Neutopia

About Neutopia

Neutopia (1989) is Hudson Soft's overhead action-adventure for the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16, in which Jazeta recovers eight medallions to rescue Princess Aurora, widely seen as a close clone of The Legend of Zelda.

Neutopia in Depth

The land of Neutopia is divided into four spheres, land, subterrain, sea and sky, and its people prospered with the help of eight spiritual medallions controlled by Princess Aurora. One night the demon Dirth invades, captures the princess in the Climactic Castle and scatters the medallions in crypts across the spheres. The young warrior Jazeta receives a charmed compass at the Sacred Shrine that guides him to them, and must recover two from each sphere, each guarded by a boss, before reaching Dirth at the North Pole.

The top-down exploration resembles The Legend of Zelda. Non-player characters, many in caves revealed by burning objects, bombing walls or pushing rocks, give information. Besides his sword, Jazeta uses a fire rod whose fireballs grow in strength and range with his health, moonbeam moss to light dark rooms, a rainbow drop to cross gaps, falcon shoes for speed, magic rings that turn tough enemies into weaker ones, hourglasses that freeze enemies and wings that warp him back to where he last got a password. Swords, shields and armour upgrade from bronze to silver to "strongest", and his life meter grows with each medallion or monk he finds. Progress is kept by passwords or, with a TurboGrafx-CD or TurboBooster-Plus, in four save slots.

Making Neutopia

Hudson Soft developed Neutopia and released it for the PC Engine in Japan on 17 November 1989, and NEC released it for the TurboGrafx-16 in North America on 15 April 1990, after previews in Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro and a full walkthrough in the first issue of TurboPlay. Reviewers have widely regarded it as a Zelda clone, but many have praised its improvements over Nintendo's game: Nintendo Life's Marcel van Duyn singled out the fire rod, the warping wings and a lower difficulty, concluding it might be better than what it copied. Critics also faulted its long passwords, repetitive play and poor collision detection, and GameSpot found it more linear than Zelda, with grating music, though it praised the varied environments. Overall it is considered one of the better games of its type and of the TurboGrafx-16 library. It later came to the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console and PlayStation Network, and a sequel, Neutopia II, follows Jazeta's son searching for his missing father.