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Sunday, March 12, 2023

Neutopia II

 Neutopia proved to be a moderately successful game on the PC Engine/TG16, so it ended up getting a sequel two years afterward, retaining largely the same style of gameplay as its predecessor, though with a considerably higher degree of polish.  A few new items are added - boomerangs that can be caught on the return arc and reused, a flail that has quite long range but costs 10 gold every time you swing it, and not one, but three types of magic staff - the fire, wind and lightning staves, all of which have slightly different effects depending on how much health you have left when you use them.  The story also picks up in a pretty clever way, having the hero of the last game (Jazeta) go missing and his son setting out on a new quest to find him.  It's another solid enough Zelda 1 copy for the TG16, though the fact that Link to the Past came out only two months after in Japan (and several months earlier in North America) kinda doomed it to be forgotten.  If you have the means, though, it's still worth playing.

Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson Soft, Turbo Technologies
Platform: TurboGrafx-16, Wii Virtual Console, Wii U Virtual Console, PSN
Released: 1990, 2007, 2011, 2017