Is Comix Zone Worth Playing Today? - Segadrunk 

The fact this is 16-Bit is INSANE. True artists have worked on this game.

This game is hands down my favorite game on the system. It's difficulty though is, IMO, overblown. Even as a kid I was able to get through the game. There's lots of secrets to discover to aid you in your quest and the items are all given to you generally when they are needed. They have uses. Losing life while hitting objects I used to hate, but Sketch is just a dude. He ISN'T a comic hero. He was thrust into the book and doesn't really have powers, so it's thematically sound. You can also use the environment to your advantage as well, abusing traps meant for you to hurt enemies, or have the enemies destroy said traps for you so you don't need to waste items or life. Item management is 80% of the game. Combat is actually fun and you've got to mix up your moves to trip up enemies defenses. There's also various special attacks to deal more damage, as well as a secret move (Paper Airplane, costs life though) that will kill all non boss enemies in one touch (But can hurt you too, so be careful). The game has branching paths in some areas and makes the game feel alive. The game can be beaten in less than a half hour as well. It does have a lot of trial and error and feels you do have to learn to optimize your combat and deal with the situations given. The game is FAR from impossible. It has a notorious reputation that isn't warranted, IMO. It's a classic with a unique style that has yet to be matched, a sound track that is just amazing and leaves an impression, something many games today just don't accomplish. I'm proud to own a copy of it and play it almost monthly because it's such a great pick-up-and-play experience.

Me and my friend once play comix zone all day long trying to beat it, it's a fantastically realized game that needs to be experience. Such a wealth of 90s nostalgia and the kind of gameplay where if you make a single mistake you might as well start the game over cause you won't be able to beat it. It basically requires a perfect playthrough so by the time you beat it you know it completely, I love this game. and yes, the music

Comix Zone DOES have continues, but you have to earn them. For every chapter you beat, you gain 1 continue. You can have a maximum of 2 continues, because there are only 3 chapters total.

I actually adore "Comix Zone", despite its problems . Still, I enjoy your review, even though I don't entirely agree.

I have a little story to tell about this game; I rented this game about 20 years ago(5th grade) from a "Video Update" store here in minnesota. I liked the style of this game a lot, so I decided to play hookie (faking sick) stay home from school. I had to borrow my brothers genesis. It was around mid-day and the skies seemed to be clear, but suddenly, I heard a loud boom and the controller flew out of my hands while I was shocked by some electrical force. The power went out, and I was left shaking and in a sort of strange panic, not knowing what had happened. Eventually I realized that I was struck/shocked by lightning and somehow it had traveled through the outlet and to the controller without damaging anything! I was lucky, but for further proof that lightning had stuck on a seemingly clear day, the house to our right had a pretty nice hole in the ground where the lightning struck the power-line and took out a nice-sized tree. At the time, my catholic beliefs were whispering; "maybe god was punishing you for playing hookie". Theres not much more to it than that, but this was a pretty strange thing to have happen, especially considering the story of this game! Thanks for the review and helping me to reminisce a bit.

Perfect mix between comics & videogames. So very 90's...

This was one of the most fun games I've ever played. I still play it to this day

I think the game plays great. The combat isn't going to be as varied as a Streets of Rage but it's balanced in other ways to make up for it. Obviously everyone agress it's one of the best looking, sounding and creative games of the era.

Hm, I will respectfully disagree with your perspective on the gameplay Snesdrunk. Imo the core fighting, along with the stellar soundtrack, graphics, the clever puzzle like level design (for the first 2 episodes anyway) are the strengths of this game. Beating up the enemies is fun and feels great for me because the sound effects are freaking superb, every impact feels like your just breaking their bones silly. Plus kicking diagonally like chun-li, making up your own combos with the directional pad is fantastically implemented. Trying to see how fast you can take an enemy down is my favorite thing to do. Rapidly mixing up your punches and kicks breaks enemy guards and it feels great. The ultimate flaw of this game for me is the level design, some of it is just down right cheap, (like the rope you have cross over a chasm where the rod guy or bats can hit you once and make you fall to your death in the middle of episode 2). Also episode 3 becomes pretty obnoxious with a few questionable design choices throughout it, some seem to be made to frustrate the player to prevent him/her from progressing in an intuitive fashion. That brings the game down more than anything else because I definitely think the core fighting is enjoyable.

