Neutopia

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North American box art.

Neutopia is an action adventure game by Hudson Soft and released on the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989. The game is shameless ripoff of The Legend of Zelda.

I had never heard of this game growing up because I had so little interaction with the TG16. I played it because it was one of the highest ranked games for the TG16, and I was looking to expand my familiarity with the platform's library. All-in-all, it was an average game.

Status

I have beaten this game with full inventory and stats.

Review

  • Overall: 4/10
  • Best Version: TurboGrafx-16

Good

  • Overall, the game is pretty fun. If I didn't know about The Legend of Zelda, I would probably even be impressed by it.
  • The graphics are quite nice, especially the large boss sprites.
  • The music is well composed and fitting to the game.
  • The fire wand, and its changing function relative to your health is a pretty creative weapon.
  • The game has a nice full ending.

Bad

  • It's basically a poor-man's Legend of Zelda. Most of what was ripped off isn't as good as Zelda from several years earlier.
  • Movement is a little clunky.
  • The perspective makes the hit detection seem weird especially when you take damage from or hit a tall or jumping monster in an area that you shouldn't, given the perspective.
  • Most of what the NPCs in the game say is useless or redundant.
  • Like Zelda, you waste of lot of bombs trying to find hidden rooms, especially in the later dungeons, but, unlike Zelda, they are extremely rare drops from enemies.
  • The wings and ring are rarely useful, and you get them as random drops even when you already have them.
  • Items and enemy bolts stop the fire wand, which is annoying.
  • Spike traps are differently colored in earlier dungeons, but are entirely hidden later on, leading to a lot of unavoidable hits.
  • The strongest sword, armor, and shield are uncreatively called the "Strongest."
  • The game box categorizes it as a role-playing game, but it doesn't have any of the elements traditionally found in RPGs. Instead, it's an action adventure with a fantasy theme.

Ugly

  • Nothing really.

Box Art

Documentation

Links