Ghosts ‘n Goblins

Posted by Chris

Sep 5

Action/Platformer

November 1986 (Capcom)

This is why I’m not attempting to finish games.  I played this game for a good while.  The video further down this review is about as far as I ever got.

Which isn’t to say that the game is bad at all.  And I’m not going to pass judgment about if something is too hard as long as it plays well.  And Ghost ‘n Goblins sure does play well.  After last month, and Karate Champ for that matter, these games just seem perfect.  The jump button jumps, the attack button attacks.  Too much Super Mario Bros. makes me want to kill enemies by jumping on their head.

Let’s look at the game though.  Your girlfriend gets kidnapped, cliché now but that never seems to bother me.  I don’t play games for the story.

The game does have it’s weird parts.  Like how your characters starts running around in his underwear 1.  Or how you can seemingly pull lances out of your butt in order to throw that at zombies and crows.

There are some things I love about it though.  Weapons upgrades stay with you.  And that knife you get to throw comes out a lot faster than the lance.  Although upgrade probably isn’t the best word since I grabbed a lance when I had the knife.  So don’t just grab everything that appears on the screen unless you’re sure you want it.

One other thing to keep in mind is that this is an early example of a game with a fake ending.  When you finish every level you learn that all of the suffering you just went through was a trap and that to really beat the game you’ll have to go through it all again at a harder level.  If I found that out by playing the game instead of reading about it on the internet I would have been pissed.

I’ll definitely be coming back to this one.  And somehow, I think I’ll like it better when I get to devote more time to it.  These arcade ports are proving to be a lot more addictive than I thought.

  1. Boxers, just in case you’re wondering. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Action/Platformer

    • Commando

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 31

    Shooter

    November 1986 (Capcom)

    I have to preface this whole thing by saying that I generally don’t like shooters, am not very good at them, and get fed up with them rather quickly because of the previous two facts.  I’m going to try not to hold this against any of the games.

    So far Commando is the best shooter for the NES.  Granted the competition is Donkey Kong 3,and it’s a stretch to count that.  The only other thing that comes close is the collection of light gun shooters and none of them are really all that close either.

    People knew what they were getting with this game back in the day.  It had high resolution graphics.  It was state of the art.  The box says so, and the box is never wrong1.

    I’m not going to get on Capcom for saying that stuff, partly because I don’t have a good way to check it.  What I will say is that the graphics on some parts were flashing so much that stuff seemed to disappear for small periods of time.

    Ignoring that, I see it as a shooter.  It’s going to take something special to convince me that any shooter is more than just a shooter.  But for what it is, Commando is a fun game.  At least for the parts that I survived to see.

    There is a two player mode.  Sadly I don’t have a second player to play with me.

    I wish I could get into more details, but that would require being better at the game and not dying.  I don’t see that happening very soon.

    1. I lie, sometimes it is.  See some proof. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Shooter

    • Karate Champ

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 30

    Fighting

    November 1986 (Technos Japan/Data East)

    Fencing is cool.  Fencing disguised as a fighting game is not.  This isn’t some high tech fighting game.  This isn’t even an NES fighting game.  It’s disguised fencing.  Nothing more.

    Ok, I’ll back off of that a little.  Karate tournaments really use a point system.  So I’ll give the game a point for emulating real life.

    I got a half point on things.  So I’ll give the game a point for having hit detection and move distinction down well enough to distinguish between whole and half points1.

    But sadly, I give myself the match for the game play.   It’s just not cool.

    I’ve said this elsewhere2, but I’ll say it again here.  I think a large part of liking a game or not is the mindset we have going into it.  I saw this game and thought it would be at the worst a decent fighting game that was maybe held back by the limitations of its time.  I wasn’t expecting  Street Fighter II or anything.  I was just expecting something sort of along the lines of Kart Fighter.

    I would have been very happy with it, but it didn’t live up to what I was expecting.  I’m hoping that when people bought the game back in 1986 they had a better idea of what they were getting.

    Oh well.  The rest of this month should be epic.

    1. I’m giving myself 7 points if this is all randomized. [↩]
    2. Over at GBA Weekly in fact. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Fighting

    • Another Crazy Person to Follow

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 30

    Seems like this is an epidemic now. Joining the fold is GBA Weekly.  And unlike me they’re adding a new system to the mix as well.  This time the focus is, not surprisingly, the Game Boy Advance.

