My Played Video Games Review: Phelios for the Sega Genesis

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(Edited)

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Phelios is a vertical scrolling shoot-em 'up arcade video game developed and published in Japan by Namco in 1989. A Sega Genesis/Mega Drive port was released in 1990.

I liked that this action shooter game was loosely-based on Greek Mythology by putting an anime spin on it. I was getting bored by then of the evil alien invaders theme which was so prevalent in this genre.

Awesome Japanese version back-to-back cover (image source)

The Story

The hot babe goddess of the moon, Artemis, has been kidnapped by Typhon, the damn evil ruler of darknesss. The godling hero Apollo must overcome seven treacherous levels in order to rescue his love!

Sega Genesis box, cartridge and manual of the game (image source)

The Graphics and Sound

The graphics are not ugly because this was an arcade game made in 1989. However, the developers could have made the effort to make it a little more prettier.

Well, the music is kind of dull since they keep repeating the same ones over again. The music has a kind of eerie tone to it.

Gameplay sample of Phelios on the Sega Genesis

The Gameplay

Basically, you are that godling hero Apollo who is trying to save Artemis from Typhon by riding his flying horse, Pegasus, through seven hard levels.

The action is damn exciting, with an assorted variety of environments and enemies, and the pick-ups to fight them with. You got a health bar that can take three hits and only a bit for one more. It is quite challenging.

However, despite Phelios being challenging, there is a nice quality to it that makes you come back for more. It will keep you trying to play it until you have beaten at least the normal mode.

Replay value is not much. When you have beaten it, there are no incentives or secrets to go back to. Even though you can unlock a hard difficulty mode, it's essentially the same normal mode but with two bars of health instead of the usual three. But even then, the normal mode is quite fun to play through.

My Verdict

Phelios on the Sega Genesis is a damn good game despite the not so great graphics, hard difficulty and some mediocre sounds. It is quite of a good diversion from those generic 2D shooters with aliens as enemies.

Go play this vertical scrolling shoot-em 'up classic on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play it on emulators.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!



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1 comments
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Damn, I almost forgot the proper title! 😅

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