Final Zone II for TG-16 CD
Review #10014
Final Zone II
Ikari Warriors, in mechs
Gameplay
Top-down view replaces the isometric view of the first game. And mostly for the better. It plays like so many of its contemporaries, but with crazy fast movement. The camera doesn't keep pace with movement, so gameplay amounts to move, stop and shoot for the camera to scroll, move, stop and shoot, repeat.
You've got two weapons - the primary vulcan cannon with unlimited ammo, and a secondary weapon with limited ammo and such a terrible firing rate that it's almost never worthwhile to use. Frequent pickups restore health or ammo. Few weapons have spread capabilities, so combat isn't much fun.
You stop while firing so most of the time you need to find a good spot and continuously fire while waiting for enemies to walk into your steam of bullets. Riveting. I had similar complaints about the first game, so the designers didn't learn anything.
Despite all that, my main complaint is the you get no i-frames. A single enemy projectile can sap half or more of your health if you linger on it. Makes the game far more difficult that it should be.
I enjoyed this quite a bit more than the first title, but this isn't a game I'd stick with for long.
Level Design
There are six stages and each introduces a different playable character. They play the same, so don't get your hopes up. Each stage is a linear path with no branches or any choices to make. The monotony is broken up with occassional mini end end level bosses, but these are near clones of each other.
Enemies spawn at certain points in the stage, and it's easy to get overwhelmed by anything more than two enemies at once, so the best approach is to inch along and hit enemies from distance.
Stage three is a vertical shooter stage, but the rest I played were all top dwn run n guns.
Theme
Mechs...kind of. The setting feels completely wrong. The story kicks off with a killer (literally) opening cutscene on a doomed space station. Our six heroes are the only survivors of a devastating attack but instead of a futuristic, sci-fi setting, your mechs land on the surface of the planet. The rest of the game takes place in the same boring jungle that Commando, Ikari Warriors, Mercs, Rambo 3, and every other Commando clone takes place in. Even the enemies are generic looking Central American military stand-ins. LAME!
Art Style
Sprites and background art are fine. Decent for such an early release.
Colorful graphics, but no interesting effects. Feels like a slightly suped up version of Commando.
A cutscene plays between each stage but it fills less than one-fourth of the screen.
Audio
Some of the worst, most lifeless voice acting I've ever heard.
The in-game music ok to good. I liked the first stage best, and honestly it was steadily downhill from there. Stage three was ok but stage four's track reminded me of than that bwa-bwa-bwa song from Pilotwings.
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