    The main draw here, besides the fact that chronogaming is just awesome on a stick, is that there are 2 people playing the game each time.  Which means unlike the rest of the blogs I know doing this there’s a bit more control for bias.  Yes, I’m a nerd for saying that.

    Anyway the idea over there is to add a new game a week.  So far there’s 2, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and Super Mario Advance.  I’d say you should check it out.  And if you don’t agree with something, there’s another review right there on the same page.

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  • Filed under: Around the Web

    • Tag Team Wrestling

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 26

    Wrestling

    June 1986 (Sas Sakata/Data East)

    Let’s put a positive spin on this one for a change, because this month we need all the help we can get.  Tag Tam Wrestling plays a lot better than M.U.S.C.L.E. I guess that’s like saying it moves faster than a dead sloth but at least it’s something.

    The characters move in 3D.  Still can’t attack that way but it’s progress.

    The whole tag team idea is cool too.  If nothing else it essentially double the life meter.  Of course that works the other way too.

    Also, ….. I can’t do this anymore.  I’m so happy that this month is over because I really don’t know what I’d do if I had to sit through something like this again.

    The controls are just weird.  I’ll give them some slack, they did have 2 buttons to play with.  But you grab the opponent, then pick your move from a menu.  Yes, a fucking menu.  In a wrestling game.  To pick the move.  You might as well play a wrestling text adventure.  Except a text adventure wouldn’t be so damn frustrating because you might get to do a move every once in a while.

    It’s not all bad, this game did provide the inspiration for Strong Bad.  And without that, we wouldn’t have Strong Bad Emails to listen to.

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  • Filed under: Wrestling

    • Ninja Kid

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 23

    Action/Platformer

    June 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

    I think there might be a point to Ninja Kid.  But I don’t hate myself enough to find out.  So I’ll give you some information about it and let you decide for yourself.

    It was made by that timeless partnership, TOSE and Bandai.  I’ve ripped them apart enough for all of us to know what to do when we see that coming.

    Needless to say, at this point Nintendo is the dominant force when it comes to publishing and developing games.  They have some good ones.  I’m not going to count because I know it’s more than 0.

    Ninja Kid is the best game from TOSE and Bandai so far though.  I guess that’s not really saying much, but it is what it is.

    The entire game feels like an ice level in Mario.  And I hate the ice levels.  Bad combination.  This also might be the first instance where stairs aren’t really stairs.  It looks like I’ll have to jump up to get to a higher level, but instead I can walk right through.  Why?  I don’t know, but it’s so crazy I’ve made a video just to show you.

    I would think that someone would just make the world and stick with it.  A terrible layout is better than an inconsistent one.  I would even settle for different placement of the levels if I had to go through them in the same order.  I know that in some of those instances I had a choice of which level to go into.  But that’s the point, sometimes there’s a choice and sometimes there isn’t.  That’s not just bad game design, it’s downright lazy.

    There are parts where the stairs aren’t really stairs.  They’re roughly stair like pieces of mass that you can walk through even though common sense says you shouldn’t be able to do that.  I played levels where the point was to kill enemies, to light candles…

    Actually, lets go on about that.  If the point if the level is to make a flame pass over a candle so it can light, I need to be able to make the flame pass over the candle.  It’s way too hard to do that.

    I could go on for a while adding stuff about levels where I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do and the unfair way some enemies come onto the screen and act like they’re playing Contra1.

    I’m going to be optimistic.  The next game was made by different people.  But I have a feeling this month is going to be a giant stinker.

    1. Although we haven’t seen Contra yet.  So maybe we should say they’re going, well, we just haven’t really seen anything like that yet. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Action/Platformer

    • Chubby Cherub

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 22

    Action/Platformer

    June 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

    Just for a little bit of context, Nintendo had this weird rule back in the day.  Before 1990 when the rule was taken away, 3rd party developers were only allowed to release up to 5 games a year.  Obviously this would be easy to get around, just create “another” company to release a game.  But I do have to admit that such a rule should have one good consequence.  With this rule, publishers would have to release good games since anything bad would essentially waste of their allotted 5 for the year.

    Which really makes me wonder.  Did Bandai release this rule existed?  Did they think Nintendo was bluffing?  You have to remember that this was the 2nd month of games being released, and the first for non Nintendo developed and published games.

    Or, and this is what I’m both really afraid of and thankful for at the same time, was this really one of Bandai’s top 5?

