Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts / Chohmakaimura - SNES / Playstation / Saturn / Gameboy Advance / Playstation 2 / XBOX/ Playstation Portable (1991)
Arthur either has no hesitation to pit himself against challenges of any degree of intensity or he's just way too optimistic, because Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is just as absurdly difficult as its two prequels. In all fairness, it is the easiest game in the series, but, of course, that's strictly relative. Expect to be driven completely insane if you put any real effort toward the task of actually trying to finish the game. Enemy patterns have been made ever so slightly less impossible to deal with, so it is VERY slightly more "fair" than its predecessors. Capcom have actually accomplish the rather difficult feat of making Red Arremer even MORE difficult to deal with than in the rest of the series. He'll flawlessly avoid your each and every attack and only swoop down into range when it puts him at as little risk as possible, but he can be dealt with a bit easier if you have the bow and arrows. Having originated on a console rather than in the arcades like the previous two, there is an options mode, from which you can select a difficulty level and how many lives to begin with, and it's possible to continue after a Game Over. That pure insanity where you have to beat the ENTIRE FREAKING GAME TWICE and defeat the true final boss with a difficult to find ultimate weapon the second time is still present, so don't expect any more breaks than you got in the prior installments.
Platforming is an even bigger part of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts than it is of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. So its pacing tends to be even better and its gameplay even more varied. The controls are more like the original game, in that you can no longer fire up or down, but you also have an amazingly beneficial double jump technique that also allows you to change directions for you second jump. The weapon system has been changed and expanded slightly. Arthur still has his torch, lance, dagger, and axe, as well as a bow and arrows, a scythe, and a huge blade thing. There is still an ultimate weapon that's available during your second time through the game, but it has been changed yet again. Arthur still has access to his gold armor, but he can only find it if he is wearing green armor, which itself is available only if Arthur is wearing his default suit of armor. The gold armor will still allow you to power up any default weapon, and the green armor will give you access to a different and more powerful version of that weapon, without any charging up required. This effectively doubles the size of your arsenal and can make certain generally less effective weapons (like the torch or bow and arrows) much more effective. There are still plenty of hidden treasure chests to be found by jumping or double jumping at specific locations.
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts definitely has the best presentation of any game in the series (though, obviously, it's not as high tech as the CPS or PSP games), and its designs and music are absolutely impeccable. The game begins at the same graveyard that every installment does, but it's even better detailed than before. The zombies that rise out of the ground come up still in their coffins, then march out of them toward Arthur. In the second quarter (or so) of the first level there is a section where skulls pour out of the mouths of giant statues and the ground rises and falls with visible mounds of skulls beneath it and accompanied by a delightful 16-bit noise. Rain shows up in the foreground briefly later in the game, and there's a section where Arthur has to avoid getting swept away by massive avalanches that take up half the screen. It's a great looking game throughout, and the backgrounds and monsters are easily among the best designed in a series with plenty of exceptional examples of both. Its music, however, is even better than its awesome graphics. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts has what is to this day my favorite music in ANY platformer game ever made. Every composition perfectly compliments its light-hearted-creepiness aesthetic and works fantastically on its own as well. Honestly, this game is probably worth playing once for its presentation alone. The wizard that hides in treasure chests is back, and he'll change Arthur into an infant (no armor), a seal (standard armor), a bee (green armor), or a young woman (gold armor).
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts was originally released exclusively for SNES. Several years later when practically every freaking hit platformer for the console was getting ported to Gameboy Advance, Capcom made an enhanced port of the game for GBA. This version has the original game in its original form on easy mode, as well as two locked modes of play. The last of them is simply the first game with the highest difficulty setting, but the other has redrawn graphics and rearranged levels. I generally find that these graphical remakes of 2D games look like crap, but in this case they're actually fairly well designed. Though, myself, I do still prefer the aesthetic of the original game. It has also been re-released for PlayStation and Saturn as part of the compilation "Capcom Generation Vol. 2", for PlayStation 2 and XBOX as part of the compilation "Capcom Classics Collection", and for PlayStation Portable as part of the compilation "Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded". This was regularly played on the greatest video game related television program ever, Nick Arcade.
