Previously, mysterious earthquake has risen ghost activity. Ghostbusters do their job on 4 buildings. Each ghost boss that haunts the buildings, drops a piece of stone tablet upon defeated. The stone tablet is completed but Egon and Ray are missing. There’s letter to tell Peter to bring the stone tablet to old castle. The letter is signed with name Arthur. Who’s this Arthur?
Suddenly…
The professor Zweistein from the weapon shop barges through the door. He reveals quite important fact. Arthur researches about ghost and he’s regular customer of Zweistein. But when Arthur found the tablet, he was gone. I know that’s quite important fact that we must know but I appreciate if you knock the door first. Also, since when you wear shades, old man? You want to be extra cool or something?
Now, we have reason to investigate the suspicious castle which apparently smaller than Ecto-1 Car. Strange. I like to point out that the time flies as we finish stage, starting from morning. Now the time becomes night.
There’s no intense negotiation happens here. Peter nonchalantly passes the stone tablet to this ugly mug who’s Arthur that wrote the letter, by the way. But the villain doesn’t hand us Ray and Egon as part of obligation. He just walks away and tells Peter to look them by himself. What an irresponsible kidnapper.
Of course, finding Egon and Ray is not walk in a park. The old castle is filled with ghosts obviously. What annoys me are these pendulum blade that spinning 360o. Sure you can dodge them by crawling. But thing get more complicated when the pendulum swing from below. Luckily, the chain doesn’t hurt me. Unlike in previous level, this castle has 4 sub-bosses, indicated by the number of ghost in lower right corner.
There’s new enemy. This pillar with pink orb, obstructs your way until destroyed. It has capability to shoot 3-way projectiles. You can use phaser shell to destroy this enemy easier.
Lucky me! I found another 1up. It’s hidden in this tough platforming. The platforms shorter or longer periodically. It requires precise platforming skill to get here.
Then there’s this zombie breaks from his cell and want to hurt me. I’m not the one who imprisoned you. Why do you want to kill me? One of my gripes with this game is how useless the firing while in standing pose. There’s barely any enemy with standing height. Take Ghouls n Ghosts, the weakest enemy is the skeleton murderer who has standing height and can be dealt with one-well placed lance. Meanwhile, the weakest enemy is slime that tricky to hit with standing shot because it constantly jumping around. Although in this level, there are the orbed pillar and this zombie that on standing level but can take so many damages. Kind of inconvenient. There’s also bat ghosts that perch on ceiling before they attack or attacked. They’re not so durable enemy so they’re ok.
There’s this very strict platforming section. These grassy platforms go in or out in certain timing. I want to say they’re similar to Megaman’s staple Yoku Block but that’s probably not accurate because they’re not entirely vanish. They just shrunk and intangible for a while.
The first sub-boss that I encounter is Grim Reaper, the death itself! My response is to shoot bubbles at him which is very stupid as you can see. The bubble gun behaves like Air Shooter from Megaman. It fires projectile upward, probably good for enemies in mid-air. However, I have to hit him in the head so throwing bubbles randomly is not going to win this fight.
The best chance to hit death in the head is when he slowly descends to either slash you with his scythe or conjure bunch of crescent projectiles. The latter can force you to take guaranteed hit if you aren’t far away from him. So, that’s why I activate the special suit which generate thin shell around me. It consumes energy whenever there’s loud ping noise. Not necessarily means 1 energy block consumed per 1 ping. More like 1 energy block consumed per 3 or 4 pings. The special suit is quite necessary item to purchase.
Next sub boss is this giant caterpillar. Because there’s no room for dodging. This fight becomes pure damage race. Just shoot his head before he crawls on you. That last phrase sounds bit revolting.
But the sub boss fight is not over yet! The giant caterpillar splits into these flying eyeball ghosts. They only attack you in 1 way: swooping with parabolic line of travel with various range. You can’t simply crawl to avoid them because they expand periodically like heartbeat. They can still hit you even if you crawl when they’re big once they fly near ground. I don’t have reliable tips for this. Except, 3-way shoot is quite good here. You can also dismiss the giant caterpillar quickly if you use the spread gun.
