Don't purchase Green Phoenix for anything more than a dollar, and pay less than that if possible. It's a simple, on-rails, corridor shooter that looks and sounds pleasant, but unfortunately contains little substance. Scoring is based on destroying enemies and blue-colored objects. There are two gameplay modes and neither have replay value, unless you are going for all achievements (one of which is so tedious that as of writing this only one person has obtained it out of the handful of people who have played the game). My largest complaint is a lack of targeting reticule, so actually hitting anything with your shots becomes frustrating in practice despite most being stationary objects within the tunnel of ship movement. The lack of a HUD in Green Phoenix isn't a drawback otherwise, but imagine playing Star Fox without a targeting window and you may understand this frustration.
The story mode is too short (only four levels and an ending, clocking in at around 25 minutes of gameplay), and there are too few things to actually shoot at. Enemies consist of only two (yes, two) types, with no variety within those extreme limitations. There are mines, which activate as you approach and home-in, and turrets, which activate as you approach and spray an undirected spread of bullets (which can almost always be avoided without even trying to dodge). The penalty for running into obstacles or getting hit by enemies is so lenient that the difficulty is beyond casual for anybody familiar with these types of games. To its credit, Green Phoenix does at least progress slightly in difficulty from first level to final level, each level is distinct despite all being a tunnel, and the music in the final level in particular picks up nicely to help things feel more climactic than they actually are. However, despite the brevity of story mode, I can only imagine most players struggling to remain engaged all the way to its ending.
What remains to examine about story mode is the story itself, which consists of the ship's AI computer talking at you throughout each level and isn't anything memorable. I say talking AT you, because it never really feels like it's talking TO you. For a game so limited in scope and difficulty which consists primarily of a fully-voiced story mode, you would think the story might be somewhat interesting or noteworthy, but it isn't either of those things due to that limited dynamic between the gameplay and narrative. Despite controlling the ship that's speaking, you never create any emotional connection with the ship, because there's no real feedback to any of your actions, such as destroying all the enemies in a wave, taking damage, or any significant changes across levels to denote a progression of relationship.
Finishing the story mode unlocks arcade mode, which is an endless corridor of obstacles and enemies in gradually increasing numbers across "waves" of progression. The goal is to achieve a high score while surviving as many waves as you can. At a glance, this may sound like the far more interesting and fun gameplay mode, and ultimately it sort of is, but the waves are so long, and there's so little variety, that replaying this mode to attempt high scores feels like an absolute chore. See my complaint at the beginning of the review regarding the lack of targeting reticule.
As it's been many years since Green Phoenix was released, I doubt any updates will be made to address any of the above, but the bones of this game are good and I wish it was more fleshed out. The developers clearly understood what type of game they were making, but didn't cook the idea long enough to produce a satisfying end product. With more levels, more story interaction, and greater variety, this would be a neat game for casual fans of this shooter subgenre. Unfortunately, it's just not worth the player's time in its current state.
