A playthrough of Capcom's 1987 action game for the NES, Ghosts 'n Goblins.

This playthrough shows both loops through the game to get the true ending.

Ghosts 'n Goblins is the perfect game for someone who loves to play games that hate them. The reputation the series carries for its unrelenting difficulty level is well deserved, but very few of the GnG games manage to match the NES version for the sheer ability to frustrate, to infuriate, or to spark a full-on nervous breakdown.

I really like the arcade version of Ghosts 'N Goblins. It's extremely hard, but I always thought that it felt reasonable if you had practiced enough. The graphics were excellent for 1985, the music was instantly hummable, and the whole thing played well.

Now, I know that the NES version has its staunch supporters, however, I am not one of them. The core game is intact, sure, but there are a number of issues with it that make an already trying experience a thoroughly miserable one. I've only ever gotten the true ending to this version of the game three times - the third was when I recorded this - and that's because I've never found it to be worth the effort. It took an absurd amount of time to learn it well enough to play through both loops - there was lots of super careful memorization of enemy spawning and movement patterns in those final two stages!

But anyways, the NES version suffers from two major flaws that turn me off of it. First is the framerate - why does it feel so choppy, and why are the controls not as responsive as they really should be? I'm guessing because this one was made by Micronics. That's not a good thing - most of their early NES games were plagued by slow-down and flickering, and most of them ran at a locked 12fps. Yes, 12. It seems like GnG is probably one of those titles. Things flicker in and out of view so that sometimes you can't see projectiles as they're flying at you, and on rare occasions enemies disappear entirely if there are too many sprites on-screen at once. The other issue is the number of glitches in the game - I was lucky to not run into any major ones while I recorded, but the game is riddled with problems that make the game even harder. Sometimes you'll end up being killed by a ladder, while other times you have two bosses waiting for you instead of one. That can end a good run in a hurry, let me tell you. Few games can test my patience like this one does.

Still, I love the arcade game, and I suppose this version could have been worse. It should have been much better, but that's neither here nor there. I don't have a lot of nostalgia for this one - I hated it as a kid, but as an adult I can see some merit in it. Not enough to make me ever want to play it again after this, but I certainly can't accuse it of being as bad as many Micronics games: that honor goes instead to Ikari Warriors and Athena.

At least the Engrish is fun.

That's about the best endorsement I can give the NES version of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The arcade game is great and the sequels on the Genesis, SuperGrafx, Wonderswan, and SNES are all well worth playing.

With Halloween coming up so soon, I figured that I might as well pull the trigger and upload this one.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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