Comix Zone

"Kicking Butt, Cussing Out And Trapped In A Comic Book?"

Sega Technical Institute has created one of the best platformers, Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Before they were disbanded, Sega composer Howard Drossin and STI had created one of the most innovative platforming beat'em ups for the Sega Genesis, Comix Zone.

Comix Zone is a dark-themed and humorous story where you're an artist named Sketch Turner, and your sent into your own comic book by Mortus, the evil character from the comic. Now it's up to Sketch to travel page by page to escape this hand-drawned madness.

Gameplay 8/10 - As Sketch, you can unleash many basic attacks from punches to high and low kicks. There's not just basic punches and kicks, there's even shoulder smash, scissor kick and shaolin kick, which can sent enemies flying and slamming into the paper walls. Sadly, these kick-ass moves can take down your health. One last thing about an interesting attack is the deadly paper plane. Hold the attack button and Sketch will rip out a paper and send the one-hit kill plane to your enemies, but don't get hit by it, or your health goes REALLY down. Like what I said, it takes down alot of your health if your performing the move.

There's also a 3-slot item system, which are sometimes handy for puzzles. The items are used by pressing the X, Y, Z buttons for the Saturn-esque controller. There's items like knife, bomb, and drink. There's even a helping rat named Roadkill, who can stun enemies, dig for items and occasionally, de-activating or activating switches. Lastly, there is a item that resembles a fist. That question mark item is the most powerful move in the game called "POWER SMASH!", which is the berserker of the game where Sketch turns into a buffed super hero and unleashes a huge wave that attacks anything onscreen.

The game makes a great use of multiple types of enemies and various paths. However, these things will be explained why some are bad. Why? Because some enemies have excellent timing of your moves and beats you badly. Some paths, especially the hidden ones, are frustrating, even when your health is too low.

Some enemies and paths are not the only disadvantages, the most annoying disadvantage is there are no lives. Yep, no lives. This game is pretty challenging platformer and you can game over if your health is empty or jumping down into holes. But occasionally, you will have chances if you completed the first and second level.

GFX 10/10 - The graphics is just too cool for words in this 2D game. All the game's graphics were completely hand-drawn and animated by a number of comic artists. The intro and ending art is extremely realistic but they sort of lack other colors, but that's not a bad thing. Each character and enemy has their own unique animated movements.

Also, the game's representation of a comic book makes it look like an actual comic book. The text bubbles gives out the characters in-game comments and conversations, what makes it more unique is Comix Zone is the first Sega game to feature profanity, which are censored by random symbols.

There is some slowdown and minor flickering, but I don't really experience these issues alot.

Sound 10/10 - The mixture of Rock and Hip-Hop in a 16-bit format is just too catchy, mostly the first level's tune. The then-young Howard Drossin doesn't just compose the soundtrack but does most of the male voices, including Sketch's, which he delivers lines and some noises.

The punching and wall slamming effects gives the game a real comic book feel, 'nuff said.

Value 7/10 - There's no unlockables, but you can try yourself to see if you can unlock the good or bad ending including finding all paths. Trying some cheats is also a good thing, even if you're new or familiar to this game.

The Word 9/10 - Comix Zone is one of the best and most challenging beat'em ups ever. I wish Sega Technical Institute was still active if they managed to fixed their programming problems with the canned 3D Sonic game, which would've been the first 3D sonic game ever. Howard Drossin and the STI gang should reunite and create a remake for current or next gen consoles :).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06