Phalanx (video game)

Phalanx
North American Super NES cover art featuring Bertil Valley.[3]
Developer(s)ZOOM Inc. (X68000)
Kemco (SNES, GBA)
Publisher(s)ZOOM Inc. (X68000)
Kemco (SNES, GBA)
Platform(s)X68000, Super NES, Game Boy Advance, WiiWare
ReleaseX68000
  • JP: May 17, 1991
SNES
GBA
  • JP: October 26, 2001
  • EU: November 23, 2001
  • NA: December 27, 2001
WiiWare
  • JP: December 22, 2009
Genre(s)Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)Single-player

Phalanx (full title: Phalanx: The Enforce Fighter A-144) is a 1991 horizontally scrolling shooter developed by ZOOM Inc. and Kemco for the Sharp X68000, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy Advance. The game was released for the X68000 in Japan in 1991, for the SNES in Japan on August 7, 1992, in North America in October 1992 and in the same year in Europe, as well as for the Game Boy Advance in Japan on October 26, 2001, in Europe on November 23, 2001 and in North America on December 27, 2001.

Phalanx is infamous for the incongruous box art in its American release: it displays a bearded, elderly man dressed in overalls, wearing a fedora and playing a banjo while a futuristic spaceship flies in the background. The popular media site IGN named it their fifth "Most Awesome Cover" in a top 25 countdown on their website.[4] The advertising company responsible for the box art later admitted that they had deliberately chosen this theme in order to attract the customer with something original, considering there were many space shooters in the market that looked alike.[5] The Game Boy Advance release used a redesigned cover with a prominent image of a spaceship.[6]

A "mini" version called Tiny Phalanx was featured in the 1995 fighting game Zero Divide.

  1. ^ "Super NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  2. ^ "ファランクス (SFC)の関連情報 | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com". www.famitsu.com.
  3. ^ McFerran, Damien (6 November 2017). "Random: Here's Why SNES Shooter Phalanx Had That Weird Banjo Guy On Its Cover". NintendoLife.com. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  4. ^ "Top 25 Tuesday: Most Awesome Covers". IGN. 2007-03-27.
  5. ^ "The Phalanx Factor". Electronic Gaming Monthly. September 2001.
  6. ^ "Phalanx Box Shot for Game Boy Advance - GameFAQs". gamefaqs.gamespot.com.