So this is a pretty damn fun game that I never even heard about it till a few weeks ago and it's known as Devilish.
Devilish or Bad Omen in Japan, is a unique puzzle/action type of game that is similar to games like Breakout and Arkanoid but in STEROIDS with a lot more going for it. There's even a storyline for it.
Story
The story is that there was once a Prince and a Princess who loved each other and lived happily together in their kingdom but there was a jealous Devil from the far away Dark World named, "
I". He would soon turn them both into stone paddles to a life forever of misery and pain............but out from the blue sky, came down a blue sphere upon them. The sphere felt their pain and decided to guide them on to a quest of defeating "
I" that rules over their kingdom and restoring their bodies to continue their once happy lives.
Gameplay
-Co op 2-players on screen
-There are 7 stages, each taken place in unique surroundings such as inside a clock tower, volcano, and a flying castle. Your paddles together are in charge of keeping the sphere from being dragged out of the screen and breaking your way through victory. Some stages end with a boss battle or challenge that prevents you from going any further to the level. You are timed from making it out of these levels in time but honestly, I didn't really have any trouble in making it out of these stages before the timer ran out but hard mode is another story as they give you just barely enough time to make it out. Also there are
NO continues in this game but that's actually understandable considering the game doesn't take long to beat. You do start with 3 lives in normal and are able to obtain more from higher score points. The game also has noticeable slowdown in areas BUT if you own an Overclocked Sega Genesis, a high portion of it gets removed.
(Overclocking FTW!)
Link to gameplay of it,
Controls
The controls on the paddles are pretty solid and reponsive. The one downside I noticed for the game was the physics on the sphere aren't too 'correct', sometimes it well bounce off in other directions but the thing that fixes this is that you can move your paddle and formation to any part of the screen so there's no excuse in being able to still save it.
You also get various weapons and are allowed to change your paddles to different formations. I'll just scan the pages of my manual so you can see them below, hehe.
Music
Oh god the music in this game, this is where the game REALLY shines, it's what got me to check out the game in the first place. Composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, the game carries some of the finest music you'll hear on the Genesis. The tracks are very well composed with echos and nice touches of different tunes playing together. The music fits the game quite well and in my opinion, some of the tracks such as Graveyard, Volcano and Prarie are MP3 worthy.
(Listen to them for yourself.)
Overall this is a great little game on the Sega Mega Drive that's definitely worth checking out and while you might be getting some game overs at first due to no continues. It won't take you long to understand the levels and get to the point where you will be able to beat this without losing any lives.
I just had a lot of fun playing this, which is why this review was pretty lengthy so I could just share everything I could about it.
Also, while both games have great cover arts, the Japanese version clearly is the better choice as it captures the image of the game itself.
US cover art Japanese cover art
I was planning on making this review weeks ago as I had the music uploaded and images ready. Today I just said, "Shit, I have to finish this already", hehe.
Thunderblaze16