I love this game but taking damage for breaking barrels and boxes was a pretty silly design choice to say the least. If I remember correctly, I think health items became more scarce as you progress too. Great video bud.

this was one of the best games to hope for, back in them days of the sega channel. i can see it holding up today, as trying out, but that difficulty spike in each scenario gets real old real quick. don't get me wrong, this is one of the best, the genesis had.

I used to love this game as a child, and I still like it nowadays. My only complain would be that it's too short. And if I'm not mistaken, you get a continue for every page you finish. All in all, yes, the fighting gets really repetitive, but the music, controls dialogues and visuals are stunning; and that's why I'll always like this game. Not to mention you have 2 endings too!

One of my favorite soundtracks in games

2:20 No, I believe Road Rash for MCD did that first, with its licensed alt rock music. But CZ is the first chiptune one I suppose and it's pretty good too.

I first played it on one of the PS2 Sega Compilations. I modded my Genesis and bought a flash cart so I wanted to give it a go. Managed to beat it after a few tries. I'd say: 4/5 - If you argue from the time period it originated from. 3/5 - If your angle is modern replay value.

If you press against a box or barrel Sketch will lean against it and you can do a shoulder slam that deals no damage to you but will eventually break the box or barrel.

This game does not bore after 10 minutes, i mean come on! But its difficulty will get u. You will play the first levels so many times, coz the later levels will beat you down. And even the first levels are no picknick. Its the difficulty that kills this game, u pretty much need to play this game perfectly all the way. Not much room for error.

I have been meaning to pick this game up. Never had it, though I've played it several time. Your review is 100% my situation. I've tried a dozen times to play this game, and I get bored after 10-20 minutes. I absolutely love the look and sound though. I do think I'll pick it up and force my way through it at least once!

The damaging objects issue (and many other things in older games) can easily be solved with a GG code.

Huge game... Got all I want from a beat' em up and from comic books... There' s an Indi comic flavour, a 90s touch, sense of humor on dialogues, action... Great. And I discovered it recently (I had a Snes on the 90s). Normally I agree with Mister Drunk, but not here... I can' t say CZ gameplay is tedious or tiring... Because it' s just dynamite! Explosive, pure comic action. And the idea is so, so original...

The gameplay, graphics and music all awesome....

As others have mentioned, you are a bit off with the critique of limited move set or repetitive game play. There are varying combos, affected by which direction you use the D pad with the attack and each enemy requires different strategies. Sure, "HIT THEM TILL THEY DROP!" is a good stand by, but with such a multitude of hidden items and varied weapons, there is alot of strategy to the game.

I remember playing this in a Sega Smash Pack for PC as a kid and i didn´t even care if the game was good or not since i couldn´t get past the first few episodes (I guess i never realized beating props damaged me) But the visual style really stuck with me, and i thought it was a fantastic idea to fight your way through a comic!

"And Streets of Rage this is not" Well yeah. Because Comix Zone is not a beat'em up. It's an action-adventure. It has some beating up, sure, but puzzles and secrets are just as important - hell, they are more important. But that aside, the combat system is actually pretty rich in moves. All those moves you can assign to the C button? Yeah, you don't actually need it to perform them, block aside you can perform scissor kick, shaolin kick and shoulder smash without it, using the A button and the D-pad. Beating up enemies is only a slog because they block your attacks, if you mix and match high, low and mid-attacks, they go down in just a few hits. Different enemies have different attack patterns, some have secrets to them (female enemies are afraid of your pet rat and will go down immediately if you sic it on them; green mutants can turn into other enemies if you grab them), so it's anything but samey and repetitive.

I have it as part of the SEGA Megadrive Collection for PS2. There you can create save points. That helps obviously.

I think of Comix Zone as kind of a 'puzzle' game; you have to conserve items and ask yourself, is it better to blow up these crates here with my bombs and save health, or save them for tough enemies/bosses? Along those lines is also learning which paths are most efficient to take and where items that Roadkill can uncover are hidden. The difficulty is pretty unforgiving though, probably to offset the short run time; I've reached the final boss but still haven't beaten him to this day. Still, it's a pretty good game overall IMO.

I started playing it today on the mini Genesis. God damn, it's brutal. Just one life and if you die it's right back to the start of the episode. Plus side is you get better with each death as opposed to other beat 'em ups where it's just you throwing yourself at the enemy until they die.

