Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection, Review of Arcade Game

Ghosts n Goblins was originally a game released in 1985 for the nes and it was infamous for its difficulty with armies of monsters coming at you from all angles it was then succeeded by ghouls and ghosts on the nes and super ghouls and ghosts on the super nes, where the challenge was ramped up to 11.

Ghosts’n Goblins Resurrection

Since then we’ve seen a few more entries to this series on PS2, PSP, and IOS but nothing that recaptured the style and essence of those first two games. This is where ghosts and goblins resurrection comes in serving as a reboot for the entire franchise, hence the resurrection subtitle once again you play as a knight named Arthur who’s on a quest to rescue the princess from an evil demon lord who’s well equipped with an army of undead monsters and when I say well-equipped I mean well-equipped from the moment you begin the first level.

You are bombarded by a plethora of zombies ravens plants that shoot eyeballs just all kinds of horrific madness these enemies come at you fast to the point where standing still is a death sentence yes this game is as hard as you’d expect from ghosts and goblins but at least there are multiple difficulty settings. This time from hardest to easiest we have legend knight squire and page which adjusts the number of enemies and your amount of health seeing as legend is basically impossible for a game.

I spent the majority of my time jumping between knight and squire and they both provided immense challenges. I also tried out Paige and it was the literal definition of easy the enemy count is low. You’re able to take 3 hits before dying as opposed to 2 and you immediately respawn in the same location upon death consequently it makes the game significantly shorter. As the levels are designed with the idea that you’re going to die a ton of times which is exactly what I did in my 5-6 hour run if you die too often the game will take some mercy on you and ask if you want to temporarily lower the difficulty by one level but only for that stage.

However, the amount of health you have doesn’t increase only the amount of enemies decreases so even if you go from knight to squire you still have the same amount of health that night gives you I temporarily lowered the difficulty at a few points. During my playthrough and though it did make some parts more tolerable the challenge remained intact. Now being more beatable ghosts n goblins resurrection is very much a retro-style experience offering a new adventure for our friend Arthur but with a mix of modern and classic elements, one of the more contemporary aspects is the art style evoking.

A hand-drawn storybook aesthetic it looks pretty good but doesn’t come off as particularly strong or vibrant the environments are detailed and the enemies are easy to make out on screen in both tv and portable mode without blending into the background but they’re held back by stiff and lifeless animations, which are most noticeable in the bosses this could have used some additional time in the oven.

the music is also reminiscent of the original ghosts n goblins with some additional orchestral tracks that resemble quirky animated fairy tale films another modern element of resurrection are the fairies you can collect and use as currency to buy some magic abilities one unleashes a massive lightning strike and the other turns every enemy on screen into a frog. Frogs that can still damage you for some reason at least they’re easier to avoid I have not found.

Game weapons

These abilities to be rather useful as they take a long time to use and they’re really easy for enemies to dodge so I mostly relied on my arsenal of spears daggers fireballs hammers etc.

The weapons don’t vary too much in terms of power but they offer unique attacks like spreading fire on the ground or shooting two arrows diagonally, I personally preferred using the traditional spears because they just look cool and they’re more useful against the bosses while I wouldn’t say the boss fights are too memorable.

They do have some cool mechanics one of them shoots fireballs out of its mouth and takes off its own head for better aiming. Talk about using your head and because the game is designed around its challenge rather than its platforming the levels themselves are passable at best there are some neat segments in these levels like one where you have to stand on a group of flying dragons but nothing that stands out amongst other 2d platformers.

Story of the Game

As they aren’t too concerned with providing an interesting platforming challenge what’s interesting is that there are branching paths between some of the zones allowing you to choose between different levels it doesn’t change the story or anything but it gives you more stages to come back to and extend your playtime ghosts n goblins resurrection is a very hard game in case you haven’t figured that out by looking at the footage.

It does not hold back on its difficulty naturally this is what we’ve come to expect from this franchise absolute brutality if you’re a fan of ghosts and goblins chances are you’re going to love the punishing nature of the resurrection.

There are some added features to make it more accessible to new players such as optional checkpoints and easier difficulties but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the game as hard as you want there’s also a co-op mode that I regrettably was not able to try out but I imagine it would have made the game a tad bit easier upon starting.

In this review I played the first two games to see how the new one compared in my opinion it feels more like super ghouls and ghosts than the first game on the nes with monsters pummeling you from all directions as you try to make it out alive with nothing but your chonies on the resurrection is a clear upgrade to ghouls and ghosts.

Ghosts n Goblins gameplay

In this respect with even more enemies and a 60 fps frame rate I’ve encountered a few dips here and there but nothing too major that said ghosts n goblins resurrection was not quite my cup of tea and that’s because I didn’t find it particularly rewarding every time I completed a level or a section.

I was stuck on for a while there wasn’t much time to celebrate this victory before being thrown right into the next obscenely tough challenge with no breathing room in between or at any point I was more exhausted than exhilarated and it wasn’t very satisfying to continue playing that said I’m fully aware that there’s a group of people who adore this ultra-challenging gauntlet style of gameplay.

I’m sure they already have this game pre-ordered in a sense ghosts and goblins resurrection might appeal mostly to fans of the challenging 80s platformers instead of platformer fans as a whole so even though I didn’t like the game. There’s a good chance you will if you’re a hardcore fan of ghosts n goblins if you haven’t played the original games though and you want to try them out before picking this one up they’re available through Nintendo Switch online’s NES and SNES libraries I highly recommend giving them a shot.