Comix Zone is a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis console and released to North America on August 2nd, 1995. It stars Sketch Turner, a struggling comic book artist and musician who gets sucked into his own comic book by the evil Mortus who escaped Sketch's comic book and dragged Sketch into its pages to kill him. Embark on a brand new adventure as Sketch jumps from one panel to the next looking to escape before his own creation can kill him dead. This is Comix Zone.
Now I know I'm not in Kansas.
Comix Zone begins in the N. W. E. Command Center as General Alissa Cyan mistakes Sketch for the 'chosen one'. Sending him on a mission to defeat Mortus's alien renegades and save the Earth. You can jump from panel to panel in each stage as you fight various enemies that Mortus draws onto the page with everything else that comic books has to offer. And I swear you really do spell it with a X at the end.
Comix Zone was really intended to be played with the six-buttoned control pad rather than the more common three-buttoned control pad, but it makes up for it if you have to use the three-buttoned control pad such as having blocking automatic and being able to cycle through items with the C button. You can get several different combos going with punches and kicks, but the game is really hard and enemies are a pain in the butt to defeat, made even harder with a poor control scheme.
You maniac! You blew it up!
Sketch can hold up to three items at a time with his life bar directly under it. One of the items include a bomb which can be used to destroy obstacles that gets in Sketch's path. Another is a rat named Roadkill who can reach dangerous places that Sketch can't and can find items by tearing out a piece of the page in the background. There are iced tea bottles you can find that will replenish Sketch's health. Imagine that, and I thought iced tea tasted terrible!
You can also pick up knives to throw at enemies and obstacles, and a fist to turn Sketch into Super Sketch to deal a special attack to all enemies on the screen. You can also make a paper airplane out of the backdrop to throw at enemies, but that cost health so you don't want to use it. I don't even know why they added it as an option to begin with.
I'm going to need a hot shower after this.
While you're going through the different panels there is dialog that is played through speech bubbles and thought bubbles, but they appear so fast on the screen that it's hard to read it all while you're fighting an enemy or solving a puzzle. The puzzles are rather simple and not that hard to figure out if you have common sense, but how common is common sense these days?
The game also has minor voice acting, as some pieces of dialog are spoken through a voice and it makes the game stands out from the sea of older Genesis titles. Since this was pretty late in the Genesis's life span it's no surprise that it's a bit more advanced than past Genesis titles. The game is also very stylist and feels like you're playing through a comic book world with everything that is going on.
Thank you! I'm here all week.
Alissa will speak to you through a radio to give you advice and information as you progress through the game. At the end of each level a bar is filled with all your efforts at the end of the game such as how many combos you completed in the stage. At the end of the game Mortus returns to the comic book pages and puts Alissa in a trap with water rising to the top, and depending on whether or not you can defeat Mortus before the water is full will give you a good or bad ending, kind of like Streets of Rage. Trust me when I say you'll want the good ending.
The graphics are very good for 16 bits and the sound effects are awesome and brings the gameplay to life. The music is pretty good too and gives you a nice set to listen to as you jump from panel to panel. The game's originality really shows throughout the whole game and can make it worth a purchase in your collection just from the originality alone.
What's right? Am I right, or are you right? I'm so confused!
What more can I say than Comix Zone is a fun looking game with plenty of originality making it stand out among a sea of games that came out around the same time. While the controls aren't the best and the game itself is really hard to get pass just the first few panels, it's worth it at the end of the day to see the rest of the game. And there really isn't anything like it available on the SNES. Which comes as no surprise to this fanboy as Sega truly did what Nintendon't.
Get it!
No comments:
Post a Comment