 Yep, that's right, it's time to take a look at the game with a creepy old guy playing a banjo on the cover. In case you didn't know already, Fallenx is actually a shoot-em-up, but personally, I always got a kick out of people who were surprised when they found that out. Like this game's a shoot-em-up, there's no way you could ever tell from the cover. What on earth would you realistically expect from a cover like this? A platformer with an old dude hopping around zapping people with banjo licks? Point is, if you see a cover this weird, expect anything. Sadly, when this game got re-released on Game Boy Advance, they eschewed the cover for something more conventional. Boring. Anyway, Fallenx was originally released on the Sharp X68000. Yes, I get to show that beast of a computer again. Shortly afterward, it was ported to the Super Nintendo, and yeah, after playing this game for a few minutes, I can understand why the publisher, Chemco, wanted to try something totally different when it came to selling this game with the weird cover. Because Fallenx is very unremarkable. This game looks, sounds, feels, and plays like a million other shoot-em-ups of the era. Your ship's abilities include being able to change your speed at will, I guess they decided on that instead of having three different ships to choose from, which would have been a lot better. There's also several weapons available, you can keep up to three at once and power them up individually, or you can let go of one and use it as a clear-all bomb. There's laser, homing, energy, and ricochet, as well as three different kinds of missile accompaniments. So yeah, kinda generic. The one thing that makes this game stand out, in my opinion, is that for a shoot-em-up, it's actually kinda sorta forgiving. In other words, it's not impossible. Your ship could take three hits, and you could actually, huh, replenish your health at many different opportunities throughout each level. That by itself makes Fallenx an easy recommendation, just because it can serve as a gateway to other better shoot-em-ups. I guess that's more of a backhanded compliment more than anything. Hey, your game is great as long as it leads you to play something way better. Bear in mind, this game can still present a challenge to veteran shoot-em-up players. There's a cheat code to unlock a quote-unquote funny difficulty setting, and yeah, it's just that. You laugh at how freaking hard it is. I could also talk about the plot of this game, but if the plot of a shoot-em-up is going to make or break your decision on playing it, then I don't know what to tell you. It's not like the story in this game is that bad, it's that it does not matter in the slightest, and the developers know that too, which is why it's just a bunch of clichéd science fiction gobbledygook thrown together in about five minutes. The gameplay is obviously what matters here. Anyway, I hope I haven't given off the impression that Phalanx is a bad game. It's not at all, it's just average, with its one big quality being that it's approachable and forgiving enough for a newcomer to the shoot-em-up genre. And not only that, the cartridge is reasonably priced on eBay, so if you find the R-type games Gradius III, Perodius, Axelay, or Macross-scrambled Valkyrie too tough to get into, practice a little bit on Phalanx. But yeah, it's no wonder this game has such a weird cover because otherwise it would be totally unmemorable. I really hope this old dude got a cut of whatever profit this game would have made.