Avenging Spirit Game Sample - Arcade
0Avenging Spirit (known as "Phantasm" in Japan) is a fun and interesting 2-player side-scrolling action game developed by Jaleco in 1991 and was later ported to Game Boy (in 1992) and re-released for iOS (in 2010) and 3Ds' eShop Virtual Console (in 2011). The game is about a young man (the player) and his girlfriend (Miss Darling) who are enjoying themselves one day when a group of gangsters kill you and kidnap your girlfriend. It turns out that your girlfriend was the daughter of a reknowned scientist who is researching legendary "Ghost Energy" and this crime syndicate, also researching "Ghost Energy", are using Miss Darling as leverage to make the scientist cooperate. However, your soul was "salvaged" by this scientist and he now pleads for you to save his daughter. Using your sustained ghost form, you can possess enemies and use their powers against them, and you now have one chance to get revenge and protect your girlfriend from the afterlife.
The game is comprised of six stages with some explorative elements and your goal is to find three keys that will allow you to free your girlfriend from her cell (and possess her for her special abilities if you wish) and take down the syndicate to exact your revenge. As a ghost, your energy will slowly deplete on its own, but by possessing the game's many characters, you can slow the dissapating process and use the hosts' body, each with their own control and character traits. For example, some are fast but frail, while others are slow but have high stamina, while others have more unusual traits such as slow jumping / fast falling, floating, and more. Your spirit will still be hurt when your host is hurt however, so you can't just use a body until you tire of it and then possess someone else; whatever form you have will require you to make the most of it if you want to finish the game using as few credits as possible, which is another interesting aspect to the game (though you can at least possess two characters before you're in danger of fading away). If you run out of energy but have a host, you'll survive as long as the host lives. If both die, you lose a credit. The game is swarming with foes to add to the challenge factor and also to give you many opportunities to possess characters.
The game has good visuals and great audio and functional gameplay (to the point where levels are designed to be acessible regardless of the body you inhabit) that tries to distance itself from the many me-too titles out there and is a quality side-scroller while it lasts. This is a video of the game in action. Enjoy.