''Fortified Zone'', known in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

as is a

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed and published by

Jaleco was a corporate brand name that was used by two previously connected video game developers and publishers based in Japan. The original Jaleco company was founded in 1974 as Japan Leisure Company, founded by Yoshiaki Kanazawa, before being renamed ...

for the

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

. It was first released in Japan on February 26, 1991 and later released in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

in September 1991. It was later added to the

Nintendo 3DS The is a foldable dual-screen handheld game console produced by Nintendo. Announced in March 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS, the console was released originally on February 26, 2011 and went through various revisions in its lifetime, ...

Virtual Console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on pa ...

on July 7, 2011, but the Australia region had it added on July 28, 2011.

Story

Fortified Zone's plot follows two Mercenaries named Masato Kanzaki and Mizuki Makimura as they infiltrate a literal fortified zone, where they must take on mercenaries, soldiers, robots and monsters before destroying the central complex at the fortified zone's heart.

Gameplay

Fortified Zone allows the player to switch between two characters during game play. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses: Masato (the male mercenary) uses all the special weapons, but cannot jump. Mizuki (the female mercenary) can jump, but cannot use the special weapons. A top-down shoot-'em-up, the game had four multi-room levels, titled 'Field', 'Jungle', 'Caves' and 'Complex'. At the end of each level the player faces a 'boss' character: a cannon installation, a supertank, a dragon, a bulldozer and a large assault vehicle as the final boss. Items that can be picked up in gameplay include medical packs, flamethrowers, hand grenades, rocket launchers, 3-way machine guns and chain guns.

Sequels

The game was the first entry in the ''Ikari no Yōsai'' series, and was followed by two sequels: ''Ikari no Yōsai 2'' for the Game Boy (which was released only in Japan), and ''Ikari no Yōsai'' for the Super Famicom (released outside Japan as '' Operation Logic Bomb'' for the Super NES). The former was later re-released for the Japanese 3DS Virtual Console on January 11, 2012.

Reception

Super Gamer gave an overall score of 70% stating: "Original shoot-'em-up which is a bit too short to hold anybody in its grasp for long."

In Pop Culture

Survival of the Fastest, the debut album of Irish

thrash metal Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an Extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and fast tempo.Kahn-Harris, Keith, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'', pp. 2–3, 9. Oxford: Berg, ...

band

Gama Bomb Gama Bomb are a thrash metal band based in Northern Ireland. The band's 2009 album '' Tales from the Grave in Space'' was one of the first albums released as a free download by a band signed to a record label. History Beginnings (2002–20 ...

features the song 'Fortified Zone' based on the game.

References

External links

''Ikari no Yōsai''
an
''Ikari no Yōsai 2''
a

* 1991 video games Action games Jaleco games City Connection franchises Cooperative video games Run and gun games Game Boy games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Tsukasa Tawada Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Nintendo 3DS Multiplayer and single-player video games {{runandgun-videogame-stub