For the last Halloween special article this year. I will review the Capcom’s infamous diabolical platformer game: Ghosts n Goblins (1985). [Insert loud thunder here]
That’s right. I will play the hideous abomination that is Ghosts ‘N Goblins. Or Makaimura in Japanese. Don’t let the unthreatening title deceives you. This game is super vile, I tell you. I probably exaggerate but to those who know the infamous rumor about the game, can understand my statement there. Don’t get me wrong! I enjoy other game in the series so I’m not stranger to this game but oh man! I barely can see good thing about this game. I won’t defend this game for all hate and agony that it inflicts to its victims. I notice that this game is published (also probably translated) by Taito America corp. Why they publish this evil game? Is it because they want to suppress riot of USA people that demands new Space Invader very bad, at the time? “You want more Space Invader? How about beat this game first” said the Taito America executive during press conference while sneaks evil grin. The heartless bastard. I checked some fact. There’s decent gap of period between the release of Return of The Invaders (1984) and Super Space Invaders ‘91/Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders part IV (1990). So, my crazy theory is not complete baseless. Anyway, let’s move on.
The tale is as old as times. A princess gets kidnapped by the Demon’s *bleep* and it’s up to the knight to rescue her. Seriously, what do you think the demon grabs the princess with, in this screenshot, huh? There’s loose gap between his legs to wrap around the princess. It also explains the weird princess’ expression. If you want to be more reasonable in this storytelling, old Capcom. Put the princess in either demon’s leg. Don’t put her in between demon’s legs. To put it more delicately and in more SFW context, let’s just say the demon has secret pegs in there, like clothespin in some cloth hanger. Or the demon has specially magnetized furs that pulls royal damsel instead of metal. That’s why the knight’s armor still there. If you are new to the game, I will tell you the name of the knight and the princess. It’s Arthur and Prin Prin respectively.
So, here’s Arthur on his way to rescue Prin Prin. The control is very simple: joystick to move left and right or ascend/descend ladder. Holding joystick in down direction also allow Arthur to crouch. One button to throw projectile forward. Second button to jump. The location where the princess is kidnapped, is inconveniently close to graveyard. Naturally, zombies arise and Arthur has to re-kill them as mean of self-defense. I don’t think these zombies want to hurt Arthur intentionally. They are just sleepwalking and their touch just happen to be lethal to Arthur.
On contrary, this plant really wants to kill Arthur because he shoots projectile relentless and fast. On the other hand, Arthur shows his finely molded backside. I don’t think chausses’ bottom in real life shaped like that. If you are well versed in medieval armor, feel free to correct me in this one.
Arthur lost his armor to that bastard plant but now it’s dead. Now, he’s in underwear but still determined to rescue the princess. Here’s the common Arthur’s “health” system throughout the series. First, he’s fully armored. One hit from any enemy will shatter the armor, leaving Arthur only wears underwear. The next hit will make him turn into pile of skeleton, dead. Another tradition in the game series is the inclusion of my bro/frenemy: the infamous Red Arreemer/Firebrand. You can see him sitting crossed leg on that corner of the screen. That’s the opportunity to hit him. But only for once. Once he’s active, he will fly away from your lance throw’s range. Of course, I died the first time I fight him.
On my way to refight my bro/frenemy, I find this funny glitch where a zombie buries himself on thin air. Certainly, not possible on real life.
I was worried to play this game because as far as I know the weapon in this game is just straight projectile, which makes them terrible choice to defeat Red Arreemer/Firebrand. At least, that also means I can’t miss better weapon. Anyway, there’s trick taught by Dot_Lvl: You have to crouch and dodge Red Arreemer/Firebrand’s projectile when he’s flying. Eventually, he will land on the ground doing the jig and then suddenly charging run at you. That’s the perfect opportunity to hit him. It takes 3 hit of lance to kill him. But do note that when he’s doing the jig there’s a big chance that he will spit projectile instead of charging run. If you try to hit him when not in the middle of charging run, he will swiftly fly up and you have to wait for him to land again.
Hey! I know this platform in the middle of water. It’s the base for that bastard log that floats back twice before actually goes forward in Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection. Fortunately, this micro island behaves normally where it moves back and forth smoothly.
Of course, the burrito ghosts are here. I almost got hit by their spear but miraculously it misses.
The boss of this level is a cyclops. I have hard time hitting him here because I thought he’s not smart enough to jump my throw lance. You expect him as first boss to be easy to defeat, right? But it’s still determined by randomness of his AI. He can jump around nonchalantly but sometime he can just run at you and there’s nothing you can do about it because 1) He’s fast when running. 2) He’s too big to jump over AFAIK. 3) He has big health and lethal to touch.
