Avenging Spirit is a 1991 side-scrolling arcade action game developed by C.P. Brain and published by Jaleco, released in North America in October 1991 after debuting in Japan that spring under the title Phantasm. Its hook is possession: gunned down by gangsters who kidnap his girlfriend, the hero returns as a ghost, summoned back by her father, a scientist studying spirit energy, to fight through six stages of a crime syndicate’s turf and get her back. As a bodiless spirit you’re invincible but defenseless and constantly losing energy, so survival means jumping into the bodies of the more than twenty enemies you meet along the way — gang members, dragons, robots, and stranger things — and using whatever they can do.
How to Play
Guide your ghost into a nearby enemy to take over their body; each host has its own speed, jump, health, and attack, from fast-but-fragile fighters to slow, heavily armored ones. While possessed you fight your way to the end of each of the six stages and its boss; three hidden colored keys are scattered across the game, and finding all of them unlocks the true ending.
- Arrow keys — move / 8-way movement
- Z — attack
- X — jump
- Enter — start
- Shift — insert coin
Tips
- Spirit energy drains fast while you’re a bare ghost, so don’t linger between hosts — possess the next available body as soon as your current one falls.
- Not every host is worth taking: a slow, high-health body like a dragon can outlast a fragile one in a tough spot, and certain hosts (like the baseball-player enemy) can reflect projectiles back at shooters.
- This original arcade release is noticeably harder than the Game Boy port that followed a year later, also playable on Past Play — expect to burn through continues while you learn each stage’s enemy placement.
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