YMMV / Fantasy Zone

• Awesome Music: Most of the soundtrack of the game is pure, unadultered reggae, of all things. For a better example here's the theme of the first stage of the first game.
  • Endless Love, the theme of Link Loop Land from the 3DS port of II DX, is an absolute joy to listen to.
  • Courtesy of the unreleased Turbografx-CD game Space Fantasy Zone, which was a full on mash up of Fantasy Zone characters and design with Space Harrier gameplay (see Trivia section); we get this gem which blends the two main themes of both games.
• Fan Nickname: Fantasy Zone II DX for the Sega Ages port of Fantasy Zone II, so as to differentiate it from the original Master System version.
• Game-Breaker: The Heavy Bomb is quite powerful, especially against the bosses.
  • The 7-Way shot makes short work of almost any level and is pretty useful against most of the bosses too.
  • In the original, buying all the engines makes beam weapons never run out (dying excepted). This allows for unlimited use of the aforementioned 7-way shot, which makes the rest of the game significantly easier.
  • The PS2 remake (included in Sega Classics Collection) lets you unlock a weapon that gives you access to infinite smart bombs. Sure, it takes lots of grinding to make enough money in Challenge Mode to unlock the weapon (and you still need to purchase it in the actual game), but once you have it, you're unstoppable: many enemies go down in a single flash, and boss fights end within seconds.
• Polished Port: The 3DS ports of the two arcade games. They aren't just perfect ports of the originals, but they also add content and optional Anti-Frustration Features.
  • The X68000 port of the first game is not only practically arcade-perfect, but it also has the option to use an "arranged" soundtrack and has a secret level based on Space Harrier.
• Porting Disaster: Compared to the arcade and SMS versions, the MSX and NES ports (most notably the Tengen version) have terrible sound, lackluster graphics, and are generally considered pale imitations.
• Surprise Difficulty: The colorful graphics would suggest a simple, easy-going shooter. Not so much.
• That One Boss: The Poppoos, the snowman boss(es) of stage 5, Polaria, are a huge jump in difficulty and are generally a pain in the neck to get rid of, especially if you don't have a special beam weapon to fight them with.
  • Another frustrating stage 5 boss is Buubuuman of Fantasy Zone II. He uses a similar tactic of IDA-2, by splitting himself up into bits and firing a shower of bullets at you. What makes this more unbearable than the Poppoos fight is that only a certain chunk of the boss is vulnerable^note Technically, every segment of Buubuuman's face can be shot down, but only a specific segment actually lowers his overall health and advances the fight, meaning you have to constantly dodge walls of shots and search for the weak spot.