Eventually, I can defeat him. “Take a key for coming in”. That’s some big key right there. It’s as big as Arthur. That’s horror to me.
Level two, takes place in ice towers where the blue imps live and harass me. The floor may look like ice but AFAIK there’s no ice physic on it. Maybe it’s fake ice. That’s why the evil plant can grow on it.
Now we move on to proper residential area. I mean proper for human settlement. This place has brick house, paved road, and there are even sanitary holes. Maybe this area once inhibited by humans but now conquered by invading demons. Anyway, I die by the new residents of this place. They are evil. Resident Evil. Get it? Look I just want to humor myself in this predicament, ok?
On the next door, there’s this giant building guarded by these ogres who have heart tattoo on their shoulder to show you that they mean business. I dislike this section. These ogres like to camp on bridge so they can very easily hit me with their ball and chain throw. Also, they can soak up damage very much. Then I notice, they can walk through separator wall whereas I can’t and I’m forced to take detour through ladders. Unbelievable!
Although the 2nd boss fight
is uncreative which is Cyclops but not there’s two of them now. It’s
effectively harder. Remember that the Cyclops can ram at you because they can
soak up gigantic damage? With that in mind, these Cyclopes can turn you into Jill
Arthur Sandwich very easily. It’s down to randomness of the AI to win this boss
fight. Pray to God that the first Cyclops don’t run at you immediately and kill
him before reaches your skin by the virtue of intense mashing the shoot button.
Perhaps, one of you want to quote AVGN “Get the knife! Get the knife! Get the
knife!”. If you look carefully on the center bottom box, I already got the
knife and nope, it doesn’t help me in the slightest. Maybe, just maybe. The
knife is inferior in Arcade version. It flies bit faster but still not better
than the lance. Because, from my observation I can throw 3 lances at the time
compared to 2 knifes at the time. Whether lance has bigger attack power than
knife, I haven’t witnessed it yet.
Next level is cavern. Boringly brown cavern. The ceiling is full of sharp stalactites. I suspect they’re harmful but I don’t want to test my suspicion by jumping on them. My playthrough is already miserable as it is. There’s also stalagmite demon disguised as ordinary 2-levels stones but then he turns around and then spits purple demonic projectile.
Zombies also spawn here for some reason. Just go back to graveyard, undead bastards! This game has item pick up as video game should but most of them are score-up items. Money bags, statues, coins, you name it. Including this mysterious item on my right. I got 300 points when I pick it up. I thought it was blue eggplant because I love fried eggplant. On closer inspection, it’s Cinderella’s shoe! It has high historical value so no wonder it worth 300 points.
The deeper part of the cavern is cyan, the calming color. What’s not calming is the presence of Red Arreemer/Firebrand. Remember that annoying part where ogre can walk past separator wall? Then here comes more annoying part! Red Arreemer/Firebrand can walk beneath ground then he can swoop at you swiftly! I regard this as bug that left alone unfixed to give the player further misery. In Super Ghouls n Ghosts, Red Arreemer/Firebrand can also walk beneath ground like this but in slightly rarer occasion.
After more several deaths…
One of Red Arreemer/Firebrand teabags me right in the pile of skeleton. Uncool, dude. Totally uncool! In this area, there’s 5 Red Arreemer/Firebrand. You don’t have to defeat 5 of him. I only need to defeat 3 of him in consistent occasion. I can avoid 2 Red Arreemer by climbing a ladder, run on the highest ground and then fall from the highest level. Kind of surprising that this super mean game doesn’t have fall damage. Consider it a small blessing.That reminds me of something. Anyway…
On the other day, I read manga Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobobo. There’s this chapter where Dengaku man is surrounded by horde of Hammer Bro (from Super Mario Bros) and 5 Red Arreemer, which is the exact number of him in this level. Credit to CAASI_17 for the scanlation and translation.
The boss in this cave level is a flying limbless dragon which can be originated from Gradius or any shmup game. Unfortunately, Arthur is not spaceship so he can’t hit this silly dragon well. It goes without saying that the dragon, fly around boundlessly anywhere. On the other hand, Arthur is stiff guy who’s bound to ground, with short stiff jump. It takes few years later for him to gain ability to shoot up direction or jump twice. Without those ability, Arthur can’t defeat this dragon in fair manner. You can defeat the dragon bit by bit by attacking his tail but you still have to destroy the head for total victory. Once again, I need mercy of RNG God to defeat this dragon.
4th level is just another cavern. But this time your platforming skill is being tested to maximum with these platforms formed with eyeballs. The lowest platform is no problem. The second problem is the one that I have problem with. It flies very fast and it’s too high. Only the highest apex of Arthur’s jump that can reach it and we all know that Arthur is awful at jumping. At least when you compare him to certain fat Italian plumber.
