Ghouls'n Ghosts

[anagrama]

Changing of the guard time again, and this week it's ian's turn.
Having given us Master of Darkness last time, the pressure's on for another top-drawer selection now!

[ian]

Hey everyone,
So this is the moment you've all been waiting for. The current GOTW champion's turn has come around again
I'll stop blowing my own trumpet now and get on with it. My game this time round probably won't be as good as last time but here goes. My Game of the Week is none other than:

Ghouls'n Ghosts



I don't think this game is underrated, but in my opinion does definitely not appear on enough people's top 10 SMS games list. It's a conversion of the original coin-op which was made by Capcom in 1988 I believe.

The first memory I have with this game is watching my cousin play it on his SMS when I was young, and I loved it. Just to sit there and watch it was fun.

Every aspect of the game is excellent. The graphics are very impressive and not too much different form the coin-op. It may lack some of the special effects the coin-op and 16-bit versions have but overall everything looks good. Your character animation, enemies, the big bosses, the backgrounds and magic powers all look stunning and are no doubt some of the best graphics on the system. The music is good and there are some memorable tunes. The playability and control are once again, all great. I can't really think of anything bad about this game.

You play as Arthur the knight and have to get back your girlfriend. Probably the most common story plot for SMS games but doesn't take anything away from it. You have to fight through medieval lands destroying enemies using an array of weapons and special magic. You find these in hidden treasure chests scattered around along with armour (more life) and shoe (further jumping) improvements. There is a big guardian at the end of each level which looks great and can be quite a challenge to defeat.

Overall this is a brilliant must-have game, which has just the right difficulty curve. Some bits can be hard but with practice you can complete the game quite easily. This is one of the best SMS games around which often gets overlooked, so make sure you play it all week and learn to really appreciate it

And here just a couple of my top tips. Get the better boots early on and use the sheild magic as often as possible.

The box art is better than most other SMS games too.
Anyway, hope you like my pick. Enjoy!

[dezanuebe]

Here´s an excellent choice, this game rocks, it has everything: good graphics, sound and playability. It´s a difficult game that kept me playing it for hours and hours!!!

has to the fact that the game isn´t on enough people's top 10 SMS games list, i say to you it´s true, it´s true, in the top SMS games is on the 60th position and on my own top is on the 80th position, but that doesn´t mean the game is bad, it means that the SMS has at least 100/150 very good games!!

Cheers!!

[Tonto]

Never actually played it, but the box art is chuffing great. Certainly on my list to pick up.

[anagrama]

You've done it again, ian!
Top quality choice! It's another game where I'm much more familiar with the Mega Drive version, but am looking forward to getting stuck in over the next few days.

[JellyCrystals]

I love this game! I remember when I used to play it in the arcade and laugh everytime I lost my armour cos Arthur looks so funny in his undies!

I am not very good at the game though, havent finished many levels, but I enjoy it's game play. I agree with the above entries about music and graphics.. Te game is awesome fun!!

[RaccoonLad]

It's pretty good, but compared to the Genesis/Megadrive version, it's pretty weak.
Still, on it's own it's a great addidtion to the SMS library, but be sure to upgrade ALL of your armour... as the first time I tried this game, I neglected to upgrade my boots, and encountered a couple impossible jumps because of this.

[psychofox]

cracking choice.

This is a genius game, one of those games where you have to have 'just one more go'....

Its gonna be a good week....

[Stan]

Great game. What to say about this. Hmmmm, well, I have played the Genesis version, and I really didn't like it. This version seemed much better to me for some reason. The graphics are overall well done, though they can appear a bit choppy or, hmmm, how to say this, almost haphazard. They're still very, very good. The music is great, I can get one of the songs in my head right now even. The only fair comparison that I feel can be given is between this and NES Ghosts 'n Goblins. Graphics for Ghouls are MUCH better, though the NES' has a more fluid feel to it MOST of the time. It gets a bit choppy and odd here and there. As far as difficulty goes, Ghouls is a very playable game. Sometimes there aren't enough enemies roming about as you see in Ghosts, but still very good, because Ghosts is just FREAKING HARD. Anyone's that played it knows that. It's just a terribly difficult game, with you dying left and right in countless places. Takes much more practice than its worth. Controls on both games are generally very responsive, no problems there. NES music is grand, but I feel they both pull off this department well. That's about it. I'd throw in Ghouls before Ghosts because of the difficulty. The only thing I like about Ghosts better is the absolute plethora of enemies you face. They just don't stop coming. I have yet to actually run completely through Ghouls because I beat the Genesis version and never thought to really try the SMS one out the whole way, so I should check that. I remember the end boss being a piece of cake, but the boss before him being very very annoying. This is the "Lord of Flies," a giant wasp like thing that flies around and shoot little wasps at you. Takes forever to kill, and I don't even know if it's in this version, but if it is, here's a tip. You can jump your guy in such a way as to get over the little platform thing where the Lord is. He'll try to come over but gets stuck there and you can belt him to hell with no problem.

[CRV]

anagrama said:

Changing of the guard time again, and this week it's ian's turn.
Having given us Master of Darkness last time, the pressure's on for another top-drawer selection now!

Master of Darkness?

Anywho, I just got the US version off of eBay. I probably overpaid, I don't know. But in the meantime, it's emulation for me.

Graphics
Perhaps the weakest part of the game, not that they're bad. Some of the bosses look good, but some of the enemies in the stages look either too small or squished. Not terrible, though.

Music
Generally pretty good. The PSG can handle a lot of the tunes surprisingly well (the Boss 3 music is great - the eye cloud thing).

BTW, there's a VGM pack available, but it hasn't been officially released through SMS Power.

Gameplay
The most important factor and the SMS version gets the classic GnG gameplay down pat. Unfortunately, the goodly amount of slowdown hampers it.

Overall, it's definitely not as good as the Genesis, or the Saturn, or the Arcade versions, but they tried to shake it up with magic, the armo(u)r upgrades you pick up along the way, and the stage layout changes. Worth checking out at least as a curiosity or if you're a fan of the series. This and Forgotten Worlds were the best Capcom ports (of this era) to the SMS. I want all the Europeans on this board to apologize for Strider (and possibly MERCS).

[Stan]

Defeated. At first, Arthur's jumping abilities were getting to me (just wait until the fire level if you haven't upgraded your boots yet), but soon that was gone. Really, it's a good game, just a bit too easy. I beat it in about an hour.

[Hades]

Awesome choice, I love this game. It's my favourite of all the versions I've played.

[transbot]

one I got from 'What Everyone Wants' moons back.

love it.