Friday, October 31, 2008

Ghouls 'n Ghosts

The keep with the Halloween I decided to make a Halloween relate post. First I though of talking about my favorite band Helloween but that would of been too cheesy even for my standards. Now I will talk about the most horrifying game made. So scary and disgusting that most people won't even bother finishing the game, heck most people can't even reach the second level. Frozen in fear most of the game this game plays games with.... your fucking patience! Ghouls 'n Ghosts is such a hard game sometimes it feels almost unplayable. No Konami code to help you out here its just you trying to keep you underpants clean. I'll be looking at Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts because it is arguably the best one in the series.

Very short look on the history, that I don't know much of. Like most games from the 80-90's they started out in arcades. First there was Ghosts 'n Goblins then came Ghouls 'n Ghosts. From my knowledge Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is a port to the Super Nintendo with a lot of little features added here and there. Also when it got here in the states they censored once again. Changing the Crosses to Ankhs and changing the Satan's name.

The story is very straightforward even for video game standards. The story starts out with Arthur going to see his presumed girlfriend Princess Guinevere, but all of a sudden the devil himself comes in and kidnaps the Princess. Since Arthur is such a good guy and like any boyfriend/knight of the kingdom would do, he sets off too save her. Why not? He already went to hell and back twice before one more time won't hurt.
So there's Arthur right there, a pretty straightforward guy, girlfriend kidnapped must save. You start out with your regular armor as shown above. First object that makes the game hard is while that armor may seem sturdy one hit and its gone. Not only that but if you lose your armor you are stuck in your underwear and like in real life you don't want to be stuck in your underwear going into hell. You can have some extra magic armor, like the green magic armor with enhances your attack power and give you a shield. After the green armor is the golden armor with lets you charge your attacks for a massive one (a la Capcom). He also has his trusty spear the default weapon. He can also pick up other various items like knifes, torches, hand axes and a few other.
All of those extra items might make the game seems a little more easier but really it only makes a small difference. See you can pick up different and new weapons but most of them aren't as par with your default spear. Even sometimes you think you would need this weapon to make those pesky ghouls easier to defeat but you soon realize that after them your trusty old spear is just better. Some of the weapons are more powerful but are slower or some of them a faster but weaker. Those mechanics are completely useless in the context of the game. The only time I would recommend different weapons is if you have the golden armor then some of the charged shots are actually useful. Once again the spear is the better charge shot for any situation.

Another feature that makes the game exceptionally hard is the gameplay mechanics. First off, your jumps. When you jump you have no directional influence. You might say that doesn't sound that bad but when you are used to having a lot of control in the air like in every Super Mario this becomes problematic. You do have a second jump that you can use to go each direction but still this hardly makes up for no directional influence. This makes that you have to plan each jump, you only have one chance no backing out. If you jump in an area and something dangerous comes out of the ground, your screwed. Second problem with the gameplay mechanics, the enemies respawn. They just keep on coming and coming, never ending so you are always on your toes ready to fight. Sometimes its just better to run past them, but watch out you don't want to get stuck between two hordes of monsters. Lastly the treasure chest are a blessing and sometimes there evil. They are completely random so you could have armor full armor in seconds and sometimes you could get royally screwed by bear traps and Wizards Jesters. A perfect example of the situation, look at the full video. Also little obvious things, you only have 2 hits and no save points.

I myself am proud that I reached the first final boss. Yes the first final boss. If you do manage to make it to Satan's castle and defeat him, it was all for nothing. The whole game you just spent your tears on ripping out your hair in frustration was only an illusion from Satan. Are you fucking kidding me a illusion from Satan!? That's were I stopped playing. Apparently you need a magic bracelet to actually fight Satan... That's just a way to artificially lengthen the game, they don't give a new world, they only slap you to the start of the game so you have to finish it once more. Since Arthur is such a nice guy and someone out there has the patience of a god he saves the princess and you learn it was all a conspiracies against god somehow... Argh I'm losing patience only talking about the game.

A great game if you like ripping out your hair. Today's gamers would cry if they played this game. The game companies are way too sweet and gamers today. You can pick it up on the virtual console for the Wii if you want some self punishment.

Megaman update: I'm at Megaman X6 can't wait to finish it, one of the lesser titles of the series...

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out my image loss, uploaded my own, not grat quality but will look into fixing that.

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