the 90s explained
through video game artwork
plus bonus CD!
Additional Comments:
Unfortunately, those who buy the game used and those who play it on emulator will likely never experience the bonus CD that originally came with the game - a collection of songs from various artists on the American Recordings label. While some stuff is typical 90s alt-rock fare, there's some great songs on there too. Still love Laika's "44 Robbers" and MC 900 Ft Jesus' "Buried at Sea." But alas, none of that has any actual bearing on the game, and after all, that's what's important.
Comix Zone is yet another game I played quite regularly in my youth. It's a unique, stylized brawler set within a comic book drawn by the game's protagonist. The stages consist of pages broken down by panels inhabited by denizens that are drawn to life by the comic book's antagonist who now exists in modern New York City. Good god, that's some heavy shit right there. It's like a nightmarish revision of A-ha's video for "Take On Me." Unfortunately, due to its caustic difficulty, I rarely made much headway back then. My best guess was I made it to the arena in Tibet, perhaps a couple panels after if I was lucky. At least that's as much as I experienced that rang vaguely familiar.
Perhaps a bit tangential, but completely relevant all the same, whenever I return to a game from my childhood that happens to suffer from notorious difficulty, it always amazes me how much more patience I used to have. Comix Zone is the epitome of a practice makes perfect game, and these days, I've found my joy for these types of games has dearly waned. Yet, I think this may be a common phenomenon among a large number of gamers.
With the evolution of game design theory and principles, we've moved from score based games to story driven games. In score based games, lives are your sole focus as you have so many attempts to rack up the highest score possible. Story driven games place emphasis on story and adventure. Lives are old fashion and have no place here. Instead, the ability to save your progress runs rampant, which many people condone as a general easing of difficulty. This has led to the popular belief that today's games are far too easy compared to yesterday's games. In many respect, this is true, but I think it's important to understand why this is true. The 8-bit and 16-bit era of video games can almost be considered the gawky teenager in the video game timeline. It was a transitional period between placing weight on score or story. As a result, developers were clumsy with how to handle key aspects of gameplay in terms of difficulty. I believe Comix Zone is one such game. Why? Because you're only given a single life in a brutally tough beat 'em up that has a fairly strong emphasis on story. It becomes disheartening to see the unsuspecting world about to endure the full wrath of Mortus' mutant villainy for the nth time.
There's no room for error in this game. Unlike, for instance, the Double Dragon series, you have to be on your A game at all times. Comix Zone requires a lot of baby steps and repetition. I remember this being the case when I was young. Come to think of it, Volgarr the Viking reminds me a lot of how Comix Zone operates. Instead of busting heads, you need to fully evaluate the situation set before you and figure out the best method to advance while losing little to no health. Unfortunately, Comix Zone places a few obstacles in your way, some literal.
The only thing that matters in this game is health and you must ensure you're doing everything possible to retain as much of it as you can. Tanking is a dangerous endeavor even if you happen to have an extra ice tea on hand. You can't afford to smash the attack button irresponsibly because you don't care how much of a dick Styx, the pogo stick monk, is; there's a pretty good chance the next panel is going to contain a heavy concrete door that you're going to have to bust down and sadly, you're out of explosives. Doors, barrels, grates, and other obstacle laden bullshit is the real bane of Sketch's existence. Unless there's a trick to destroy the obstacle or you happen to have some extra dynamite on hand, you're going to loose a good bit of health in your attempt to remove the barriers. This is so...stupid. But hold on! There's another method. Sketch has the amazing ability to rip sheets of paper from the very fabric of his new existence inside his own comic book and make deadly paper airplanes. How meta! (And what's that? Paper Airplanes? Funny how those hints work out.) Except, doing so depletes a good portion of Sketch's health as well.
So, recap. Tough as nails enemies are sure to give your health the old one two, but at the same time, you need to ensure you have more than enough not just to survive the stage, but to break down any upcoming obstacles. And for the really annoying stuff, you can always fire off a paper airplane, if you have more than enough health to handle the strenuous task of ripping apart the paper made space-time continuum. Thank goodness for a hefty helping of ice tea conveniently misplaced around the neighborhood. Except that brings up an additional level of aggravating decision.
For every time I've ever complained of a limited inventory in which items are fairly important, I must apologize. Heck, I just did so for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Comix Zone takes limited pocket size to a whole new level. Sketch has three slots that can be filled, and sadly, Roadkill, Sketch's pet rat that is impressively useful at any given moment, takes up a slot. So really, you only have two slots to play with unless you're confident enough to make more than enough headway without replenishing your health, therefore not requiring Roadkill's ability to sniff out a few extra ice teas from the inter-dimensional page of Sketch's new reality. But even with that cocky attitude, you may still need Roadkill to throw a few unreachable switches. Decisions, decisions. Because, you know, I'd really love to haul around a superhero icon along with some explosives and an extra ice tea - three items that could likely place me on the path to victory. Do I ditch the explosives and accept the fact that I'm going to take a nasty hit to my health when I have to break down that door or leave the superhero behind and just hope that Kung-Fung isn't at much of an RNG asshole as he usually is?
Simply put, it's all evaluation, strategy, and careful repetition. Once you know the optimal method to tackle a stage it simply comes down to dealing with everything's rather clunky hitboxes. Additionally, I feel using a six button controller might have a slight advantage over using a three button controller. As a kid, I always used a three button, since that's all I had. On my recent playthrough, I briefly tried a six button setup but reverted back to a three button since that's what I always played with in the past. However, a six button controller allows to have manual blocking at your disposal which I believe may be infinitely more helpful, at least compared to the so-called auto-blocking, that honestly, I question how helpful it actually is.
Despite the game's brutal difficulty, two of the three bosses are surprisingly easy, one of which is the final boss. In fact, I'd go so far to say that Mortus may be the easiest foe in the game. It's always a shame when the difficulty ratio of level vs. boss is upended far too much in one direction or the other. Although Kung Fung is a miserably taxing miscreant to face, he balances the stage sufficiently. Mortus plays as nothing more than anti-climactic fodder. The real challenge for me was realizing that some mystery switch suddenly appeared so that I could release Alissa from her nuclear goopy doom. That's an embarrassing way to achieve the bad ending. I had to end up looking up how to achieve the good ending because I expected something far more complicated than a simple switch magically appearing next to Alissa's imprisonment. Of course, it's so obvious now, but at the time I felt like a total idiot. Well, to be fair, I still feel like a total idiot, and as such have confessed as much in words to live in eternity.
Tough or not, I still think Comix Zone is a great game. I recall enjoying the game as a kid, and I still enjoyed it today. Sure, it's not the end all be all brawler. So many other titles easily top it, however, Comix Zone does the genre fair justice. And besides, it offers up one of the most unique approaches to the genre by placing the player inside a comic book where at times he may even find himself having to bust down the white space barriers between panels. The paper and drawing elements, be it Roadkill shredding the page in search of hidden items, or Mortus' giant hand quickly penning in some new baddies, are done superbly well. Also, considering it's on the Genesis, some fabulous throaty growls, and thick, chunky riffs are to be expected, and are they ever. Some noteworthy stuff includes Episode 1, Page 1-1 and Episode 2, Page 1-2. Heck, even the Sega Logo is badass.
Rating: 3.5 100 pound mozzarella donations out of 5
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