Actually there is continues....well one continue the be specific. You have to clear chapter one and two and when u die a cut scene featuring Mortus will appear like the game over screen but with different dialog mortus will say"what was that the best you got!?" and give you another chance it will put at the beginning of the current chapter your on. The game isn't really that hard if you use your items properly you can get through the game just fine. Bombs will remove any obstacles blocking you your way,knives one shot some enemies depends on the enemy,power punch is a screen nuke,potions give health ovs....so use them carefully and only in emergencies,and the most useful Is road kill your rat have him search the panels you enter he may find any of the items mentioned above. He can also fit onto small areas like the fan at the beginning of chapter 1 level 2. Here's a tip when u encounter that lady in with red hair wearing green in chapter two drop roadkill down and see what happens. you also have an secret attack if you hold down the attack button sketch will pull a piece of the comic make an paper airplane and toss it it one shots everything remember to duck as it will hurt you as well...it's not recommended as it will take a considerable amount of health while sketch rips the paper out..not really worth it unless you have a potion on standby.

I have this game, along with the bonus CD, and I love both. There's a lot of strategy involved in the game that adds to the fun. Plus, there are a couple of possible endings based on how you play the last level. It is a lot of fun.

This is one of the most fun and exciting games I played on genesis.

Good review, though in defense of one of my all-time favorite Sega games: aren't MOST beat-em-ups repetitive with their fighting?

I was just playing this last night on my Genesis!

Rock n roll racing, mega man x and more did rock music on consoles before this...?

Ive been loving all these sega videos. Would love to see a video on Awesome Possum

Surprisingly I don't remember ever seeing this game back in the 90s. My family had both the Genesis and the SNES and we would later get a PlayStation as well as an N64. I would end up seeing this game a decade later and playing a little on a Sega Genesis that I think we might have been borrowing I'm not sure. it seemed like a pretty challenging game to me, but then again I didn't play beat em ups that much

There is something I wanted to have seen more of. The villain's backstory. I mean, the alien side of the war is composed by a bunch of almost pheral and territorial mutants (nature), monk like aliens (spiritualism and transhumanism), and the leader is a space cowboy (greed and lack of law). And the human side is a litteral empire of a unified human race (absolute order). But the question is how did this unity and equality came to be ? And the aliens, how are they so different from each other yet manage to cooperate and support each other properly ? Why were each of them banned from their planets ? And finally, only Mortus seems to be the real sadistic one, the rest of the leaders seems to simply follow orders for the sake of their own survival in Mortus's system, like pieces in a business machine. What was the story Sketch was writing about ? What was the message ?

That game design is awesome, pity the gameplay isn't that good.

Correction: You get one continue per episode for a total of 3

By far one of the best games every made

I remember this and Ecco the Dolphin bundled together on a WIndows 95 PC i had. I thought it was cool but it was pretty hard and I wasn't used to using the keyboard controls either.

My grandparents had it on their pc for some reason. I just rage quit when i run out of lives and continues. I never beat it though.

This game blew my mind when it came out. Not a perfect game but very fond memories anyhow.

It was repetitive at time but it was breath of fresh air from things like Streets Of Rage and Final Fight. At least it’s not Sonic Blast Man.

I think this games biggest problem is its trial and error adventure puzzles while clever in some places, really makes the game more difficult then it really should be, since its very easy to screw up what you were supposed to do or waste an important item prematurely which paired with the difficulty in surviving the combat makes this frustratingly difficult. This game would have greatly benefited from a mode that stripped away all the puzzles & Traps and focus purely on the beat em up mechanics, that way kids like me would have been able to get a lot further into the game and get to enjoy its unique art style and music without getting game over repeatedly because the pet rat keeps getting killed before it can flip the switch you need it too or other such non-sense.

Thumbs up for that intro alone. Segadrunk indeed!

I adored this game when I was younger because it was so unique, despite never being able to complete it because of what felt like cheap mechanics... it was SO easy to die and having to replay stuff so slowly really hurt its replay value.

The shoulder attack reduces damage while destroying objects

I’m partially wanting a remake/reboot of Comix Zone and The Ooze. I like both games.

This game is mind blowing still today

One of the best combat system in genre.

I dont think the gameplay is tiresome and repetitive. Even by just watching the video you can see there are platforming elements and different enemies requiring different techniques to beat them. I think its greatest flaw is this game being really short, but a memorable experience nonetheless.

I love comix zone!!!!!!

I loved this game!💖

man, you have ONE fucking life in this game!!

just got introduced to the channel yesterday and i seem to agree with just about everything dude has to say

Nice to see some honest review. Not every retro game has to be THE BEST.

