One hard ghoulie: 1985's Ghosts 'n Goblins In the build-up to the Halloween of 1985, Capcom lobbed this little box of horrors into the unsuspecting crowd of arcade dwellers. With mid-'80s goggles on, it’s easy to see why Ghosts ‘n Goblins gathered attention with its spooky but colourful visuals, alongside some memorably atmospheric ditties and effects. Ghosts 'n …
If only all parents took such care to bring their offspring up with realistic expectations of the world and how fucking rock-hard it can be - but can be overcome if you persevere :)
My personal favourite was Wonder Boy - 10p spent in the pub and 20 minutes later I was still on the same 10p - it wasn't until I took up pool though that I got people to buy me drinks after they lost :) another valuable lesson learned !
It wasn't so much that Ghosts n Goblins was hard but it was both hard *and* enjoyable enough that you'd keep trying. There were plenty of games that were hard, but they were also bad so you'd never play them a second time (Moonwalker anyone?). And a few that were impossible (Qix and Tetris spring to mind).
Wonder Boy would certainly give Ghosts n Goblins a run for its money in the difficulty stakes. Bubble Bobble and Black Tiger would too.
Used to spend many hours with my 10p ready to have a go.
Always fun with the next big kid prodding you in the ribs while fag burning your neck to get a move on.
For more retro stuff look at my friends website (Reminds me of a early 90s website gone mental)
http://www.jammajup.co.uk/
If you can look past the lack of colour and farty sound, the Speccy version had the best translation of the original gamplay of any of the 8-bit home computer conversions. Dismissing it as 'crap' suggests someone had a quick glance at the various screenshots and thought 'that'll do'. Similarly Keith Burkhill's other Speccy masterpiece, Space Harrier, looks smudgy in a screenshot and lacks certain enemy sprites, but get it moving and the slickness is way ahead of the blocky character-based C64 translation - or the laughably vector-based Amstrad port.
The C64 version was pretty good. Rock hard though.
What I remember most from this "franchise" is the C64 version of "Ghouls and Ghosts", which while a great game in its own right, I would play endlessly just so I could hear the amazing Tim Follin soundtrack. It was the thought of hearing a new theme that pushed me to the next level.
These days, of course, I can enjoy that music at my leisure, and do!
I remember one of my favorite pieces of music being when you died and got to type in your name... awesome music on that screen.
there is an online 'radio station' that plays c64 music and c64 remixes.. I think I am off to listen to some now :)
http://www.slayradio.org
(not affiliated with myself in any way, beyong that of being an appreciative listener :)
I have the starting intro music as the ringtone for my GF. (Don't read too much into that--it was just her favourite game when she was a kid.) Now with MAME and cheat mode I can actually explore the levels without my gameplay being frantic and brief. (Don't over analyse that either.) :P
I don't know of a single Amiga 500 owner that didn't buy a 512kb ram upgrade from Datel or the like and pop it under the machine to join the party with Denise, Agnes et al. It always reminded me of the beginning of star wars with the Rebel blockade runner being gobbled by the star destroyer. Am I right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Brilliant game though, which resulted in all of my pocket money being squandered in the first hour of a family holiday to the monkey tree holiday park in Devon.
Even jumping on and off that island shown in the last picture was very difficult, thanks to the tough "physics" and collision detection. A challenge keeps people coming back though.
There are some great walk-throughs on Youtube. One guy in particular demonstrating that the ruthless difficulty continues throughout the whole game - screens with no workable exit, weapons that are essentially useless (including the default weapon IIRC), enemies that are virtually immortal etc. etc, puzzles with no answer. This game will chew you up and spit you out. Because it is better than you are. Another 10p...
1985 on holiday in spain, aged 14.
On previous holidays I had discovered that the 2p was an exact match for the 25 peseta….
So here I was on holiday, having brought with me my bag of 100s of 2ps…
and the machine the hotel pub had was GnGs…
I must have played it for hours and hours over 2 weeks, and I remember actually finishing it - it's the only arcade game I've EVER finished to this day.
happy memories.
poor bastard owner who came back, picked out the full heavy coin box thinking 'awesome' only to discover it was full of british 2p…. but hey ho.
absolutely love GnG, even though I suck terribly at it. I can't recall ever getting past level 2 without rage quitting first. Thankfully, I had the foresight to encase my MAME cabinet entirely in formica so it's nigh on indestructible.
And a big thank you to article author Giles Hill for finding that hilarious "lyrics" video. I hadn't previously seen that and now several coworkers are wondering what the heck I'm laughing about.
"Modern games are for wimps"
Not *entirely* true.
The first time I played Demon's Souls I was immedately taken back to Ghost 'n Goblins (C64, in my case). Demon's Souls (and its sequels) is a significantly more punishing game if ever there was one - but one where the developers, to my mind, had clearly taken GnG as a spiritual starting point. Both great games.
Finished neither.
[EDIT: typo. May have missed more. Pretty late where I am.]
>The Atari ST and Amiga got quite close with the visuals, but gameplay was ultimately not quite there.
Actually the Amiga visuals and gameplay were exactly like the original and for once not an ST port. I ripped the graphics from the arcade machine EPROMS and converted the machine code from 6809 to 68000. The home versions were published by Elite BTW. Software Creations may have worked on the sequel Ghosts 'n Ghouls.
I worked at Software Creations during that era and developed the Amstrad CPC version of Ghouls n Ghosts. A beggar to program on 8 bit hardware and not my finest work. My colleague, Mike Follin, programmed a technically excellent scroll routine on the Speccy version, derived from earlier work on Bubble Bobble & LED Storm, that "chased the raster' to run at 25fps and draw sprites and backgrounds on alternate frames without flicker.
The Speccy version of Ghosts n Goblins was a great game for the time & really pushed the Spectrum to its limits.
Clearly the reviewer was more Zapp than Crash, or wasn't even there, because the Speccy version was very well received and accurate, IIRC.
Yes, as others have mentioned it was released by Elite. They released some decent arcade conversions - Bombjack, Commando, Space Harrier, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, and others.
I don't think the speccy version was multi-load (Bionic Commando was a year or two later), as mentioned by others. I remember lapping it/clocking Ghosts'n'Goblins on the speccy. Hard game, but I was obsessed with it in the '80s having played the arcade game in Spain on holiday (so 80s!).
I still think it's one of my favourite '80s games. Bought Ghouls'n'Ghosts on the SNES - that was hard too!. Love MAME :-)
Enjoyed reading this article... inaccuracies aside.
so I'd look on whistfully as others played Ghost'n'Goblins, Operation Wulf, or Outrun, as I pushed my coppers into the 2p push machine.
Once I'd bought myself a PlayStation (must have been 20 years old *sigh*) a Capcom compilation was one of my first purchases. Ghosts'n'Goblins (and Ghouls'n'Ghosts)! But, wait - it's bastard hard and I can barely get past the first level. *crushing disappointment*
Nostalgia is best left in the past. I had a lot more fun playing Smash TV (with infinite continues), but that quickly got boring as it rendered it all too easy. Surely there is a middle ground?
I could get to the last level, but fuck me was it frustrating - the fire bridge a VERY close second!! *screams with hatred..and inserts yet another coin*
My claim to fame is that in my early teens I could complete 'Shinobi' on a single life. Including the ironman-last level. I got a free bag of chips that day (my local chippy had machines in, back when that was allowed...he rewarded me for completing each game he brought in. Clever marketing if you ask me. (one could also say exploitation... but I was 12 and I didn't really care!)
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