    In Chubby Cherub you’re a naked Cupid character.  You run around trying to collect food.  Some food will five you the power to throw hearts at dogs and cats who are trying to get you.  Some food will refill your meter so you can fly.

    Stupid premise aside1, the game just flat out sucks.  The hit detection on eating the food is really weird.  I couldn’t see any indication of how many times I could throw a heart.

    At least I could pretty consistently count on how far the heart would go.  Right before where I wanted it to go it would disappear.

    Maybe the worst part though is that when you lose a life it takes you to a screen that looks like you’re just starting the game.  That’s pretty weird if you ask me.  Why not just start right up again?  I think someone was just too lazy to come up with a graphic for death.

    But chin up, it has to get better.  I think.  Maybe not though, we still have one more TOSE/Bandai game this month.

    1. If you look at any game the right way you’ll be able to make it seem stupid. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Action/Platformer

    • M.U.S.C.L.E.

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 21

    Wrestling

    Junk 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

    Let’s go ahead and give M.U.S.C.L.E. credit for 2 things.  First, it had a different box style.  Wahoo for that.  Second it has music playing through the title screen.  A lot of the Nintendo games didn’t do that.

    That’s where my praise ends.  I don’t know what TOSE thought while they were making this.  I really don’t know what Bandai thought when they agreed to release it.

    The game is based on a Japanese manga1.  At least to me, the characters might as well be the same.  They look like a 4 year old made them in one of those creepy crawler things and finished them off in an easy bake oven.

    The worst part is that the wrestling ring is in 3D.  Except you can’t attack in 3D.  I know this would probably have been difficult to pull off this early in the NES’s life, but it still bothers me.

    Your jump kick move is about worthless.  There’s no way to tell if you’re on the same plane with the other guy.  I spent most of my fights jumping past my opponent as he jumped past me.  Rather annoying.

    I’m also still not sure what that ball did that I grabbed when it was thrown in the ring besides making my guy flash.  I think someone forgot to tell TOSS and Bandai that flashing characters in video games means you’ve been hurt and you’re in “I can’t get hurt right now so I have a chance to get away before I get hurt again” mode.

    The game also has a two player mode.  I feel sorry for the unlucky soul who got suckered into playing.  I feel worse for the person who actually spent money on the game.

    I think I’m going to go cry now.

    1. Get ready for more of those.  And for me to have no idea what’s going on with the game since I don’t read them. [↩]

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  • Filed under: Wrestling

    • A Slight Procedural Update

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 16

    I was looking through the list of games trying to decide where to cut things off for the awards posts.  My original thought was to do something close to every month.  Which means June 1986 (the month we just finished) would have had ½ of its games getting some sort of award.  It also meant that everything in October and November would get an award one way or another.  Most importantly, it meant that Gradius in December would get all 4.  That’s just not a good system.

    Since I don’t have real release dates I can’t really go every X number of games without some kind of safety net.  So unless there are any objections, I’ll be doing awards every roughly 20 games or so.  That number isn’t exact because when I get to 20 games I’m going to finish the month and start over in counting when the next month begins.

    Of course it would work out that after March of 1987 it would be exactly 20 games since the last set of awards.  That’s just how things work out I guess.

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  • Filed under: News

    • Donkey Kong 3

    Posted by Chris

    Aug 16

    Action/Platformer and Shooter

    June 1986 (Nintend0)

    Donkey Kong 3 is just full of problems.  Not ones that make it unplayable by any means, but that doesn’t make them any better.

    It starts with the character.  You’re Stanley.  Not Mario, or Luigi, or anyone else we’ve seen before in a Donkey Kong game.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with introducing new characters.  But this comes out of nowhere.

    It also looks like the game can’t decide what it is.  I’ve marked it as an Action/Platformer because that’s what Nintendo says it is.  But it acts a lot like a shooter.  And a bad shooter at that.

    Finally, the premise is just weird.  Donkey Kong wants to eat whatever you’re growing in your greenhouse and hits bee’s nests to get you to go away?  What’s up with that?  And how is bug spray supposed to get rid of an 800 pound gorilla?

    All of that aside, play the game and don’t think about it.  It’s actually pretty fun.  Maybe it’s in the same vein as how a movie can be so bad that it’s good again, but whatever works.

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  • Filed under: Action/Platformer, Shooter
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