Two lovers, a prince an a princess, were turned into paddles by a jealous demon. A blue ball of light fell from the sky, offering them retribution. And so the story begins.

This is the only Breakout-style game for the Genesis that I know of. Good graphics, cool theme, nice music. Some of the bosses are pretty neat, from devils to treants to female statues. You can get power-ups that enlarge your paddle (wink, wink) or turn your ball into an unstoppable sphere of fire (for a limited time). Some people have complained that this game gets too hard at higher levels and I might have to agree. I do wish that it had a password option to continue, because I hate having to start over every time at level 1. Another complaint is that the ball physics aren't very realistic. You might sometimes get frustrated that the ball's not going at an angle that corresponds to the way you think you hit it.

If you like Breakout or Arkanoid, you'll probably enjoy this game. However, whereas Breakout and Arkanoid had one-screen, static playfields, Devilish puts a interesting twist on things by making you travel across an ever changing board to reach a goal at the very end. And not only does the playfield move up, but also left and right. Your paddle (you have two of them actually, one on top of the other, though the top paddle can move UP the screen as well as side to side) can be rotated left or right, depending upon what direction you want to hit the ball. Waiting for you at the end of the trail, of course, is the level boss, who you must defeat with a certain number of hits of your ball.

Devilish starts out easy but gets tough later on, so it will take quite a few plays to conquer. Whether or not you'll want to bother, of course, depends on your taste in games. Personally, given its creative fantasy theme and relatively engaging gameplay, I enjoy playing Devilish from time to time. Try it and you might like it, or hate it too. Devilish really seems to be one of those games that you don't know if you'll enjoy until you give it a fair chance.