Game:

Phalanx (1991)

Duration: 1:02:11

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36

This is Phalanx for the Super Nintendo, played by me on Easy mode. As before, this was played using the real system and cartridge, but was recorded onto a Betamax tape first.

This is the first shoot 'em up game that I can recall playing for my Super Nintendo, and it's not too bad, but not too great, either. You can change your speed on the fly (always nice), you have 4 different weapons (which have 4 levels of power), and 3 different missile types. You can carry up to 3 weapons at any given time, but there's a twist: You can carry multiple copies of the same weapon. You see, each weapon has its own "Super Attack", but using a super attack will cost you that weapon, so if you really like a particular weapon, you may want to keep multiple copies of it. You have a 3-hit shield, which can be refilled with "P" icons (which also powers up all your weapons by one level)

Phalanx is probably most (in)famous for its cover art, which depicted an old hillbilly playing a banjo next to his dog (??!). This was supposedly done by the marketing team to give games the "heavy 'huh??' factor", as they felt that this game was otherwise quite generic. Although they were completely wrong about the box art, the marketing folks were right that this is a rather generic shooter. The graphics are rather bland and muddy, the music isn't exactly memorable (the stage 7 melody is very nice though, and dissonant harmonies in other stages actually seem to work), and the sound effects are very run-of-the-mill. The gameplay itself is solid enough, with fast, intense shooting action that doesn't suffer from as much slowdown as many other earlier SNES shooters. Phalanx can't seem to decide if it wants to be like R-Type or Earth Defense Force regarding stage designs/pacing, so it tries to do them all, which does give the game a bit of variety. The third stage feels very R-Type-ish, while the first stage is very Earth Defense Force-like. There's also an obligatory battleship stage, but you can actually freely roam about the screen on that stage. It's a bit akward, since the game wasn't initaially designed to be a free-roaming shooter. There are also very few powerups on that stage, which is quite annoying.

Overall, while the gameplay is quite solid, Phalanx could really use a bit more inspiration regarding the graphics and sound. As it stands, it's a decent shooter on the Super Nintendo. You can do better on the SNES, but you can also do far, far worse.

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