''Riot 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

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

beat 'em up A beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in Side-scrolling video game, scrolling, 2D c ...

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 ...

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company known for releasing numerous titles across video game consoles, home computers, and mobile phones. Headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, it also maintained an office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. F ...

for the

TurboGrafx-CD The TurboGrafx-16, known in Japan as the , is a home video game console developed by Hudson Soft and manufactured by NEC. It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. The first console of the fourth generation of video game con ...

console. It was re-released on the

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 ...

for North America on January 14, 2008,Nintendo press release
/ref> in the

PAL region Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25& ...

s on January 18, 2008, and in Japan on April 1, 2008.

Plot

In the beginning, the setting takes place in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

where two men known as Hawk Takezaki and Tony Aldus met up with their chief Jim Hyde, and told him that they finally forced a villain known as Bossman to stay in a place called the DragonZone. The chief advised Hawk not to enter the DragonZone and head back home, but Hawk refused to do so. Before he immediately began traveling toward DragonZone and try to demolish it, in order to save a girl named Candy, Tony told Hawk that he will join him.

Gameplay

Like ''Riot City'', ''Riot Zone'' resembles

Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

's 1989 arcade hit, ''

Final Fight ''Final Fight'' is a series of beat 'em up video games by Japanese publisher Capcom, which began with the arcade release of '' Final Fight'' in 1989. Set in the fictional Metro City, within the '' Street Fighter'' universe, the games focus on ...

'', which is an archetypal side scrolling beat-em-up game. Players choose between two characters: Hawk, the blond-haired vigilante who has average statistics, and Tony, who is strong, but slow and has a

break-dancing Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Nuyorican, Puerto Ricans in The Bronx borough of New York City. Breakdancing consist ...

move. Player controls the chosen character from left to right through each level (most of which are split into three or more scenes), fighting with the enemy characters who appear, until they reach a confrontation with a stronger boss character at the end of the level. Once that boss is beaten, the player automatically moves on to the next stage. Enemies appear from both sides of the screen, and the player must defeat all of them to progress. If the player tries to simply travel through the levels without fighting, the screen will stop scrolling until all current enemies have been defeated, before allowing the player to continue progress. Enemies may move outside the confines of the screen, but players may not. Unlike ''Final Fight'', there are no weapons to pick up along the way, but the player will only pick up items for points and health. Unlike ''Riot City'', ''Riot Zone'' lacks multiplayer and instead of

chiptune Chiptune, also called 8-bit music (although not all chiptune is 8-bit music), is a style of electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video gam ...

music, the TurboGrafx-CD allows it to play high-quality

CD-DA Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standardization, standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Rainbow Books, Red Book'' technical s ...

music.

Development

''Riot Zone'' is a port of the

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 ...

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

''Riot City'' developed by

Westone Bit Entertainment was a video game developer founded in May 1986, based in Mukoujima, Sumida-ku, Tokyo. They were most famous for the '' Wonder Boy/Monster World'' series. Originally called , the company was renamed to Westone as the word Escape made them sound u ...

and distributed by

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

. When

picked up the rights to the game for a home conversion to the TurboGrafx-16, they changed the title and character designs in a matter similar to what they done with various ports of the

Wonder Boy The series, also known as the series, is a franchise of video games published by Sega and developed by Westone Bit Entertainment (formerly Escape). Beginning with the original ''Wonder Boy (video game), Wonder Boy'' arcade game released in April ...

series to non-Sega consoles (such as the original '' Adventure Island'' on the NES or '' Dragon's Curse'' on the TurboGrafx-16). The development of the game was handled by Agenda Co. Ltd.

References

External links

* {{Mobygames, /riot-zone 1992 video games Hudson Soft games Beat 'em ups TurboGrafx-CD games Video games set in New York City Video games developed in Japan Virtual Console games Single-player video games