155: Pheenix

Number 155
Pheenix
YS Top 100: 98

Yes, there are a few arcade ports in this list, which you might think are pointless in this age of MAME, but hey, at least this old shoot 'em up is playable.

Based on the coin-op game Phoenix, this is an evolution on the Galaxian style that offers several different stages to play: you face a flock of alien birds, then some hatching eggs with larger birds inside, and finally a mothership which you must destroy. You can defend yourself with a temporary shield, or you can just blast away with your laser cannon. This Spectrum rendition keeps the speed of the arcade original, and would have been a popular choice at a time when gamers would've been keen to play the game at home. This is one of the early Spectrum games that requires LOAD""CODE (J, SymbShift+P, CapsShift+SymbShift then I), instead of the standard LOAD"" that most games use, but a modern emulator like Fuse will detect this and load it without issue.

Sure, you can fire up MAME on even the most low-powered device imaginable and play the original arcade game of this, but I'd say this knock-off plays about as well as that one, so if you want a fun classic shooter on your Speccy, you can do worse than this.

16K - Yes
48K - Yes
128K - Yes