Previously, Arthur meet Princes
Prin Prin then she kidnapped by flying demon. Arthur goes to rescue her through
hazards, demons, ghosts, and Firebrand/Red Arremer. That's always the premise
of Ghost 'n Goblins game. What else
did you expect? Anyway, Arthur reaches stage 6 now.
What's worse than boss rush? That's right! Firebrand/Red Arremer rush. This stage is filled with 3 of him and you're forced to defeat them. Running away just make things worse. But i discover something amazing. Like Hercules slay Stymphalian Bird on his 12 task story, i slay Firebrand/Red Arremer with arrows. They're not dipped in poison first, mind you. As long as he's on top part of the screen you can hit him with arrow quite easily.
The bird is back but he only serves as equivalent of Castlevania's White Dragon. Scout_domination15.wav
The boss is Astaroth that once a final boss of the first game now being demoted to boss 3rd final boss. Pretty sucks to be him. But his bottom face looks cheerful even though it chin doubles as crotch. Imagine if your genitalia is in your chin! Ok, i'm sorry for horrible illustration. Anyway, Astaroth here can shoot laser from his head's mouth and his stomach's mouth can breathes fire. Both attack has rather strong tracking. You can only hurt him by attacking -you guess it- his head. Therefore the bow is perfect weapon for this boss fight.
The bird's head also appears in next level but this time it appears more than once and has ability to puke blue fireball.
After passing ghosts, i encounter Astaroth again! But this time there's ditch and he can't walk into it so he can't corner you with his big body like in previous opportunity.
After Astaroth defeated, i have to fight King Astaroth. He wears crown so he must be the king, right? Unlike his vassal, King Astaroth's attacks have fixed angle/direction therefore you don't need to bait his attack to dodge it. You can duck under the triple laser. When he shoot fire stream (which is twice longer than Astaroth's fire breath), you move out of its way. He naturally has bigger health than Astaroth but keep chucking arrows into his head and he eventually explodes.
"...also wear more cloth, please!" So he needs this Goddess' Bracelet to defeat the final boss. So i need to find this bracelet. But where can i find it?
On those previous stages, of course. This is what i mean with the real stage count is twice from what it looks like. To be more accurate, 7 X 2 and plus 1 which means 15 stages total. It's not that i miss the bracelet on my way to penultimate stage, no. The goddess' jewelry is unlocked on 2nd loop so the stage repetition is inevitable. At least, i get opportunity to talk about this section full of vine on 1st stage. It's filled with foreground vines (obviously), flying explosive flesh that comes out of thin air, and flaming bone cart. The cart only moves on slopes and there's sudden terrain change everywhere.
I remember one of speedrunner for this game recommend the upgraded bow weapon and it's proven. The upgrade version of bow fire 3 arrows that homing on enemies! Sniper_mvm_loot_rare01.wav
If you get the golden armor, next chest that should contains armor will contains blue shield instead. It can block enemy's projectile as long as you don't move. Unlike the yellow shield that come up along with golden armor, it doesn't break after successful block. The armor upgrades are all worth to have but keep in mind that obtaining them is extremely hard. Not only you mustn't take even one hit in levels where everything is eager to damage you relentlessly but also all the chests are hidden. They are revealed once you reach some certain point in the screen. So you have to jump around the screen while dodging enemy's attack and hope that you trigger the chest somehow and somewhere. Plus the chest can contain jester demon as i mentioned before, instead of armor or weapon.
I find a fairy within a chest. If i take long enough to get her, she turns into bracelet! That means she's the bracelet that the Princess Prin Prin talked about so i take her. I'm going to miss you, bow. -_-
With the bracelet equipped, i can throw magic energy ball and i quite regret that decision because it has limited range and i can only have 1 projectile at a time. Even with the golden armor equipped, the magic bracelet aren't upgraded and doesn't have the special magic. On the brighter side, you don't miss anything good from the weapon with upgraded armor.
I forget to tell you that sometime opening chest reveals a bear trap as you can side on left side. It's probably the lamest form of trap as it stays there and does nothing. It only works if some doofus runs hastily toward opened chest...or a bear. That's why it called bear trap, you know?
I take a risk by getting another weapon for show off. People believe that the torch is the worst weapon. The mechanism of the weapon is: you throw torch in short distance and fire will burn the ground where the torch lands and you must wait for the fire to die before throwing another torch leaving you defenseless. On contrary with Castlevania's holy water that has the same mechanism but it's considered the best weapon in that game. That's because Simon Belmont (or any Belmont or even Alucard) can performs melee attack while Arthur can't do anything else but dodge. All thing considered, the torch has some strength. It potentially deal most damage than other weapon. The upgraded version of it can create blue flame pillars. While its special magic is 3 orb that surrounds you which is perfect for defensive method.
