The Video Game Critic

Is this game horrible or am I playing it wrong? Platforms blend into the background. Controls suck. Collision detection sucks.
Seems to me bad design all around!

VideoGameCritic wrote:Is this game horrible or am I playing it wrong? Platforms blend into the background. Controls suck. Collision detection sucks.
Seems to me bad design all around!

The reason this game is not as good as Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse has to do with the fact the game was developed by western developer Infogrames aka the new current Atari company, compared to Sega of Japan dev team. In fact former Head of Product Development at Sega of America, Ken Balthaser has said on record that he regrets releasing it in its current "unplayable" state.: http://segaretro.org/Fantasia This did prove that back in the day the Japanese developers did make the superior games compared to the west on the console side. Even though in the 6th console generation both the west and Japanese on consoles where very even. Where the 7th generation the west went on to produce the superior games on consoles compared to Japan. But recently in 2017, Japanese developers are starting to become more even back in the 6h console generation.

One game could hardly prove such a statement as that.

Atariboy wrote:One game could hardly prove such a statement as that.

How so?

Sonicx9 wrote:How so?

You're right. A studio in the Western Hemisphere rushed a game out before it was ready, and that trumps Earthworm Jim, Road Rash, Flashback, Toe Jam & Earl, Vectorman, Mortal Kombat...

Stalvern wrote:

Sonicx9 wrote:How so?

You're right. A studio in the Western Hemisphere rushed a game out before it was ready, and that trumps Earthworm Jim, Road Rash, Flashback, Toe Jam & Earl, Vectorman, Mortal Kombat...

Let me make it more clear for people, yes their where a great share of western developed console games during the 3rd to 5th console generations that where critically/commercially successful when Japan was a the top during the time period, also there where also a great share of crappy Japanese developed console games at the time period. But what I meant was the Japanese generally had the edge on consoles during the 3rd to 5th console generations, where the 6th Gen it was very even for the west and Japan on the console market. But during the 7th Gen the west was producing the better console game compared to Japan at that time frame and the quality of Japanese developer games began to fall flat save for a few exceptions here and their. But recently Japan is become more even to the west like the 6th Gen. That should help explain things better now?

VideoGameCritic wrote:Is this game horrible or am I playing it wrong? Platforms blend into the background. Controls suck. Collision detection sucks.
Seems to me bad design all around!

It's a very poor game, and I say that as someone who's usually pretty tolerant of such things. It's playable -- I've beaten it on Hard -- but buggy and frustrating, with laggy controls and aggravating stage design.

That said, it offers enough extra lives and 1UP loops to be beatable. Be sure to read the manual so you know how many points you need to clear each level!

Sonicx9 wrote:Let me make it more clear for people, yes their where a great share of western developed console games during the 3rd to 5th console generations that where critically/commercially successful when Japan was a the top during the time period, also there where also a great share of crappy Japanese developed console games at the time period. But what I meant was the Japanese generally had the edge on consoles during the 3rd to 5th console generations, where the 6th Gen it was very even for the west and Japan on the console market.

That in and of itself is a reasonable opinion, but you presented it as being based on this specific game, as if it were representative of the entire West, which is ridiculous. When you said that Fantasia "did prove" Japan's superiority, did you mean to say that it was an example of that? (Which isn't really true either, since it's bad in ways that weren't characteristic of Western developers - when Western Genesis games are bad, it's usually from commercialized blandness or cheap "difficulty", rather than being outright unfinished.)

I should have said it better about it where it did not represent the western develop console games during the time period. So I am sorry about that.

This game is so bad that, the first time I played it (through a rental service,) I thought it was a bootleg. In fact, I still was convinced the game was unofficial until not too long ago.