Avenging Spirit Play Online 🪙 Game Boy Games in Browser

Summary

Avenging Spirit (known as Phantasm in Japan) turns the usual platform run‑and‑gun formula on its head by letting you hop from one enemy’s body to another. After the hero’s girlfriend is turned into a ghost, the only way forward is to possess the four starter characters, each with a distinct ability, and then chain into the ever‑growing roster of foes that appear on each level. You can either blast enemies or take control of them, swapping bodies on the fly to solve puzzles, collect power‑ups, and take down the level’s boss. The arcade version earned a respectable spot as the 17th most‑successful table unit in Japan’s July 1991 rankings, and critics like Sinclair User praised its longevity despite a steep learning curve. Decades later the Game Boy original resurfaced on the 3DS Virtual Console in 2011 and even got a limited‑run cartridge re‑issue in 2022, keeping the ghost‑possessing action alive for new retro fans.

Storyline

In Avenging Spirit, a walk with his girlfriend turns deadly when agents of a mysterious crime syndicate ambush the pair, kidnap the girl and shoot the protagonist. His dying body becomes a wandering spirit with the power to possess any of twenty different creatures. Summoned by the girlfriend’s father—who studies ghost energy—the spirit is tasked with infiltrating the syndicate’s base across six dangerous stages. Along the way he must collect three keys on stages 2, 5 and 6; with all three he can open the girl’s cell and possess her to fight out together, otherwise he faces the syndicate leader alone. Defeating the leader triggers an explosion, and the spirit’s power fades on a grassy field. If the girl is rescued she approaches the field and he wishes her future happiness before vanishing, while a failed rescue implies her death and a final, lonely fade‑away for the player.

Edited by Maya Carter