characteristic of a Moons TAS, and outweigh the lesser entertainment of the levels. As such, I'm accepting this submission for publication into Moons.
sheela901: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
Joined: 2/18/2012
Posts: 25
Location: usa
why 1.7.4? were on 1.9.1 now.
TAS Projects: MK64 ,and OotMQ any%
Cooljay
He/Him
Active player (397)
Joined: 5/1/2012
Posts: 468
Location: Canada
poptart1234 wrote:
why 1.7.4? were on 1.9.1 now.
It's probably the version they first started the TAS on, so it's the one that will sync best with it.
fsvgm777
She/Her
Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1217
Location: Luxembourg
Is there any reason the Japanese version was used instead of the American one? EDIT: It syncs in BizHawk 1.9.1. By the way, it seems the American version is an "updated" version, as the ending text is still in English (and the run doesn't sync in it). Anyways, from what I've seen, it's pretty well made, but I hardly found it enjoyable. I vote Meh. It's maybe good for Vault.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
Player (213)
Joined: 9/14/2011
Posts: 349
This run was started a while ago, that's why the version is quite outdated.
fsvgm777 wrote:
Is there any reason the Japanese version was used instead of the American one?
That's because Japanese system utilizes FM soundchip while American version uses PSG. Their difference is apparent when you hear them together. Phantasy Star - Tower: PSG, FM But yeah, it seems Bizhawk enables FM sound by default even if the region is USA/Europe. I wonder why that happens. Though, I didn't observe any difference between them so I think it's okay.
fsvgm777
She/Her
Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1217
Location: Luxembourg
Well, I tried watching the movie with the American version, and it desyncs somewhere in Stage 2. By the way, it seems BizHawk has issues emulating the FM sound in this game. I've noticed that the sound effects sometimes don't play at all (or are cut off), which doesn't happen in e.g. Fusion (closed-source emulator) and the Japanese VC release (presumably on console as well). Nor does it happen in Dega (though it has other issues like the music not fading out properly). On another note, the PSG sound in this game is awful (really high-pitched tones in the Stage 1 BGM, for instance).
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
I watched this twice to try and decide whether my vote would be a Yes or Meh. I think there were just too many slow parts of the run, so I'll go with Meh. However, it was fun to see your ship keep getting faster engines and more powerful weapons leading up to that epic boss rush level. Thanks for making this run!
Joined: 9/21/2011
Posts: 49
Location: San Antonio, TX
This run definitely picked up speed as it progressed. Loved seeing the boss rush decimated like that. Absolutely yes, there's always room for more Fantasy Zone. EDIT: Not a lot of people voting on this. Not sure if it's lack of interest in Fantasy Zone (such a shame!) or just lack of an encode for easy viewing...
--Graywords
Experienced player (764)
Joined: 6/17/2008
Posts: 146
Courtesy of fsvgm777, there is now a temporary encode embedded in the submission text. This run looks like a bit of a borderline case. On one hand, the boss fights are entertaining with great stylistic decisions, and the stages are completed quickly enough that they don't detract too much from the bosses. On the other hand, the stages almost look too easy with the player rapidly rushing through the stationary enemies while preventing enemies from spawning. The submap warp mechanic also isn't the most entertaining thing to look at. After playing the game for a bit, the dismantling of the stages looks a lot more impressive with the amount of enemies the game normally throws at you.
Synahel
She/Her
Former player
Joined: 1/19/2011
Posts: 260
Location: France
This looks very well optimized, and short enough to keep it all entertaining.
ars4326
He/Him
Experienced player (778)
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
This almost uncannily reminds me of a game I once played on Namco Museum Vol. 4, called Ordyne. Did Namco develop this one, too? Anyhow, this was an enjoyable, short run. I especially enjoyed the pwnage at the end, during the boss rush. Yes vote.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks for the temp encode. I'd gotten lazy about searching for the ROM. I generally like Fantasy Zone games, so I was looking forward to this. Compared to the other Fantasy Zone games, this one feels pretty lackluster. Even the fastest engine speed goes much slower than in the other two games. There wasn't a whole lot of ability to show off weapons except for the fire powerup (which was put to good use in the final boss rush). The warps between enemies break the pace of the game too. However, the run is well-played. It's still a short run, and boss fights are awesome. I voted Meh, but it could've gone Yes. I guess this is a good run, but I was hoping for something that was as fun as the other Fantasy Zone games. Also, I think this can be said about the other games in the series, but the ending credits are a big WTF for a game with this little in-game plot.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
Well I enjoyed it. I've been a fan of Fantasy Zone games since I first played the original on a Turbo Grafx 16. These are hard games, so I appreciate how much ass is being kicked in the levels, and the boss fights are just beatdowns. The levels may not be action packed, but they don't last very long, and then you get to those sweet boss fights. I vote Yes.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2757] SMS Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa by Odongdong in 05:55.44
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
This publication doesn't look like it's showing up in the front page's movie list.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4038
I think the front page is still "static", because only it tells me I'm not logged in anymore, and the Featured Movie is always SMB "warpless, walkathon".