Segaiden #031: Fantasy Zone & Ghost House

Video Works by Jeremy Parish

Sega leads off its non-pack-in Master System lineup with a solid conversion of an arcade masterpiece and a respectable original title: Fantasy Zone and Ghost House. While the former suffers some compromises in the move from System 16A arcade hardware to the less powerful home console, it retails its key features, and its charming personality still shines through. As for the latter, Ghost House falls short of greatness due to its lack of content and clumsy control mechanics, but it nevertheless features a lot of fun ideas and secrets to unravel... and, like Fantasy Zone, it packs in plenty of personality, which makes it a winner. Maybe not, like, "gold medalist" winner. But at least a solid bronze.

Production notes: Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books)! Look forward to Segaiden Vol. I: The SG-1000, due summer 2023.

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Light gun and arcade footage captured from MiSTer with thanks to MiSTerAddOns. Most Master System footage captured from U.S. carts running with an adapter on Sega Mark III hardware with FM Sound Unit and RGB bypass modification. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.