Ghouls 'n Ghosts

Ghouls 'n Ghosts

Promotional flyer for the original arcade iteration of Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Developer(s) Capcom
Publisher(s) Capcom
Designer(s) Tokuro Fujiwara
Shinichi Yoshimoto
Hisashi Yamamoto
Programmer(s) Hiroshi Koike
Masatsugu Shinohara
Shinichi Ueyama
Composer(s) Tamayo Kawamoto
Platform(s) Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, CP System, Commodore 64, Sharp X68000, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, SuperGrafx, Sega Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)

Arcade
December 1988
Amiga

  • NA: July 1989
  • PAL: August 19, 1990

Mega Drive/Genesis

  • JP: October 29, 1989
  • NA: September 1989
  • EU: November 30, 1990

SuperGrafx

  • JP: July 27, 1990

Sega Master System
March 1990

Genre(s) Run and gun, Platform game
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Cabinet Upright
Arcade system CPS-1
Sound Amplified Mono
Display Raster, standard resolution, horizontal orientation

Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Japanese: 大魔界村 Hepburn: Daimakaimura, lit. "Great Demon World Village") is a side-scrolling action platform game developed by Capcom and released as an arcade game in 1988, and subsequently ported to a number of other platforms. It is the sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins and the second game in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series.

Gameplay

The gameplay for Ghouls 'n Ghosts is similar to that of Ghosts 'n Goblins. The player controls the knight Arthur, who must advance through a series of eerie levels and defeat a number of undead and demonic creatures in his quest to restore all the people killed by Lucifer (Loki in the English-language Mega Drive and Master System versions), including his beloved Princess Prin Prin, back to life. Along the way, Arthur can pick up a variety of weapons and armor to help him in his quest. While the core gameplay remains the same as its predecessor, the game now allows Arthur to fire directly upward and directly downward while in mid air.

By jumping in certain spots, players can cause a treasure chest to erupt from the ground. By firing his weapon at the chest, players may uncover new weapons, gold armor or an evil magician that changes Arthur into an elderly man or a helpless duck. The gold armor allows players to charge up the weapon to release a powerful magical attack. Each weapon has its own special attack, with the exception of the special weapon (see below).

There are five levels and Lucifer's chamber at the end, considered a sixth level in itself. To defeat the game, Arthur must complete level 1 to 5 twice. Upon completing level's 1 to 5 the first time, Arthur is taken back to level 1 again but this time a special weapon appears during the game, which can only be collected if the player is wearing the gold armor. To enter Lucifer's chamber the player must have this special weapon equipped and defeat the penultimate boss.

Music

The original soundtrack for the arcade version was composed by Tamayo Kawamoto. Many computer ports of the game include the soundtrack by Tim Follin which consists of arrangements and some new songs. Follin's soundtrack – especially Commodore 64, Atari ST (which both implement each machines' 'chiptune' synthesizers although the selection of pieces and some scoring differs slightly between computers) and Amiga versions (of which the playlist is again slightly different) – is respected among computer game music listeners and also gained appreciation from reviewers when the game was published.[1]

Home versions

Reception

Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
CVG88%[2]
Crash92%[3]
Sinclair User82%[4]
Your Sinclair91%[5]
Zzap!6496%[6]
The Games Machine90%[7]
ACE905[8]
MegaTech93%[9]
Mean Machines92%[10]
Awards
PublicationAward
Zzap!64Gold Medal
CrashCrash Smash
C+VGC+VG Hit
MegaTechHyper Game
Mega23rd best game of all time[11]

See also

References

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