Neutopia II

About Neutopia II

Neutopia II (1991) is Hudson Soft's Zelda-like PC Engine sequel in which Jazeta's son sets out to rescue his father and defeat the returning demon Dirth.

Neutopia II in Depth

The player controls Jazeta's son, who sets out to save his father, the hero of the first Neutopia, and to defeat the evil demon Dirth, who has returned. Its visuals and play closely resemble the early Legend of Zelda games: the young hero roams freely through a sizeable 2D world, at some points tackling tasks in any order and at others following a more linear path through the story.

It was made by a largely new team at Hudson Soft, led by director and designer Shigeki Fujiwara, with original Neutopia programmers Kōji Kaneta and Masato Tobisawa returning as co-programmers. Fumie Takaoka designed the characters, Yutaka Satō the backgrounds and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko the sprites, and Keita Hoshi, later of Soldier Blade and Super Bomberman 3, composed the music and created the sound effects. Critics praised its varied monster designs, new additions, straightforward plot and presentation, while criticising its lack of originality, simple puzzles and poor sprite animation; some felt it was indistinguishable from the first game, and retrospective reviewers called it derivative of Zelda.

Making Neutopia II

Hudson Soft published it in Japan for the PC Engine on 27 September 1991, and Turbo Technologies released it for the TurboGrafx-16 in North America in August 1992 after a planned July date. It reached the Wii Virtual Console in Japan, North America and Europe in 2007 and the PlayStation Network's PC Engine Archives line. Video Games' Martin Gaksch commended its varied monsters, additions and stylish music.