Phelios (Genesis) Review
Release Date: 1990
Date Played: 22 June 2022
Phelios is one of the more unique vertical shmups on the Sega Genesis. Instead of opting for the standard spaceship theme, Phelios opts for an Ancient Greek setting that is a breath of fresh air for a genre that can often get rather stagnant. Published by the venerable Namco, Phelios was originally an arcade game before being ported to Sega’s 16-bit system where it gained more popularity.
Ultra hottie, Artemis, has been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Titan, Typhon. Telepathically, I assume, Artemis calls out to her boyfriend, Apollo, to come and rescue her. Apollo, the sun god, notorious womanizer, and actual brother of Artemis (the game doesn’t mention this… gross) sets off through 7 stages of vertical shmup fun to save his lover/sister. Mounted on the back of Pegasus, you’ll be killing countless enemies, recognizable bosses from Greek mythology, and flying over vast terrain that ranges from the clouds over Mt. Olympus, to underground caverns, lava filled lakes, sky fortresses, rivers, and the underworld.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is as simple as it comes. Phelios is essentially a one button game. You can move with the D-pad, and shoot with any of the other buttons on the controller. The button can be held down to charge your attack for additional damage. To the right of the screen is a picture of a sword, and the longer you hold the fire button, the more it’s filled. When it reaches its maximum after about 2 seconds, you can fire a super charge shot that deals additional damage. Don’t worry about having to take your eyes off the screen to see if the gauge is full, the constantly beeping alarm will annoyingly notify you when it’s maxed out. Of course, tapping the fire button will fire smaller and weaker shots, but you’ll barely be using them in the game. The charge shot is so much more useful and powerful that it becomes your main mode of attack. It’s obvious that the game was designed around using the charge shot all of the time as it has the ability to pass through destroyed enemies, so a single charge shot can take out an entire enemy wave. Sadly, this more or less turns the game into a timing challenge where you have to learn to rout the game based on when to release your charge shot rather than dodging enemies and their bullets. The gameplay centers around knowing which enemies are coming and blasting them with the charge shot as soon as they’re on screen so they don’t have a chance to fire at you. This makes Phelios more of a memorizer shmup rather than a reflex one.
In addition to this, you’ll get several powerups in each level that will increase your speed up to 2 levels and can also provide you with a couple of options to increase your firepower. Having Apollo fully powered up is somewhat helpful, but not as much as many other shmups. The game throws so many upgrades at you that you’ll be fully powered up 30 seconds into the first stage. Also, whenever you die, you’ll get several upgrades just as soon as you respawn at the checkpoint, thereby ensuring you are mostly powered up at all times. On top of this, there are several additional weapons you can get temporarily in some of the stages. These include a beam shot (only found in the first level), homing shots, and a ricochet shot. These special upgrades are a lot of fun and are very powerful. Unfortunately, they only appear rarely and feel like more of an afterthought than a real feature.
You can take 3 hits before you lose a life and you only have 3 lives to start with. Luckily, you get a 1UP every 50k points (maxed at 400k), so you can get up to 8 additional lives to help you on your way. You’ll need them too, because while the game isn’t extremely difficult, it has some cheap and unfair sections that love to eat away at all your extra lives. There is a checkpoint system in place that makes the game much more difficult. Usually these are to give you a chance to power up your ship so you can make it through a more difficult section, but in Phelios you fully upgrade so quickly that there’s really no need for a checkpoint system (as being fully upgraded isn’t that much stronger than your base shot). It just makes the more difficult sections frustrating when you have to play them over and over again. I think the game would have been much better if it gave you fewer lives but allowed you to respawn right where you die. To make matters more difficult, your character sprite is rather large and it can be hard to dodge some of the enemies on screen. So, you’ll be dying a lot at first and will have ample time to get used to the checkpoint system. The game is also too long, clocking in at around 45 minutes and has no level select. Which means you’ll need to spend a fair amount of time playing through the early stages just to get in some practice for the latter ones. This can be a real motivation killer and you’ll have to push yourself through some tougher sections through sheer force of will.
There is a novice mode of the game that’s easier, but only lets you play the first 4 stages of the game. You’ll have to dive into the Advanced mode if you want to experience the full game. If you’re able to beat the final boss, you can take a shot at Expert mode. Weirdly enough, if you want to play this mode, you’ll need to beat the entire game on Advanced mode each time you turn on your Genesis because there is no battery backup in the cartridge.
Presentation:
Phelios’ presentation is the best thing it has going for it. The Greek mythology theme really does stand out and gives the developers some awesome content to work with. The first stage blasts right out of the gate as you see Apollo and Pegasus flying over some impressive parallax scrolling clouds as you blast away at dragons and… butterflies. You’ll soon dive into a temple where you’ll face off against a horrible looking Medusa. After vanquishing her, you’ll get a cutscene of the scantily clad Artemis asking you to save her in the most “Genesis” sounding voice sample. These cutscenes appear between every stage and show how Artemis is being tortured and progressively more and more…. um, derobed. This was undoubtedly the motivation to get a lot of male gamers in the 90s to keep playing the game. I have no doubt that it worked. Artemis might be the best looking 16-bit character ever committed to cartridge and is the standout thing that most people remember about Phelios.
Sadly, after the first epic level of the game, things start going downhill. The stages start getting long and repetitive with boring terrain and annoying enemies. It feels like a lot of them drag on forever. This is very clear during the lava, ice, and lake stages. They feel like they will never end and just keep throwing the same sorts of enemies and ideas at you over and over. On a positive note, the final stage mixes things up and somewhat redeems the tedium of the rest of the game. It just feels like less care and thought went into the middle section of the game. With the boring backgrounds, difficulty spikes, repeated assets, and general laziness in the presentation, you can tell that the developers didn’t really have the resources they needed to pour their hearts into them like they did the first level.
The graphics are decent enough for a Genesis game and have that gritty and stony look to them that you would expect. The first level feels colorful, fast, and really shows off what the Genesis can do. This isn’t really the case for the other levels, sadly. The soundtrack is mostly ominous trumpet fanfares. It works well for the game and does give a sense of regality and epicness. However, the tunes are rather pedestrian and there isn’t anything catchy for you to want to repeatedly listen to. It’s a long way from the best shmup soundtrack on the Genesis.
Conclusion:
Phelios is a slightly better than average game overall. It has some highlights that help it out, but also has plenty of low points that keep it from being truly great. Honestly, the best thing it has going for it is its Ancient Greek setting. Without that (and the Artemis cutscenes), this game would be relegated to the tons of other middle-of-the-road shmups on the Genesis. It has its moments, for sure, but the heavy reliance on using the charge shot all of the time weighs thin. The same can be said for the overly long and repetitive levels that fill up most of the middle sections of the game. On top of that, some of the cheaper and frustrating sections of the game are made that much more irritating by the unnecessary checkpoint system.
If you’re a huge shmup fan and a collector, you’re probably going to have to shell out some real cash to pick up a physical copy of this game as its value just keeps going up and up. For the rest of you out there, try it digitally. It’s a good and memorable time if you can get it for a reasonable price.
Pros:
Unique setting and atmosphere
Moderate difficulty for a shmup. Actually beatable by the general public.
Great first level
…Artemis
Cons:
Too much reliance on the charge shot
Stages can be boring, long, and repetitive
Can’t play the full game on Novice mode
Music is lackluster
Unnecessary checkpoint system turns the game into a drag
Some cheap sections of the game can be frustrating
Final Status: Beaten
Final Score: 7/10 (Good)
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