MP3s
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
Comparison Screenshots
Makaimura for WonderSwan - Wonderswan (1999)
Don't expect to get a break on the difficulty level though. It's as obscenely challenging as you would expect from a game in this series. It's easy to get overwhelmed by monsters even early in the game, and evading monsters is even more difficult than in the rest of the series. The more platforming oriented segments themselves have been given an exceptional boost in difficulty and require much more precise timing than in the previous three main series games. So expect to miss jumps often and replay pretty much every segment of the game a bazillion times each. Making it even worse, the hit detection seems to be a bit more precise than the rest of the series. In fact it is a tad too exact, and you'll immediately notice that moves that worked in the other games, like ducking on a tombstone and firing to hit a zombie directly in front of you, won't work at all in MMfW. Despite this slight execution problem, its controls are very responsive and the game physics are actually pretty similar to the rest of the series, so it's always possible to deal with whatever challenge you're presented with.
MMfW controls like SGnG, except without double-jumping. The only other real change to controls or gameplay is that each weapon has rapid fire capabilities. If you get a dagger and hold down the fire button Arthur will fire a stream of daggers that look like something out of a run 'n' gun. Holding down the fire button while equipped with a sword will cause Arthur to VERY rapidly hack away with his sword, but it has virtually no range whatsoever, so it is pretty much worthless. You can't move and shoot at the same time, but you couldn't do that in the rest of the series, so no problem.
MMfW's graphics are directly based on earlier entires in the series, so there is considerably less identity to its designs. Each boss is different from any other in the series, but their designs are not quite as inspired. As far as music goes, MMfW is definitely the poorest entry in the series, but that's mostly because the other are so great, and it's music is actually ok. At the startup screen there is a very cool mode that contains a weaponry and a bestiary, which will show you all of the different weapons that you have found and monsters that you have encountered.
Having been made without any involvement from Tokuro Fujiwara, it's no surprise that MMfW is not quite as great as its three predecessors. The gameplay in MMfW is pretty platformer oriented, and the platforming segments are reasonably well designed, but the pacing is a bit slower than it's prequels. This is mostly due to how many enemies the game throws at you and how little time there is between one enemy and another. Monsters take up a bit too much room for you to simply run and jump over them, so you have to deal with more or less everything that comes at you. Combined with the excessive frequency with which monsters appear, this makes the game a bit too methodical for its own good. MMfW is a pretty good game, and easily the best platformer for its console, but it falls short of its series other installments in every respect and doesn't really offer anything that makes it stand out other than portability.
Makaimura (Wonderswan)
Makaimura (Wonderswan)
Makaimura (Wonderswan)
Makaimura (Wonderswan)
Makaimura (Wonderswan)
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins / Goku Makaimura / Goku Makaimura Kai - Playstation Portable (2006)
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
American Cover
Japanese Cover
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts (SNES)
"Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts" ("Chohmakaimura" in Japan) is the third, and arguably best, entry in Capcom's awesome Ghosts 'n Goblins series. It begins with Arthur running past villagers who are watching a fireworks display while on his way to the castle to see Princess Prin-Prin. Arthur obviously is a patient guy. After everything he dealt with in those last two outings he still sticks around. Most (sane) people would have been gone a looooong time ago, but Arthur is loyal like that. After Arthur meets up with Princess Prin-Prin in the castle the pair embrace (aww). You should be able to guess what's coming. Their happiness is abruptly interrupted when a gargantuan winged monster breaks through the castle's window and kidnaps Princess Prin-Prin (You have got to be freaking kidding me). What does Arthur do? Lounge around the castle, get drunk on 16-bit liquor, and let her save her own damn self (That's what I would do)? NO! Not Arthur! Arthur immediately goes to rescue her with complete disregard for his own safety. How could anybody not like this guy!? Honestly, why doesn't Princess Prin-Prin get guards or something? Despite how badass Arthur must be to have lasted this long, he obviously isn't very good at preventing her from getting kidnapped.
Japanese Cover
American Arcade Flyer
Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Arcade)
"Makai-Mura for WonderSwan" was released... well, for the WonderSwan, and exclusively in Japan - making it the only entry in the series to have never seen an English translation. It's also the only game to have not been designed by Tokuro Fujiwara, who had temporarily left Capcom at that point. Instead the development was headed by a designer named Toshihiro Suzuki. Its title might cause you to assume that it's a port of the original arcade game, but it's actually an original installment in the series. As far as I can tell, the plot is that Arthur is walking along when he sees Princess Prin-Prin. He runs to her and they embrace. Then the game starts. Maybe I missed something, but I believe that means that this is the first tiem Princess Prin-Prin actually doesn't get kidnapped. No way could I have seen that coming!
American Cover
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
