Avenging Spirit is a conversion of a Japanese arcade game published by Jaleco during the 90s.  We covered the release a week or so back, and have had the pleasure of playing the game since then, so it’s high time we told you all about it.

In all honesty, the original didn’t ring any bells, so I went into this ‘cold’.  The story is an unsual one.  You play the spirit of a young man who was shot and killed by hoodlums, but are called back by your girlfriend’s father, who wants you to save her from the same fate.

As a ghost, you’re almost completely useless, so it’s a good thing that you can possess the living.  You do this by hovering your Casper-like character over someone’s head and pressing fire, and as you sink into their body, you take on all their abilities.  Each character has a certain amount of energy and when it runs out, you return to being a ghost, but can instantly inhabit another body to continue your quest.

You quest takes the form of a 2D platform game with six levels, where you must find three keys in order to save your girlfriend.  The characters range from one of the four you choose at the beginning – a ninja, a girl, a mage and a soldier – to white ladies, dragons, robots and even Dracula.  They all have different abilities and weapons, and some are helpful and some are not.

The early levels are quite free-form, where you have a degree of freedom over how you get to the end of the stage, goodies can be found as you jump around, and flashing arrows give you a clue as to where you ultimately need to be.  Later, the levels become even more abstract, with some sections being very straight-forward, but a choice of doors sees you move into quite confusing sections where it’s easy to get lost.  When you’re a ghost, you can move through walls, and you can find yourself right back where you started if you’re not paying attention.

Avenging Spirit will certainly test your platforming ability, as it represents a considerable challenge!  The difficulty doesn’t make it too annoying though, and it’s easy to get carried away playing for an hour or so.  You’ll rapidly find your favorite character – the ninja is especially good – and it’s good fun leaping around, zipping throwing stars at baddies and generally having a good time.  The end-of-level nasties are very tough however, especially after the first two, and getting past them may take a while.

There are two gaming modes: arcade has a set amount of lives and continues, while freeplay lets you play through with invincibility.  Although you still gain achievements in freeplay, your scores don’t get added to the Game Center leaderboards.

It’s also possible to play fullscreen or in an arcade cabinet-style window.  For once, playing on the smaller screen is far easier, as in fullscreen your thumb covers a massive chunk of the action, resulting in many a lost life, plus the graphics also look better on the smaller option, and are presented in their original ratio too.

With the smaller screen, the virtual joystick and two action buttons are out of the way.  The controls are acceptable, and with a little bit of practice it’s easy to time directional jumps and duck under enemy fire.  Acceptable though they are, it’s clear Avenging Spirit would be much easier with a physical joystick or d-pad.

The developers, DotEmu, say this is the first of seventeen Jaleco conversions they’re handling, and they’ve set the bar high with this first offering; as Avenging Spirit is an entertaining, fast-paced game set to a fantastic 90s arcade soundtrack, and it’ll test the abilities of any retro platform fan.  At just $0.99/£0.59, there’s no reason not to try this unusual slice of supernatural nostalgia.

Overall: 4/5.