The magic bracelet deals damage varies to distance between Arthur and enemies. The closer it is, the bigger damage. He can defeat Firebrand/Red Arremer with 2-3 projectiles of the magic weapon but good luck hitting the infamous demon with it! I think the key to defeat it is to react in counter manner. Taking initiative usually doesn't work unless using bow weapon. Wait for him to swoop down at you and act accordingly. As for Astaroth, he's much easier target obviously.
I found out the difference between the real chest and the fake ones that contains little ghost. The real in bottom has more contrast color and bigger lock. Also the fake ones like to jump by its own. Creepy!
This what happens if you beat the King Astaroth second time while not using Goddess' bracelet. The game kicks you to the start of this level but at least the princess gives you "Good Luck" expression for finding the bracelet and not being pushy jerk unlike me.
I realize that if you crouch at the of this ditch like this you will be save from both triple wide laser and the long fire stream. If you do this, you can cut the distance between you and King Astaroth big time than standing at the other end of the ditch. Thus you can retaliate faster and it's important. Did i mention that there's timer on this game? Because there's one. It takes much longer time to defeat this big boss by using bow compare to using magic bracelet. So the magic bracelet isn't complete bust.
Here's the final boss The Demon King with unthreatening name: Sardius. In fact, his name makes me crave for canned sardines. This final boss is stupidly easy. He launch glass platform from his stomach's mouth that you need to ride on so you can hit his head. Don't be faltered by Danmaku-like style laser that he shoot from his mouth! If you keep crouching while riding the flying platform, you will be fine. Once you near his head, jump and throws the magical thingamajig at his face and then wait for next platform. Rinse and Repeat. It doesn't take long time to destroy him. Because i have measly gaming skill, i'm sure you can do this easily too.
Even i didn't know that the bracelet is powerful weapon but i knew that it's the raison d'être for second loop from some wiki page. So, yeah. Like in other Ghosts 'n Goblins game, Arthur get a kiss from the princess for the good ending. It's sensible course of action. You don't want to make love in palace full of violent demons, do you?
Then there's character cast. So the bird is Cockatrice, huh? He doesn't have stare that cause death to anyone who look at him. But if you stare him long enough, he suddenly stretch his neck and peck at you until die. Fair enough. The green Astaroth with crown turns out to be Nebiroth or maybe Naberius. Sadly there's no cast for that coral demon or ice demon. I'm curious what their name are.
Then Arthur along with Princess ride on the horse. Credit rolls and everyone is happy including that horse. Maybe he's saved from turning into demon's snack just in time.
Yes. There will be Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins on PSP but that's another story.
Capcom's Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (1991) is Ghosts 'n Goblins exclusive for SNES and apparently the continuation of Ghouls 'n Ghosts on arcade cabinet. It has more improvement than the predecessor but lose important basic feature in return: ability to aim up and down. If i'll be harsh, that's on purpose because every Ghosts 'n Goblins' selling point is the cruelty and agonizing difficulty so they can't be bothered to fix that. I can understand why they don't fix the Arthur's flight. Maybe altering the jump move is complex than it looks. But aiming up or down should be manageable because they add it in Ghouls 'n Ghosts! Moreover in Super Castlevania IV on the same console as this game, Simon Belmont can whips vertically and diagonally even! But there's fun feature in this game such as armor and weapon upgrade. The arsenal range from good to cumbersome. I think axe and scythe are lack of damage power to be recommended. The mandatory magic weapon is hard to use but with precise shooting it can be very powerful weapon. The armor system is less friendly than in Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins. Whatever armor type you equip, it will breaks with one hit leaving Arthur with his underwear. But as this is the first game that implement more than 2 armor type so i let it passes. The timer is fairly generous. Couple it with short stages (on later part), it feels not pressing on you too hard and rather friendly. The music are fairly dimmed but can be noticeable especially the famous Makaimura theme on first level. The presentation is pretty good. The stage's visual, sound effect, and enemy design are well mixed. But i'm disappointed with boss design which is in lower level than Castlevania's boss design. The base design of bosses look like made by staff's children that tell being told to draw "monster". On the other hand, Castlevania's boss design has more engaging look. Fine. Let's have more reasonable comparison! Demon's Crest boss design is definitely better than in this game.
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (1991) is highly difficult platformer game as usual in the series. There's certainly good gameplay elements on it but you must have big patience and skill to get them. I can only recommend this game to hardcore platformer gamer or fans of the series. Or even Firebrand/Red Arremer fans. I like him too but not good enough to finish his game: Demon's Crest, mind you.
No comments:
Post a Comment