Fantasy Zone

Fantasy Zone is a 1986 horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Sega for arcades. It is the first game in the Fantasy Zone series, and was later ported to several home consoles, including Sega's Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy invasion in the titular group of planets. The game contains a number of features atypical of the traditional scrolling shooter. The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as Sega's first mascot character. The game's design and main character have similarities to Konami's TwinBee, and both games are credited with establishing the cute 'em up subgenre. Fantasy Zone also popularized the concept of a boss rush, a stage where the player faces multiple previous bosses again in succession. The game was followed by several sequels, beginning with Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa in 1987.