Look who I found! It’s Egon but he’s currently possessed. He shoots gun at me so I retaliate and it goes well. Oh, wait! I remember. I’m supposed to hit the ghost that possesses him. Duh, my bad.
There you go. Here’s the thing. Possessed Egon will imitate gun that I use but have better fire rate. If I use the normal shoot, he shoots same gun but with longer range and bigger fire rate. When I use phaser shell which has slower fire rate and projectile, he also uses the same gun but with slightly faster fire rate. So, use phaser shell for this sub-boss fight! Not only you can dodge Egon’s attack easier but also can deliver hefty damage to the ghost. But still accuracy is the key. Phaser shell is cumbersome weapon that requires timing precision and accuracy. Unlike any enemies that I encounter so far, possessed Egon and the ghost himself doesn’t deal contact damage to me so you can safely get pass through them safely. Provided that Egon is not firing as you pass him.
Remember the platforming zone where I found 1up? Turns out if I went to right side instead of left side that leads to 1 up, I would end up in room where possessed Ray awaits. The fight pretty much the same with possessed Egon except this room is narrower but the ceiling is high as opposed to the possessed Egon’s room which is long but the ceiling is quite low. I like to point out how dumb the ghostbuster looks when ghost possessing him about to come out.
After the ghost either run away or trapped, Peter gives Ray a bit of shake to wake him up. Ray also looks funny there.
The boss is this plant. Ghost plant? The ghost of some extreme introvert gardener that wish to be man-eating plant because how he hates people, I guess. Anyway, he ate Arthur. Good riddance. But now he wants to eat me as dinner.
Because being excrement of vicious plant is bad idea, I fight him. This fight reminds me of that giant plant in Joe & Mac Caveman Ninja by Data East and also Cuphead. So random sprout comes out from random spot then mini plant fly around in your general direction. On top of that, the main plant occasionally fires big laser from his mouth. Much like the fire face ghost, his weak point is his open mouth too. This fight may sound difficult and tedious. However, I figure something out. If you just keep crawl on the floor, you most likely safe. The big laser doesn’t hit you when you crawl and you can move back and forth to dodge the small plant relatively easy. The spout itself doesn’t damage you, if I remember correctly. You can use phaser shell to hit the open mouth, with correct timing.
The defeated plant drops a red skull. That can’t be good thing.
Not only we got the stone tablet and the red skull crystal, but also we get payment...from Professor Zweistein! I don’t know why but this reward feels like cashback. But that’s just me. Unlike in previous stages where you can retreat and get paid for any captured sub-boss ghost. In old castle stage, you can’t have down payment for captured sub-boss ghost when you retreat. Only if you defeat the plant ghost boss first, you get all the money reward in full payment. Some sort of challenge, I suppose. However, the possessed ghostbusters are not hard to deal with.
As the ghostbuster put the ominous crystal into the stone tablet that perfectly fits, a giant hole appears in the middle of city. Good job, ghostbuster! You made enormous mess on this one.
For some reason, Peter (or whoever Ghostbuster you picked) can decipher the message on stone tablet. “The stone tablet is the seal to the door of the evil world. By placing the red jewel called the eye of the flame in the center hole of the stone tablet, a corridor to the evil world is opened.”. However, Egon says that there’s jewel called the storm’s calm that if you put it on stone tablet (somewhere presumably second slot or replace the eye of the flame jewel), the evil world is sealed once more.
Suddenly Major’s assistant rush in through our office informing the huge hole in the city. Thankfully, he doesn’t know that the hole on the ground is Ghostbuster’s fault. Get it? Fault as in fault line. Heh! Anyway, the mayor’s assistant asks ghostbuster to solve this incident because the mysterious hole is full of ghost. So, it’s the door to evil world. Get to work, ghostbuster!
As you expect from evil world. It’s dark and bad. But I didn’t expect bootleg Xenomorph’s eggs like around here. They’re harmful to touch and you can’t even destroy them. To make thing worse. Some of them, the one that beating like heart, they can spray painful needles at me. These not-Alien’s eggs sometime located in both ceiling and floor. Thus requires your precision on jumping, which is quite annoying. Jump too high, you get hit by ceiling eggs. Jump too low, you get hit by floor egg. Also this place is filled with bat ghosts from the castle stage.
