3D Fantasy Zone: Opa-Opa Bros. (Nintendo 3DS) Review

It can be assumed that the Fantasy Zone, in which this game takes place, has to be the same one referenced in the previously reviewed Space Harrier, hinting at the fact that both games likely take place in the same brightly coloured universe. The overly pastel looking colours are indeed a common theme to both games and feature prominently here, reinforcing the cute 'em up feel of the game (a portmanteau of "cute" and "shoot 'em up") as seen in the previously mentioned and contemporary Twinbee, or later the Parodius and Cotton series. Enemies are all designed to look either very cute or overtly bizarre, which is a defining aspect of this particular sub-genre pioneered by Fantasy Zone, and discovering new types will do more in favour of enticing the player to continue playing than the levels themselves, which feature more uninspired settings, even if they are still pleasing to the eye.

Gamers travel through eight planets of the Fantasy Zone, taking down enemy bases that keep spawning enemies and wiping clean each planet of all bases, triggering a boss to show up, whom, if destroyed, announces the end of the level. This is as straightforward as it gets. In a sense, this game could also be described as a Defender clone.

This is mainly because of the fact that each level can be explored to the left and right and that they loop on themselves. Travelling to the far left brings the player back to the far right of the level. Also, its mini-map, showing the different sections of the level and marking red those in which there's an enemy base still active, reminds of the mini-map in Defender. New to this adaptation of Fantasy Zone, however, is a second, more detailed mini-map of each stage displayed at the top of the bottom screen of the 3DS, which offers more details on the positions of enemy bases in each level.

Strangely for a shoot 'em up, and part of this game's key defining aspects, is that money is of the utmost importance here. Coins are dropped when enemy bases and certain types of enemies, or waves thereof, are taken down. These can be spent in an in-game shop, represented by what looks like a red balloon flying by occasionally during gameplay which, if touched, lets Opa-Opa enter it and purchase better parts for the ship, better guns and bombs, and so on. Some upgrades offer permanent advantages, at least until Opa-Opa gets destroyed, while others last only for the duration of a constantly decreasing progress bar.

The variety of types of weapons available to purchase at a wide range of prices, really does contribute to the overall enjoyable factor. Among the additions that this new release has, however, is that all coins collected during gameplay not only go into the player's active wallet, but also into a coin stock. At the start of every play session, before being thrown into the game, there is the possibility to withdraw coins from that stock to start a new game with, meaning that access to some of the shop's more expensive weapons and items will be possible much earlier to give an advantage in battle early on, to help progress the game further. However, increasing the amount inside the coin bank is imperative to unlocking more features in the options menu, so spending time collecting those and saving them rather than using them might be a good idea.

Indeed, this particular port also has the honour of being probably the most feature-rich as well! It includes two extra alternative bosses taken straight from the Master System port of the same game that replaced two of them by other ones, which come and take the place of the normal one directly in the battle if certain conditions are met, which is a nice addition.

Upa-Upa, Opa-Opa's brother, is also an unlockable playable character upon clearing the game, and this changes up gameplay quite considerably, such as being able to select the engine of the ship at the start of a play session, or renting weapons instead of purchasing them, spending coins for each bullet fired, and so on, which brings new, previously unavailable, depth to the gameplay of the classic title.

Lastly, the usual heap of options common to all of M2's arcade ports on the 3DS eShop is back here as well, with a sound test allowing owners to listen to the game's fantastic soundtrack (again, not while the console is folded, unfortunately), dip switch settings for difficulty, the save feature allowing to save and pick up the game later, and so on. All of these are merely the icing on the cake, making this release the definitive one at time of writing. Such a title, however, cries even more for a leader-board online for encouraging people to chase after high scores, as it would further expand the already good replayability of the software. As it is, scores don't really matter since the owner will be the only one to see them, and that's unfortunate.