Awesome looking game!

i always loved the concept of this game but dont remember a thing about it.. def needs another shot

i would love if they remade this game with slight changes.

Uhh yes, extremely worth playing, always

Good honest review. Allot of reviews try to make every retro game out to be a master piece. But more often then not allot of retro games fall short today and are best enjoyed with a friend, otherwise they do tend to get boring kinda fast. Even the stupidly over priced games.

I loved this game when I first played and it loved it to bits till date. But yes the combat is unnecessarily frustrating. You cant move and attack. The attack animations take up more time than your typical beat em up. Traps are often placed in a way that you have no way but to lose help. The combo system is painfully basic. Besides, losing health over an overpowered special attack makes sense. Losing health just to go to the next panel is something a coin guzzling arcade would come up with. I do wish they'd have come up with a more fluid and balanced sequel or an updated port. But j still love the game for the things it does well.

Apparently they're making a film on this game

this game is hard as nails. i never completed it as a kid. i just played it on switch and finished it - thanks to the rewind facility ;-)

dude ur videos are great keep doing what ur doing its awsome

You say you have to beat it, "On one go", that leads me to believe you've never beat it...

I hope they release Comix Zone on the Switch online

I played this game for the first time fairly recently on an Xbox 360 Sega Highlights collection package. I agree with you in your review. Great visuals, meh gameplay. To me it seems to suffer from arcade syndrome in the way a lot of games at the time did, increased difficulty to pad out gameplay time. Too bad this game didn't have RPG elements. Unlocking special moves as you level or costume changes (like Knights of the Round) would have made it more worthwhile.

It's good game, a bit hard but still a great game.

If you die in level three or after you get a conyinue abd instead of punching crares abd stuff you can body check them saving a lot of ealth. I might be bias because I love this game but gamers ahould really give it a tryz

Yes B That's You Drawing

another great video...thanks man! i wanna hear your opinion on secret of the oasis for sega!

In 1995 this was awesome.

Yup nailed it. This would be a great game to update and remake.

Thats Fanel Fabien

I think the combat was better than streets of rage. At least you can create your own combos in comix zone. Streets of rage is a one button wonder.

I like the repetitive gameplay in this game. This game gets away with it. Just play it one day a month and it never gets old. Play the comic and you learn each time and gets you further. One of a kind this game !

Yo I always passed over this game cuz I wasnt ever in to comics to begin with nor beatemupz for that matter, but I always keep wondering if the choices lead back to where u came from or if they just cause different shit in the story. Either way it still looks amazing for what it is, but wondering if it is as open as it may seem to be as someone looking at it from a screen by screen zelda or Metroid game.

This game is a pleasure to look at but a bore to play, I agree. if the enemies were ever so slightly less spongey, I would enjoy it a lot more. More enemies with less health and more movement options versus being stuck in a frame with the same 2 enemies for 3 minutes.

its on the ps4 mega drive collection too

Big Ken lol Kenny Aldegen

I first rented this game but there was a problem with the copy. I would be playing the game and at random points the game would just reset itself back to the title screen. I thought maybe the rental store just had a crappy copy. When I purchased my own the same thing happened. So I never beat this game only because it would reset at random intervals. Did anyone else encounter this problem?

Lost interest at losing health for kicking barrels. I missed this one as a kid.

Just imagine a remake of this game? It could be awesome

Honestly I still really enjoy the gameplay and find that the 6 levels in one is part of what makes it so fun also why dont you take damage for destroying a car or metal barrel wouldn't that make more sense?

This looks better than some playstation games. WTH?

I did beat this game 🎮 comix zone

The battle system is WAY more complex that Streets Of Rage.

This game is also on the woo virtual console

Now that you said... why didn't they use this on real superheroes?

SEGA should bring it back

Loved this game but never could beat it

Yeah, I got this game after seeing it on many top lists. I got bored rather quickly, though. Nothing really makes me wanna go back to play.

I had this game for PSP. I couldn’t even pass the first level because I had to jump from one side to the other but I kept missing the ledge and died. I tried everything but I can never seem to make it to that ledge. I think that’s really cheap and frustrating as hell. I went on RU-vid to see what other people did and they did the same exact thing Except that they made it to the other side. It was a fun game it’s just too bad I couldn’t pass the first level.

Simple answer... OH YEAH

It was a cool game. But it's short and hard. THe girl always died on me in the last boss fight. Soundtrack is pretty awesome

"Hackity!"

100 percent agree. Excellent video!

The Rob Liefeld of games.