The game sometimes throws puzzles at you that can help you get by certain damaging roadblocks, the puzzles usually being incredibly easy to figure out but not always perfect in their use. The thing about that is… every time you punch these barriers, Sketch loses a little health, and many of these barriers require constant repeated blows to destroy! It is literally impossible to beat a level without losing health because of this, even if you are an expert at the combat. The most sinful way of wasting your life is the fact that the game routinely throws barriers in your path that you must punch repeatedly to break through. Sketch’s health is very limited, the game sometimes tossing you a bone with a healing item here or there, but the game drains your health too often for these to patch the constant missteps in health design. This on its own wouldn’t be too big of an issue, just learn the enemy’s style and try to attack when they’re open, but every second you leave yourself open, you play into the game’s biggest problem: your health.Ĭomix Zone has an utterly ridiculous approach to character health that completely undermines what could have otherwise been a passable game with an enticing aesthetic. Sketch has a good variety of attacks to pull from and some items he can find to give him an edge, and most are pretty easy to learn and execute as well, but the enemies in the game are a bit too intelligent for their own good and can often block perfectly even when faced with a frenzied flurry of varying strikes. There are very few enemies on screen so you rarely get overwhelmed, but the game tries to make up for the low enemy count by making most foes a bit tougher to take down. The game takes on the form of a beat ’em up, choosing to make the action fully 2D rather than giving you a good range of movement. The problem with Comix Zone is not at all related to its art style, but to its gameplay. Many games do try and mimic the world of comic books with art styles or other effects, but they either don’t realize it as much as Comix Zone or literally can’t because of fear of legal ramifications. If you like Comix Zone purely for its visual flair and commitment to aesthetic, I can’t fault you there, although Sega did limit its competitors a bit by patenting the idea of setting a game in such a realized comic book world. Sketch can break through or hop between panels, tear the page itself to find hidden items, and Mortus will sometimes draw in enemies for you to fight in real time. The characters sprites, admittedly, look a bit out of place in order to facilitate the action, but the game gets pretty clever with using the nature of the comic book as a tool during the gameplay. Graphically, the game does a pretty good job of selling the concept to you, with action taking place across actual comic book panels and the backgrounds looking like they could have been part of an actual comic as well. Now, Sketch must not only find a way to escape the comic, but he must also save the Comix Zone before Mortus destroys it and is fully able to realize himself in the real world. Taking on the role of comic book artist Sketch Turner, a lightning storm causes Sketch to get sucked into the very comic book he was creating, the antagonist of his story Mortus taking his place in the real world to hassle him by drawing in new additions to the already bleak and perilous world that Sketch had been creating for the Comix Zone. One thing that definitely contributes to Comix Zone’s misplaced love is its strong commitment to its style. After all, that game apparently took priority over the titles that haven’t been ported yet, so certainly this game must be worthy of such attention! Unfortunately, for modern gamers who are willing to take a look back at older titles, this might give them a bit of a skewed perspective on what constitutes a good old game, and Comix Zone feels like a title that mostly sustains itself based either on nostalgia or on that unintended deception born from keeping the game around for modern players. A port of an old title or a remake can give the impression that the game is of a certain level of quality where it deserves a rerelease. While I will always love a company for making its games more accessible and preserving them for future generations, there is a small risk when bringing back retro games for a modern audience. Many games from its old Genesis library will crop up as ports or in collections on modern consoles and even on platforms like the PC and mobile phones, and the absolute slew of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 ports across countless systems is a bit of a running joke in its community. Sega is perhaps one of the best companies when it comes to rereleasing its old titles on newer hardware.
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