Retro Review - Comix Zone

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Strangely, this title I had never played, I knew of its existence, but only because of things in life I had not had the opportunity to try it until recently, and I was honestly missing out on an excellent game, not only in the playable aspect, which despite having a simple gameplay is quite addictive and entertaining, and is that the sound aspect, melodies and sound effects, they carry a great job and it is very nice to listen while we are playing. But without a doubt the best aspect of this game (according to my criteria) is the graphic aspect, and I emphasize this aspect, and it's because Comix Zone is literally a comic comic strip, that is, it's as if we were playing inside a comic, and for someone like me, who is a fan of both comics and games retro, makes Comix Zone to be placed in high position in the list of my favorite games of the old generation.

Today the Retro Review is about: Comix Zone.

Undoubtedly the strong point of Comix Zone is not his argument, it was another time and for a game to be cataloged as "good" it was not necessary that it had a very worked history and especially for the genre to which it belongs, Beat Em Up, This aspect was not of great importance, therefore the story that we are going to witness is quite basic, but very well taken.

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In Comix Zone we are Sketch Turner, a cartoonist who lives in New York, everything was normal in his life until one night when there was a lot of storm, Sketch was working on his comic, drawing and creating the story, when Suddenly he is surprised by a lightning strike that hits his work table and as if that were not enough, of the same pages in which our protagonist was drawing, a hand that takes it by the neck rises, to more surprise of our protagonist the hand belonged to Mortus, the villain of his own comic, Mortus drags Sketch into the comic and leaving the villain outside, in real life, warning Sketch that if he were to die inside the comic, he (Mortus) would become a real person. Now Sketch is within his own comic, being the same protagonist of his own story, but the thing is not there, since Mortus in the real world is taking care of making life impossible for our protagonist, drawing enemies and everything type of necessary traps, so that they attack and eliminate Sketch in order to fulfill their purpose.

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Now that Sketch is immersed in the pages of his own comic, our duty is to help him escape from them, but as they will suppose it will not be an easy task, throughout the game, we will find several enemies that want to eliminate us and with traps that They will impede us to enter or reach certain places. Comix Zone, despite having a very simple story, has an argument that is well developed, in addition to having characters with enough charisma and unique personalities that makes our hours of play are entertaining, despite the short duration that it could take us to finish the game completely.

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I can only define with a word the graphic aspect of Comix Zone and it is: Spectacular, and that is that the graphic quality that can be found in this game is very good, with an incredible quality of details, both on the stage, in the backgrounds of they and especially in the main characters and enemies, each of these aspects emulates perfectly the pages of the comics. Being one of the few games that has this comic style so marked and so well drawn, makes this game very special and unique in its style, since it really makes you feel like you are reading a comic strip, in this case an interactive comic.

Speaking a bit about the characters, despite the variety of enemies is not much, each one of them presents a unique design and according to the events that happen in the comic, as I must emphasize, that the story of the comic that is drawing our main protagonist, occurs in a post-apocalyptic world, therefore must recreate the relevant situations to this type of events and is something that Comix Zone does quite well, with detailed scenarios, demonstrating good drawing quality and colors. In the same way the main characters, especially Sketch the main character, he has an excellent design with well-marked details and similar to characters that we could find in any comic. I must also mention that the animations in this game look quite natural, each hit, kick or jump have their great level of animation according to the type of game that is, they are noticed with great fluidity and with a good range of movements.

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Currently Comix Zone, besides being now in the list of my favorite retro games, is also in the list of my favorite games as far as the graphic aspect is concerned, I would put it very closely with Metal Slug, which is another game that, in As far as graphics are concerned, it is a wonder and one could even say that it is a work of art of video games. Titles like: Comix Zone or Metal Slug, are that kind of games that have been many years since its launch to the market, but still remain and manage to overcome the challenge of the years due to its excellent graphic quality, are games with great charisma.

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After the graphical section, the sound section is my other favorite aspect of Comix Zone, because in this game, we can find an excellent list of melodies according to the type of game that is, where most of these stand out in guitar rifles that serve as a complement to all the moments of action that we will find during the time we are playing, we will also find the typical action melodies of the 90s films, melodies so characteristic of the time and above all are melodies that characterize a whole generation. Undoubtedly, the sound aspect of Comix Zone is on par with its graphic aspect, therefore they make a good combination both visually and sonorously, thus giving the player a gaming experience that, sincerely few games have the opportunity to offer. In addition to this, sound effects ranging from hits and kicks, is so well done, that every impact we give our enemies, feels so energetic that it is quite enjoyable in terms of gameplay.

Video Author 10StundenNostalgie

Comix Zone is a Beat Em Up or as you can also say "walk the stage eliminating as many enemies to advance to the next area" and that is what we will find in most of the time we are playing this work of the video game, taking classic aspects of games of the same genre, Comix Zone is full of action from beginning to end, giving us the opportunity to deliver kicks and fists to any enemy that has the audacity to try to stop us.

Comix Zone is a game that is easy to learn, it will not take us long to learn to use our character, besides this, it is quite entertaining to do, because the game is very dynamic in this aspect, since the movements of our character to be so fluid and that each hit has an excellent sound effect, makes a greater immersion in the gameplay itself, therefore greatly improves the game experience. But although in terms of control levels, Comix Zone is simple, has a fairly high level of difficulty, since the game does not have extra lives, therefore, if we die just missing two levels by the end, we must start the game from the beginning, which is something that in some cases will make many people despair, and a point that has this game that I did not like, that increases the difficulty much more, is that every time we hit a barrel or a door to destroy it, this will take the life of the character little by little, besides that, during the game we will have few moments where we can heal life through the use of an item, thus creating a fairly high difficulty curve or at least in our first games, since after we learn to use our character 100% and we are more skilled in terms of gameplay is concerned, We will pass the game quite easily.

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Speaking of the items, in Comix Zone we have the opportunity to use 3 items at a time, ranging from a throwing knife, which serves to hurt enemies and to activate levers, then we have the classic item to heal our lives, a item that will make enemies on the stage are eliminated and as best item we have our faithful rat, I forgot to mention that in "real life" our main character has a pet rat that was also sent to the world of comics next to him, this rat serves as an attacker, although it does not take much life from the enemies, but if it paralyzes them for a few seconds and also serves to activate levers.

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Another aspect that stands out in this game are the different routes that we can take and the way in which we can select these routes is very original. Anyone who has read a comic knows that these have boxes that is where the action takes place, these boxes must be read in a certain order to understand the story, well, in Comix Zone to emulate perfectly what is a comic itself , when finishing with the enemy or with the enemies of the scenario in which we are, on the screen we will see the different access routes to other scenarios, these routes are represented by the classic boxes that can be found in any comic, thus giving this I play a level of originality little seen in the industry, besides that each route will be different, being some more difficult than others and in other routes we will find items that in others we will not. Added to this the game also has two endings, but that's something I do not want to tell you so as not to ruin the experience for those who have not played it yet.

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Comix Zone is one of those games that I have always had in the list of future games to play, but for some reason or another, I had always postponed it and as I said at the beginning, I was missing an excellent title, since the hours I was playing were very entertaining, but of course, in some of those hours I also went through moments of frustration, because in itself, Comix Zone is a difficult game, but the feeling of passing a level that had you stuck for a long time is very pleasant and that is something that few games They have the ability to achieve. I thank @fates because, thanks to her, I remembered that I had this game in the list of future games to play and I made it a priority for this new Retro Review.

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