Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa - Sega Master System - 1987

I was beginning to get a bit worried about a lack of Master System games on my blog.  I have played about nine or ten games from my shortlist, including the original Fantasy Zone, and this is the first one that has really caught my attention.

Fantasy Zone II is set 10 years after the original game and a band of Blackhearts have banded together to take over the planets that make up the "Fantasy Zone".  You take control of a be-winged and be-footed spaceship called Opa-Opa with which to take on the invaders.

The developer must have made use of the entire Master System palette.

Each Zone contains enemy bases which are your primary targets.  The bases spawn small nasties which drop a small coin when destroyed.  There are also formations of enemies which release larger coins when eliminated. When the bases themselves are blasted they either drop some cash or reveal a warp gate.  A blue warp gate transfers you to a different scene within the current zone.  A red warp gate takes you to a boss fight and is only activated when all the enemy bases in the Zone are eradicated.  Each scene is quite small but indefinitely wraps around Defender style. 

The bosses drop lots of coins when destroyed. This is the boss of Zone 2.

  
Opa-Opa has standard weapons of a bomb and forward firing cannon.  One of the scenes will contain a shop where you can upgrade your ship or weapons.  Ship upgrades such as faster engines or bigger wings last until you lose a life.  Cannon upgrades are time-limited and bomb upgrades are quantity-limited.

Each time you buy an item it gets more expensive the next time.

Fantasy Zone II has jolly music to match the psychedelic graphics.  The sound effects are good and it has a perfect difficulty level with each zone getting progressively tougher.  Hidden behind it's colourful cutesy graphics is an addictive and challenging little shooter.