In Comix Zone, SEGA delivered one of the most visually ambitious titles of the 16-bit era. Released in 1995 near the end of the Genesis's lifecycle, the game places you in the boots of Sketch Turner, a "starving artist" in New York City. During a freak lightning storm, the main villain of Sketch’s comic, Mortus, escapes into the real world and magically traps Sketch inside the very pages he was drawing. To survive, Sketch must navigate his own hand-drawn post-apocalyptic world, aided by the resistance leader Alissa Cyan, while Mortus literally draws enemies onto the page in real-time to stop him. The gameplay is a unique "interactive comic book" beat 'em up. You physically jump between comic panels, tear through page borders, and interact with dialogue bubbles. A standout feature is your companion, Roadkill the rat, who can be deployed to find hidden items or pull levers in hard-to-reach places. While praised for its art and rock-inspired soundtrack, the game is infamous for its brutal difficulty; Sketch has only one life (though you can earn continues by defeating bosses), and even punching background objects like crates drains your health.
