Comix Zone

[Sacred Jellybean]

Alright, time to give a little love to Comix Zone. I never played it until recently, when I found it on the Genesis Classics game I bought for Switch. I had heard of it, but not until maybe a year or so ago, in a Sega nostalgia thread. I looked at a couple youtube videos, and... neato! Your character runs around in a comic book world, jumping from panel to panel. Quite an innovative beat-em-up.

It wasn't until I sat down and actually play it that I was absolutely tackled into the ground with nostalgia. This game has an incredible 90s vibe. For god's sake, how was Sega so able to deftly capture the Cool Dude zeitgeist of that era??? This looks nothing like a cynical marketting team of clueless boomers slapping together a Poochie character.

You play an off-beat comic book artist who's equipped with sick karate moves and wise-cracks. The latter is a given, in a media landscape where every character, from commercials to movies, had inexhaustible AT-TI-TUDE!

The start up logo sets the tone of the game, with a faceless sound guy testing the mic, then singing the perfunctory "Seeegaaaaa" in a way that sounds like he's casually humming it to himself in the shower. We transition to the title screen, with our protagonist in a POW!er pose, resplendent with shades, a denim vest, fingerless gloves, blonde pony tail whipping in the breeze.



On comes the opening riffs of the soundtrack, a god damned bona fide grungy bad ass rock song. The rest of the game's music follows suit. \m/

The game makes no pretense of having a plot that makes sense (that kind of effort and sincerity would violate the Cool 90s Kids rules imo). Our hip protagonist, Sketch Turner, is a comic book artist, just chilling one night with his pet rat and drawing some wicked cool comics.





Then, BAM! Lightning strikes, and a Teddy Roosevelt goblin reaches up and pulls Sketch down into his own illustrated pages!









The rest of the game takes place as a side scroller inside the god damn comic! You traverse comic panels and fight monsters that TR draws on the spot.






The game's aesthetic is quite unique, and the concept is innovative. And I can't tell you why, but I love the hell out of this rat. Little buddy!




GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
The game is a beat-em up style. I found myself mostly mashing buttons. There are different sorta combos you can make, but there's not much rhyme or reason to using them, so I found myself just scrolling through them over and over and hoping for the best.

One thing, though. This game is fucking HARD. Like, Ghosts and Ghouls levels of hard. Fuck. I'd have never stood a chance if the Sega Classics bundle didn't let you make save states anywhere. I can't believe this is what kids had to go through back in the day (even though I was one of them). I can't imagine grueling over this for hours, repeating the same stages over and over, getting everything aligned and perfect. This is fucking tantrum fuel.

The game is quite stingy with energy and power ups. Like I had to get by with literally 1 point of health, on more than one occasion. And that's AFTER using save states and busting my ass to minimize whatever damage I incurred. You know what's really annoying? Just hitting walls takes away energy. As in, you need to bust open a door to get to the next room, but oops! Hitting it depletes your fucking life, little by little! In a game where EVERY GOD DAMN TINY SLICE OF ENERGY COUNTS! What a slap in the ass!

Oh well. Frustrations aside, I still had a mother fucking blast with this game. And its soundtrack has been added to my youtube favorites. Go play it, if you find the opportunity.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's not attitude, it's RATitude!  *Crosses arms and leans back against a brick wall.*

[A Black Falcon]

Comix Zone is a pretty fantastic game, yeah.  I have called it my favorite side-scrolling (ie, not isometric) beat 'em up before and I think it deserves that.  Removing isometric depth from beat 'em ups usually leaves the games so basic that they get boring quickly, but with all of its moves, items, style, and variety this game goes way beyond any other side-view-only beat 'em ups.

I am surprised you don't remember it, though; the game was, I thought, one of the better-known Genesis games of 1995.  It got a big PR push and even a PC port.  I definitely remember it from back then, and liked it for sure.

As for the difficulty, yes the one drawback the game has is its extreme difficulty.  Just getting halfway through that game is a massive challenge, and I've never gotten anywhere near the end.  You take damage easily, sometimes have to take forced damage to get past some obstacles, have no continues at all by default and have to earn them, and that's not easy.  It's a short but super ultra hard game.  I love it anyway, though...

Oh, and Comix Zone is also one of the few examples that shows that GEMS actually can make good music!  Yes, the much-maligned GEMS sound engine isn't always awful, as this games' great soundtrack shows.

[Sacred Jellybean]

I am surprised you don't remember it, though; the game was, I thought, one of the better-known Genesis games of 1995.  It got a big PR push and even a PC port.  I definitely remember it from back then, and liked it for sure.

I didn't have a Genesis as a kid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In 1995, I was pouting that my SNES version of Mortal Kombat didn't have a blood code.