Comix Zone

aka: Comix Zone Classic
Moby ID: 3300
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Sketch Turner was a starving comic book artist, living with his pet rat Roadkill... that is until a lightning storm mysteriously brought his cartoon villain, Mortus, to life and imprisoned Sketch within the pages of his own comic book. Now trapped in the world that he himself created, but someone else is now drawing, Sketch must battle through the pages of his own comic book, and past his own creations, to a final battle with Mortus. Perhaps one of his own creations, General Alissa Cyan might be able to help...

Comix Zone is a side-scrolling fighting game with a difference, you're inside of a comic book and you yourself know it. Smash enemies into the sides of frames, rip through the paper to unleash a super move and otherwise wreck havoc throughout the limitations of the graphic novel. Sketch himself can jump, attack and use various items that he finds along the comic book, including his rat friend, Roadkill. Button combinations can be used to unleash powerful techniques.

The game progresses linearly through each page of the comic book, however secret paths and alternate routes through the story can be discovered. At the end of each level, Sketch receives a super hero rating for how well he's progressing.

Spellings

  • コミックスゾーン - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

57 People (47 developers, 10 thanks) · View all

Concept
Design
Art Direction
Technical Director & Programmer
Music & Sound Effects
Backgrounds
Animation
Conceptual Art
AI Scripting
Character Voices
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 44 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 147 ratings with 2 reviews)

16 full bits of comic-book action for your PC

The Good
Comix Zone is your average 16-bit sidescrolling beat 'em up only with a neat twist: while many games count within their influences comic books and their related elements Comix Zone sets out to actually emulate the look and feel of a comic book by casting you as a comic book artist (who following the beat 'em up rules looks like a "Rad" twenty-something bozo and absolutely NOTHING like a comic book artist) that during a weird lightning storm gets thrust into the comic book he was working on and gets replaced by the main villain from the series.

Fortunately for us the villain can't just leave our hero to rot yet since he must destroy him first to become flesh and bones. Unfortunately for our hero that means he must escape the comic-world by getting to the last page but he must also face the many villains he created and even more drawn from scratch by your nemesis, then defeat Gonzo the baddie at the end, save the world and get the girl (no I'm not making that up, there's obviously a babe and a world threatening situation to solve in this game, it wouldn't be a 16-Bit beat 'em up if there weren't!).

Gameplay consists of you moving through the panels and frames of each comic in standard sidescrolling fashion and facing each one of your enemies in hand to hand combat as well as jumping around and solving simple puzzles a-la "place the crates together so you can get to the switch above you" etc. The emphasis is clearly on the beat 'em up aspect of the game however, with your character being able to kick and punch in a variety of ways with special moves and combos that make the game similar to a Final Fight clone (except on 2D only), which is always a nice thing (it may be an old, recycled thing but it's still nice). To aid you in the seminal art of ass-kicking you have a collection of useful power-ups that are stored in your inventory (which unfortunately stores only 3 items), and range from grenades and knifes to unusual "super-hero" power-ups that enable you to literally rip the page (remember you are playing in a comic book) and destroy everything on screen.

As you would expect the graphics in the game mantain the look and feel of a true comic book, with colorful hand-drawn backgrounds and fantastically designed steroid/silicon-injected, spandex-clad characters to fight against (and doing so with smooth animations and moves). Fortunately for us, SEGA PC once again handled the port and the result is a dead-on translation of the original Genesis hit with all it's graphical flair intact and without any sort of compatibility issue on a Win9X machine.

The Bad
While there are some neat "choose your path" areas that open up gameplay a bit and allow you to take a different route to your goal, most of the game is played in a very restricted way. You enter a new panel, kill the bad guy/s in it and move to the next one, repeat ad infinitum. Sure when you get to the edge of a page you usually have to perform one of these choices but the flow of the game is always the same. There aren't even any jumping puzzles (except for having to sort a chasm or two), puzzles are few and far between and they belong to the laziest examples in the genre.

Also being originally a 16-bit cart you wouldn't expect it to have stellar sound, and you would be right. Generic "bops" and consoley sounds make most of the soundtrack. And on a more open note, the cliches of the genre can get very tiresome, with you facing the same enemy dozens of times and reading the "witty" dialogues where the hero describes how he is going to save the world no matter what and nothing can stop him and bla,bla,bla, and the villains spout generic crap about how bad they are and how much they are going to punch you.

The Bottom Line
Generic beat 'em up game. Typical console filth you would say, but add a fresh look and feel that literally takes a super-hero comic book and puts it into your monitor with killer graphics and non-stop action. One of those games that isn't particularly groundbreaking in gameplay or story or anything like that, but manages to sell itself based on an excellently executed style and feel.

For PC gamers it's also a nice way of seeing just what the big fuzz was over there on console-land at the time, though there are better games of the genre ported to the PC like the fantastic Earthworm Jim, Vector Man or the Sonic games.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2003

This game in a single word: Beautiful.

The Good
This game is beautiful. The graphics look like a well-drawn comic book, and moves like a good cartoon. Clear, crisp colors, and nicely designed sprites make this game a visual treat, and the music and sound effects fit nicely into the scheme. The control is also excellent, easy to work with, though the little inventory system is a bit off to work with.

The Bad
The enemies didn't have much variety from panel to panel, fighting the same characters over and over got pretty annoying. Also, this game is REALLY difficult. It's very hard to get through only a few pages of play. I think I've made it as far as the third page, but then, maybe I'm just not that good at this game...

The Bottom Line
This is a great game, well worthy of a purchase if you find a copy, even worth buying the system just to play this one game (though also picking up other top-notch Genny games is definitely worth it as well).

Genesis · by reyo (16) · 2004

Trivia

Endings

There are two endings in the game, depending on whether you have saved the girl on the last stage or not.

References

The end of this game states patent pending. This refers to US Patent 6,010,405 "Videogame system for creating simulated comic book game", filed in December 1994 by Sega Enterprises Ltd, and approved in January 2000.

Soundtrack

Some versions of the original release of the game include a bonus music CD - in the US, an American Recordings sampler (featuring The Jesus and Mary Chain, Julian Cope, Love and Rockets among others), while the European version (and also the PC version in the US) features an EP with the music of the game played by an actual rock band in an early 90s grunge style. It was later sold as a regular music EP.

Information also contributed by Blood, Luis Silva<7A> and [MegaManX64](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,81171/)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Rogee.

Wii added by Corn Popper. iPad, Android, iPhone added by mars_rulez. PlayStation 3 added by Lain Crowley. Nintendo Switch added by Rik Hideto. Macintosh, Linux added by Foxhack. Game Boy Advance added by Fodder. Xbox 360 added by Ben K. Genesis added by Syed GJ.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Shoddyan, j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, GTramp.

Game added February 13, 2001. Last modified March 27, 2024.