I accidentally slip off the platform. I don’t like there’s no death animation when Arthur falls into death pit. He just frozen when touch the bottom border and death’s jiggle plays. I know this is nitpicking but I need to point out this to ease my mind.
Now, we’re back to brown cavern but this time there’s rickety bridge just few inches or centimeters above sea of fire. I think the bridge is made of asbestos, that’s why it’s fireproof. There are some flames arise on certain spot and moment. Then there’s Red Arreemer/Firebrand meditating. This place is his favorite meditation spot.
The boss of this level is another same purple limbless dragon. Boring and tedious boss fight as ever.
Stage 5 is the vicinity of the devil castle. Now the blue imps carry spiked ball to drop on you. They improve their warfare. On the other hand, Arthur doesn’t get any improvement. I find a drawer which -you can already guess- is a score item. That’s kind of drawer that Reimu Hakurei wears, so it’s worth the point. I sounds like pervert, don’t I?
These bats are easy for the picking. If they were not enemies, I would befriend them.
I come across a new weapon: shield. I won’t be fooled. I have to take it. I don’t want to get surprised with “This weapon is not efficient to kill the devil. Get holy cross!” message at the end of this level and then get kicked to the start of this level. There’s no holy cross due to censorship, it changes into this shield while they don’t fix the message.
Bad news. The shield weapon has short range. It’s about 20% of the entire screen length. I have hard times defeating the ogre in time. On the bright side, the shield can block enemy’s projectile. But at that makes the shield disappear too.
The boss in this level is none other than the kidnapper demon. He’s fuzzy and he throws shuriken. I don’t think Ninja’s throwing stars goes hand in hand with greater demon but here we are. I don’t understand why all the hates go to my bro/frenemy Red Arreemer/Firebrand when this bastard demon is even more heinous. First, he takes like 10 hits or maybe more to defeat. Whereas Red Arreemer only can take 3 hits. Second, he likes to float around whenever he pleases often not coming down. You can or rather must bait him to come down by descending ladder which may or may not be conveniently place. Then you ascend the ladder so the big fuzzy demon is within your reach. Sometimes. Third, his swoop is very long and fast. His swoop also tracks you very strongly. So, his swoop can hit you with 90% consistency. I think he will swoop at you after throwing 4 or 5 shuriken. Fourth, he cowers behind his wings before throws shuriken. At that state, he’s invincible. Plus, his head doesn’t count as his hitbox for GODDAMN reason! Meanwhile my “bro” can be hit anytime as long as your projectile reaches him. To make things worse, I’m stuck with the shabby shield with its poor reach. I’m not sure how I defeated him. I think you can hit him easier if you can corner him somehow. But again, he will swoop at you, breaking free from being cornered and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Stage 6 is pretty similar to stage 5 except different layout. Running out of creativity juice there, old Capcom? Anyway, there are skulls on the floor. Don’t trust them! They will pop up as full-fledged skeleton. I learned from Dead Space 3 that you shouldn’t respect or trust dead bodies on the spot. Destroy them! No question asked.
Just above of those cunning skulls, 2 Cyclopes awaits you. The floor is too short. How am I supposed to defeat them safely? With shield on top of that. In the end I resort to use damage boost to get to upper floor. Jump on one of them and voila! I reach the 3rd floor at the cost of my armor.
It seems, I’m supposed to use that stupid trick because I find armor replacement consistently here. Although I have to prepare to fight the dragon again and that skull is ready to ambush me if I don’t kill him first before get the armor. Also don’t trigger my “bro”. Let him sleep with besides his money bag.
I know old Capcom is bad at making different boss fight. “Just reuse the same boss or make it stereo and call it a day” but this one particularly atrocious and awful. One demon is already horrible to defeat and now there’s one more of him. Not to mention the time limit is quite short. The key to defeat him still the same. Manipulate his AI and utilize ladders.
If you nigh-miraculously defeat the 2 demons, you will face Astaroth in honorable 1-on-1 duel. Remember that the shield can block projectile? Not this time, though. So just focus on hitting Astaroth’s weak point which is his eyes. Not the one on his face but on the chest. So, the “Hey! My eyes are right here” joke is pretty fit here. For the final boss, he acts very fair. No flying. No sudden charging. He just walks back and forth while shooting fireballs from either his mouth or his chest eyes. The only bad thing in this fight is you have to meticulously throw the shield right into his chest eyes which are small target. Only for this occasion, Arthur has ability to strafe allowing you to move back while still facing forward. Pretty neat feature.
