Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Played by xRavenXP and @HenPlay

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Game: Paprium
System: Sega Genesis
Version: (US)

This is the longplay for Paprium, an action and beat 'em up game developed and distributed by Watermelon and released in 2020 exclusively for the Sega Genesis.

The game's story revolves around a fictional city called Paprium, a metropolis built after a nuclear war somewhere near Shanghai, Tokyo, and Pyongyang in the year 8A2, the hexadecimal value for the number 2210. The city is extremely violent and dominated by crime and corruption, with numerous class conflicts occurring where one group seeks to destroy the other in order to control territories. The game stars three characters: Tug, a tall man with great physical strength; Alex, a young woman skilled in the use of bladed weapons with great agility; and Dice, a middle-aged man with balanced strength and agility attributes. Together, the three will need to fight to restore order and sweep crime from the city of Paprium, and to do so they will fight with their bare fists.

Paprium is a beat 'em up inspired by games like Streets of Rage and Final Fight, where players must attack enemies with punches, kicks, and weapons from the environment. In the game, we control Tug, Alex, and Dice in their crusade against crime, traversing apocalyptic scenarios. The heroes can use high and low punches with their bare hands and also use melee weapons, such as knives, pipes, and electrified batons to attack at close range or throw these weapons at long range at enemies. They can also use a drug called Blu, which appears in the form of a blue pill and can grant temporary invulnerability and increased attack power to the user. In addition, they can also use vehicles and humanoid creatures as mounts, similar to Golden Axe.

The game features alternative paths, and it is necessary to traverse them to unlock two secret characters (Ba Ba and L-Ektra), as well as choosing to place characters on thrones after a certain period in order to unlock alternative routes. Unlocking all the routes requires not only a lot of planning, but also playing them multiple times in order to unlock the longest route in the game (where you also see the best ending). The game's graphics are good and well-made, the soundtrack (composed by David Burton, aka Groovemaster303, and Trevin Hughes, aka Jredd) is very well done, with some very memorable songs that match the chaotic atmosphere of the game. The gameplay is simple, but full of problems, with the risk of grabbing and not being able to easily release your teammate, in addition to relatively repetitive enemies and a somewhat precarious hitbox. The game had a lot of potential, but it is full of bugs that greatly hinder the experience, especially graphical artifacts when explosions occur along with many elements on the screen and moments where, in the transition from one screen to another, the character walks and his sprite does not move his legs (this is solved by jumping). The environments are well-crafted for the game's futuristic cyberpunk theme, however, most of them take place indoors, and I confess I expected something with plenty of open spaces to better explore the city of Paprium. While the game's music is of good quality, the same cannot be said of the sound effects, which are quite generic. The game attempts to lengthen the game to increase replayability, but this ends up being too long and sometimes even tedious, since each of the three main routes (where it's necessary to leave a character on the throne) needs to be played three times, making the game's longevity very repetitive.

Paprium was planned by Watermelon since 2012 as a revolutionary game, promising graphics that went far beyond the original capabilities of the Mega Drive, among other things, and for this, a crowdfunding campaign was launched, selling cartridges to project supporters. Its development was plagued by problems, such as extreme delays and lack of communication, with many original backers never receiving their physical copies, leading to accusations of fraud, and many promises (such as Steam, PS4, and Nintendo Switch versions) not being fulfilled. The cartridge also has a special chip called Datenmeister, which expands the game's capabilities beyond the native limits of the Mega Drive and makes it difficult to play on emulators. After a long time, the game was finally emulated, although the emulation is not entirely perfect and is quite experimental. My verdict? It's not a bad game, but it could have been much better if it had been better cared for and if the company that developed it had been more responsible. Watermelon did a good job with the RPG Pier Solar, but when it came to Paprium, they faltered greatly with those who trusted them. The video was made in Original Mode and played in 14 playthroughs (yes, 14, you read that right). I hope you enjoy it.