Bio-Ship Paladin

Platform	Sega Genesis
Genre	Horizontal Shmup
Release Year	1991
Rating	⭐⭐⭐⭐⚝
Added	2025-Oct-12

Bio-Ship Paladin is an arcade shmup that was ported to the Sega Genesis. Now usually I'm not so great with shmups. They tend to be unforgiving and one mistake can send you on a death spiral. I can say that on the easiest mode, I 1CCed Bio-Ship Paladin on my first attempt. It's an easy shmup to just pick up and start with.

That's not to say it's not weird. You have a health gauge, which is already strange. As you upgrade your ship it grows in size, both its sprite and its hitbox. Taking damage makes you lose those upgrades. So the more powerful you are, the more precision flying you need to keep your power. Finally you have two weapons and how you fire them differs greatly.

Your main weapon is a basic shmup laser that you can rapid fire by tapping or charge by holding. Then you have what I called a flak cannon. You press C to switch to moving a reticle around on the screen instead of yourself. If you fire in this mode, you shoot projectiles that explode and destroy projectiles and background enemies. You can move, or control the flak cannon, not both.

If you can get the hang of this, Bio-Ship Paladin is a neat, fairly easy tour through a bunch of shmup mechanics. Not the easiest one I've played, but a good one for beginners.