Ghosts ‘n goblins
Ghosts ‘n goblins is a classic platform game and altough the story is the same as any other game it’s the gameplay where this games excels. You play the part of a knight named Arthur (maybe a young king Arthur?) and while you are having a nice day with your girl she is suddenly kidnapped by a huge winged demon. Ofcourse you can’t just let the monster go and after putting on your armor and taking your lance you are ready to fight the eveil minions and save your girl.
Arthur starts his quest on a graveyard and there are plenty of nasty creatures roaming around trying to stop him, many of them are mindless creatures simply walking around until they hit you. Most of these can easily be dealt with by a shot of your lance which can be thrown but later on you will find more difficult enemies that fly around and at the end of each stage there will be a boss character who can take a lot of damage before he yields the key to the next stage. The lance will only take you so far but you can find other weapons that some monsters drop including an axe, burning oil and a fast throwing knife. Some bosses are immune to particular weapons and it can be difficult to obtain a different one but most can be defeated even with the least powerfull weapon altough it will take more hits.
Unlike most other games in this genre you do not die immediately after you are hit instead Arthur will lose his armor the first time he’s hit and he’ll have to walk around in nothing but his undies. The same monsters that drop weapons can drop an extra suit of armor as well so you have to survive long enough to pick one up or else you’ll be reduced to a pile of bones if a monster catches you. If unfortunately you lose a life you see a map of how far you’ve gotten in the game which is a nice touch. The levels are quite varied with ladders, moving platforms and all sorts of traps which you much avoid.
As far as plaform games are concerned ghosts ‘n goblins rank pretty high on a enjoyability scale dispite it’s fairly hefty difficulty level. There is one gripe I have and that is when you get hit you lose your armor but you are also thrown back a bit which is deadly when you are a moving platform, rendering your second chance pretty much useless. The sequel to this game is called ghouls ‘n ghosts which improves almost every aspect of the game with more and bigger foes and upgradeable weapons and armor. This game is definately worth a go and if you like platform / action games then you shouldn’t miss this one.
Overal rating: 8/10
This game was released for many different systems here are some notes:
| Amiga | Released in 1990. This is the closest to the arcade version you can get and it has a couple of trainers included as well. |
| Amstrad CPC | Released in 1986. This is the worst version with bad controls and not so good graphics. |
| C64 | Released in 1986. Graphically can’t stand up to the amiga version but gameplay is all there, this version also has a couple of trainers. |
| DOS | Released in 1987. Unfortunately when you start this it asks you to center the joystick and press fire, I don’t know any way around this so if you don’t have one it doesn’t work. Don’t worry about it though this version is really crap. |
| NES | Released in 1986. The characters are a bit small but otherwise it’s all there. |
| Others | These versions are not available. Atari ST released in 1990. Gameboy advance released in 2004. Gameboy color released in 1999. ZX spectrum released in 1986. |
| Date added | Jun-19-2006 19:19 |
| Name | Ghosts ‘n goblins |
| Developer | Capcom |
| Publisher | Capcom |
| First released | 1985 |
| Genre | Action |