Unlike in castle stage, you can get the money reward for capturing sub-boss ghost if you retreat. You don’t get any money from finishing this level though as this is the final level. So, don’t hesitate to retreat when necessary.
Oh great! [Medium Sarcasm]. The sub-boss in this final level is the boss on previous levels minus Stay Puft because he’s too big for this evil world. As you can see in ghost indicator on right bottom corner, I defeat other sub-boss ghosts before fighting this scaly bastard. The only reason why I fight the boss ghost in first level first is: he’s simply the toughest one. No, I’m not kidding. Even to this day, I can’t figure the efficient way to defeat this schmuck. But I know this: I can use the cartoon bomb to get rid of the projectiles around him so I can be more focused on shooting him right on his malnourished body. But I’m not so lucky regarding avoiding his rolling attack. But because this room is wider, I can keep very long distance from him. Hopefully, he ends the rolling antique before reaches me thus I don’t need to bother jumping on him. Although his rolling reminds me of the jovial Rotundo from Fighting Master, I still hate him.
While I’m busy fighting this heinous git, check the music for boss fight here. Imagine, I have to listen this OST over and over again in this level, which I love it. Some part of the OST kind of similar to Rambo III, funnily enough. As for the sub-boss OST, I don’t like it that much. It’s more intense creepy whereas this OST is more intense action music with spooky bit.
Eventually, I meet with the final boss and her name is Janna. I’m sorry. But Janna is not proper name for overlord of Death and Destruction. Janna is more like name of accountant or fashion designer. Then she’s upset. Understandable.
She can’t pretend to be attractive woman form anymore that I insult her name. Her true form is pretty hideous and befitting lord of death and destruction. I describe her design as typical “old anime video game final boss” which is grotesque but also mighty looking, much like final boss in YS 3, Popful Mail, or Lords of Thunder. Anyway, her heart is in the open but that’s not her weak point. She tosses it to attack you. See the fatal error with BOW Tyrant, Whesker? He has heart in outside as weak point instead. You can’t use real heart like that? Well, put the real heart inside of Tyrant’s body for God’s sake! And install imitation heart in outside that Tyrant can use as impromptu yet deadly dodge ball. If Umbrella scientist designed Tyrant like that, he would be close to be unbeatable. Plus, Chris and Jill couldn’t win.
Anyway, Janna’s weak point is
her head like other boss ghosts that I defeated so far. She can also throw her
shotel that will return to her after reaches maximum distance. If you crouch on
the far corner, the shotel won’t hit you. I also like to show you the explosive
gun that I just bought. It fires blue bullet and after short distance it explodes
into tiny bullets. It behaves similarly like “Disrupt” gun in Cross Fire.
I think the new weapon is not worth the high price. Maybe the main bullet and
the shrapnel can deal devastating damage if they’re well placed but I have my
doubt. Then the energy cost is so big. 1 shoot will cost 1 block of energy,
straight.
Of course, she has second phase. She no longer throwing heart but she can fly away anywhere which means she can hit me with her shotel if she flies near enough. Also, her shotel’s range is increased. To be honest, for final boss she fights rather fairly. Compared her to scale boss or plant boss, she doesn’t fill the screen with projectiles. She throws her shotel rather slowly although it flies quite fast and deal heavy damage if you get hit by it.
The final boss fight is getting hard for me especially when she refuses to face me like this. I can’t hit your head, so turn around! Pretty please? Maybe she’s not confident with her looks now. Come on. You’re still beautiful. Really. I also have problem with empty energy bar. So, I can’t activate the special suit that reduce damage taken. However, I still can use any of special weapon although with reduced effectiveness. The phaser shell will lose the piercing property and can only hit 1 time. The 3-way shoot will lose the 2 diagonal bullets so it behaves quite similarly to normal shot but with increased range. The explosive gun loses the ability to produce shrapnel bullets. The bubble gun has reduced range. It begs question. Why there’s no portable energy refill? It’s surely useful.
