A free fan game was launched on itch.io earlier this week that crosses Sega's classic shoot 'em up series Fantasy Zone with the mobile hit Flappy Bird. And unsurprisingly, it's just as addictive as the games that inspired it.
Fantasy Zone - Flappy Opa-Opa was built in just one week by the developer Icy Guidance in Stencyl — a game engine for creating PC, mobile, and web projects. It sees players navigate an onslaught of Super Mario-Esque green pipes, much like in the original Flappy Bird, with the title giving you the choice to play as Opa-Opa (the sentient spacecraft from the Fantasy Zone series), the player two ship Upa Upa, Opa-Opa's evil doppelganger Dark Opa-Opa (from Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa), and Faby (the original "Flappy Bird")
It also adds a couple of Fantasy Zone-related music tracks, which includes the memorable Game Over theme from 1992's Super Fantasy Zone, and a bonus "Dark Side" themed map that can be selected from the main menu.
Admittedly, this isn't the most complicated fan project we've covered on the site, and is probably not the direction that fans would actually want nor expect, should the Fantasy Zone series ever get resurrected. But nevertheless, it's a great procrastination tool and quickly reminded us why we wasted so many hours on the original Flappy Bird back when it was first released. The Sega window dressing is just a bonus.
You can play the game now in your browser of choice, if you want to give it a go!