PAPRIUM - Arcade 1CC (Very Hard / Alex)
381Paprium is an infamous beat 'em up that was developed for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive by Watermelon Games several years ago. It started out as a Kickstarter campaign all the way back in 2012, and after some roadbumps, it was kinda released in 2020, exclusively for the Genesis. I say kinda because even to this day in 2025, a lot of people never got their copies of the game. But it was finally made available via emulation through RetroArch, so I was interested in trying it out myself.
Aaaand... it's not very good. The graphics are awesome for a game that can run on real Mega Drives, and the soundtrack is solid. The gameplay is where all the problems lie. Combat is very simple, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but the balance is poor and the game just ends up being boring to play. You have a basic punch combo, a dash attack, and Streets of Rage-esque grab and throw moves. Enemies have some anti-infinite escapes built in, but it behaves strangely and just makes it feel bad when an enemy decides they're going to be untouchable after a couple jabs. It's worse on bosses, who are also very simple and not interesting to fight. Each character also has a jump attack, which is extremely powerful and by far the safest and most reliable way to deal with big groups of enemies. If you want to no death clear this, just spam jump attacks about 3364 times and it'll be a breeze. Your basic combo isn't strong enough to kill most enemies in one go, so you have to interrupt it with a throw/hold combo - which would be fine if the enemies wouldn't randomly become invincible. You can also kick enemies when they're down, but it seemingly only does good damage if they're stunned. Finally, you have a power up where you take pills become extra powerful, but it basically just gives you one strong attack you can use over and over. And the more you use this power up, the more "addicted" you become to the pills, and your maximum health decreases. I guess. I almost never use it because it's not interesting. There are more minor details I could go into, but ultimately the combat is very mid, if you want to be generous.
Finally, this game has two different modes: Arcade and Original. Arcade is just a preset series of stages, with no difference in every run. Original has a bunch of branching stages that lead to completely different areas, with different bosses, and different endings. Original even has unlockable characters. None of this applies to Arcade mode. It's baffling. What is the point of Arcade mode if it's stripped down and totally inferior to Original? It makes no sense at all.
I'd like to play the other characters (Alex is the weakest of the main cast, at least) and do different routes through Original with them, but this game is also kinda boring and I don't really want to play it any more, so I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll at least try a different path and see if I want to continue.
You can play this on RetroArch right now if you want to give it a shot. I wouldn't recommend it, but you can't beat the price. I won't post a link to it but it's easy enough to find on Google or Twitter.
0:00 Intro
1:02 Stage 1 - Block 888
5:44 Stage 2 - Intercom
11:40 Stage 3 - MTS
17:07 Stage 4 - Bion Mart
25:10 Stage 5 - Roof-Top
33:57 Stage 6 - Police HQ
47:28 Ending & Credits
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): • Beat 'em Ups
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): • 2D Action
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): • STG Replays