The fight can go very long. Sometime, her head is out of reach. Sometime, she faces wrong way. But you just have to be very patience. There’s no time limit anyway. What do you know? Janna has the storm’s calm jewel all along. The reason that I can come up with why she has it even though she is lord of death and destruction is: for safekeeping. She can prevent anyone to seal the gate of evil world unless the hero defeats her first. Who would think that the hero is expert at busting ghost? She doesn’t.
So, the ghostbuster inserts the storm’s calm jewel into the stone tablet. Peter smugly announces that the entrance to evil world is crumbling thus ending the crisis. I’m confused with the “cave entrance is crumbling” part. Isn’t the entrance opened up with hole? So, doesn’t the crumbling on entrance only makes it more open? Yeah, I don’t get it. I just assume the evil world’s entrance is closed with falling penthouse with the magic effect of storm’s calm jewel. That makes more sense. The penthouse owner is the worse client, anyway.
During credit roll, the ghostbusters are cheered as hero by the crowds even though they’re the cause of the giant hole. But let’s keep that big secret between us, ok? I think I notice something cursed. Egon in his victory pose, looks similar to Norimaro from Marvelvs Street Fighter. That’s it, I’m done!
Sega’s/Compile’s Ghostbuster (1990) is pretty good game for Halloween season although the difficulty design is kind of bad. I’m still frowning why the -supposed to be- level 1 has hard sub-boss and boss. I mean sure, the map is not big, and the obstacles are the least awful among all levels. Strangely, the bosses (except the scaly ghost) are easier than some sub-bosses. Noticeably, the hard sub boss is the jumping flameman and the caterpillar. The roster is not well balanced because the move speed matters the least. In current roster, Egon is the worst pick and conversely Ray is the best pick. If I could fix the roster, I made them all have same move speed and made them have varied starting energy bar instead. So, Egon can have the biggest energy bar conversely Ray has the smallest energy bar but has maximum damage reduction. As I said before, I criticized the absence of portable energy refill. Then why there’s no maximum health upgrade like ancient herbal medicine sold in item shop or something? It also could be very useful especially for Egon that has the worse body’s constitution. I notice there’s enough gap between energy/life bar and life reserve indicator, to have more extended energy/life bar. Maybe the game is rushed a bit? The jumping is pretty good but the obstacles or platforming section in some level, is too hard. For example: the fire wall on wooden house, which raise periodically. Pendulum blade in castle stage. Or the not-Xenomorph eggs on ceiling and floor. The economy is very tight. It’s hard to get extra cash from catching ghost because the mechanism is hard. Especially in final level where the sub-boss ghosts are very hard to trap because they pull you harder and they’re extremely resistant to being pulled by the proton gun. But come to think of it, it’s quite easy to be efficient in your budget. Bubble gun is trash so don’t bother buy it. Same goes to explosive gun. It’s just terrible waste of your money. The most expensive item is barrier that claimed to be able to reflect projectile, I don’t think I need that too. Because most enemies don’t shoot projectile. They like to ram you instead. I’m guessing most of bosses and sub-bosses have projectile that the barrier can’t reflect like the dragon ghost’s fire breath or the final boss’ shotel. And I guess the barrier only useful for small projectile like in fight with the jumping flame ghost sub boss, huge face boss, or scaly ghost boss. You only need 5 – 7 infrared scopes for the wooden house instead of maximizing it to 9. 3-way gun is quite mandatory for the penthouse. Phaser Shell is a must for the castle stage. You can't save your game or have password but the game is pretty generous, giving you 10 continues (for world version)! The music is fine. The sound effect is nice and sometime comedic including the sound when Ghostbuster is mummified, strangely.
Ghostbuster (1990) for Sega Genesis is pretty good Ghostbuster game around that time. I think I played Ghostbuster game on Gameboy and arcade game which is made by Data East. You can read the review about the latter game in this article made by VGjunk. Although the game is not easy in standard difficulty, it’s pretty solid Ghostbuster game. You should give it a go!
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NB: Rejoice to Halloween fans for I will make 1 or 2 more special articles later. Yes, I’m aware. It’s November already.