If you think defeating Astaroth will finish the game, you are completely wrong. Muahahaha! There’s still more to this game which is…
...playing the game again from the first level. This is already tradition to the Ghosts n Goblins series. It’s also adapted to quite obscured Taito’s game Saint Sword. I don’t need to keep the shield but I feel lazy to get another shield for later stage. For that stupid lazy decision, I have to suffer replaying the game with bad weapon. Is it worse than the torch? I barely can tell. The torch in this game has longer range than other iteration so there’s that.
While I suffer replay all the stages, please enjoy stubby Arthur’s run animation. He looks determined but also silly at the same time especially when he’s down to his underwear.
When I’m in the middle of replay all the stages with shield as weapon. Yes, the boss fights become unnecessarily harder. But I just want you to see this dragon boss carry pot on his mouth. Kind of adorable. As the content of the pot, it’s lance. But I won’t be persuaded like that. I’m keeping the shield even it kills me a lot. In video game, of course.
Finally
There’s no change on Astaroth in second loop. It’s lame but also it saves me from more agonizing gaming experience. Arthur gets the kiss from the princess. Something that Capcom does while Nintendon’t. Pray tell, does Mario ever get kiss in the lips from Princess Toadstool/Peach? Exactly.
Then, Arthur gets some “dirty” feeling from the kiss. I know it’s reasonable sensation, Arthur. But let’s not go that further! Let’s keep this article as SFW as possible. The mysterious “hook” that snatched the princess is already bad and now the mysterious “feeling” when Arthur gets kiss from Prin Prin. You’re weird schmuck, old Capcom.
NO, THANK YOU. WE’RE FREAKING DONE HERE!
Capcom‘s Ghosts n Goblins (1985) is rough game but it’s expected as it’s the first game in series. I usually don’t do this. I will speak the good thing first and then the bad thing. The basic gameplay is quite serviceable. No atrocious gimmick like limited ammo or no invulnerability after getting hit. The graphic and sound are better than NES version, in my opinion. The graphic quality is similar with Trojan and I believe both game use same engine. Pre CPS, I think.
Now on to the bad part which is long so sit tight there. There’s narily any power up in this game. Most of the pick-up item is just score item. Then there are weapons that you don’t want to switch into except shield because it’s mandatory to finish the game! I would like to make weapon tierlist for this game but all of them are just projectile weapon that straight travel. They are lance, knife, torch, and shield. I know there’s axe in NES version. But if I can’t help it, I don’t want to play the NES version. The jumping is stiff and horrible which I already accustomed it. So, I know the stupid rule of the series: “Jumping makes you vulnerable. Think first then jump later (after you are really sure that jump is safe)”. The reason behind it is: you can’t alter the jump’s path and height. Why they make the jump stupidly stiff like that? So, Arthur can aim his weapon anywhere mid jump while not change his jump accidentally. But in practice, the stiff jump ends up not doing you a favor if you are get used to play the game with better jump mechanism. So, I know the jump is bad and don’t rely on it to dodge enemy’s attack. The only dodge option is crouch, right? Let me tell you this. The crouch in this game is super awful. Probably the worst in history of video game. Because Arthur takes quite forever to stand up after you release the joystick. He also refuses to stand up if you shoot weapon. The same thing also happens when getting up from ladder. Then the crouch is very useless because it only makes Arthur 60% shorter than he is. Thus, most enemy’s attack will still get to him. Given that Arthur is quite stubby in this game so the crouch does not really make Arthur shorter significantly. When ogre throws projectile at you, you instinctively crouch, right? Well, the projectile will hit Arthur even he's crouching because it counts as projectile at low height which is bullcrap. Then you can only block the projectile if you throw the shield while crouching. Do that while standing will make ogre's projectile slip below the shield. Another example how bullcrap the game is.The enemies range from very easy to abhorrently difficult. Most of the enemies are in latter demography. The enemy’s high difficulty comes from ability to take so much damage, shoot from any direction or move too fast and flexibly. Those traits are pretty much the opposite of Arthur himself. So you can imagine how tedious the situation is. There's stunlock when you hit enemy but it's very short and you can't rely on it conveniently.
Ghosts n Goblins (1985) is one of the cases of “I suffer playing this game so you don’t have to”. There are better and more refined game on the series if you really want to, that is. Even for the sake of Halloween, don’t play the game!
One last thing that probably important. If any stranger asks me what’s the best game for first entry in the series, I certainly won’t say this game because it’s horrible. I think I go with Ghouls n Ghosts because the levels are pretty short and the Psycho Cannon is better weapon that princess’ bracelet in Super Ghouls n Ghost. Besides aiming weapon up or down is more useful than the double jump.
That’s it for the last Halloween special article for this year. See you!
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