Ghouls 'n Ghosts

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Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Ghouls 'n Ghosts flyer
Promotional flyer for the original arcade iteration of Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Developer(s) Capcom
Publisher(s) Capcom
Designer(s) Tokuro Fujiwara
S. Yoshimoto
H. Yamamoto
Platform(s) Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, SuperGrafx, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum
Release date December, 1988
Genre(s) Hack and slash, Platform game
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Input methods 8-way joystick, 2 buttons
Cabinet Upright
Arcade system CPS-1
Display Raster, standard resolution, horizontal orientation

Ghouls 'n Ghosts (大魔界村 Dai Makaimura?, lit. "Great Demon World Village") is a platform game/run and gun 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 forerunner to the Super NES game Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

Contents

[edit] 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 souls stolen by Lucifer (Loki in the English-language Sega Genesis and Sega Master System versions), including the soul of his bride, Princess Prin Prin. 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.

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 magic attack.

[edit] 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 got appreciation from reviewers when the game was published. It is well worth obtaining the music for all versions released to fully appreciate and enjoy Follin's (and indeed Kawamoto's) talented achievements.

[edit] Home translations

 This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2008)

The game has been adapted to a number of home consoles and other systems, the most notable being:

Sega Master System
Sega released this port in 1990 which may actually be an adaptation of the Mega Drive port. The graphics lack the detail of other versions of the game and two Player Mode was removed.
This version adds some new elements to the original's gameplay, and drastically changing others. The weapon and armor system was completely overhauled - some chests now contained doors that led to chambers in which Arthur could choose different weapons or upgrade his boots, armor and helmets each piece having four possible power levels up to gold. The upgrades augmented his running, jumping, hit points and magic ablities. Magic spells had different effects than the arcade version. All the weapons from the original were available, except for the sword and the torch and a new fireball weapon was introduced. Finally, there was a different type of chest chamber in which the player could choose to regenerate either Arthur's hit points or magic points.
The general look of the levels was maintained, but with several changes and adjusts: each level was now divided in two sublevels with a transition in between (coinciding with the continue points in the original) and some specially complex enemies and effects were removed, such as the root tentacles in the first level. The boss fights were no longer integrated in the level (a chest containing a door to the boss chamber would pop up after reaching the exit gate of the level); also, because of the Master System's limited graphics management capabilities, the bosses were rendered as mobile backgrounds with only small animated parts; while the result was quite impressive for the system, it meant some of the boss attack patterns had to be completely redesigned (for example, Gasutto's from the third level, turned into a rigid, lightning bolt-shooting hovering cloud).
Sega Mega Drive
Reprogrammed by Yuji Naka[1] and released in 1989 by Sega, this port featured a failthful translation of the original arcade gameplay, but with noticeable graphical cuts (less detailed backgrounds, missing animations and effects, etc) and the introduction cutscene removed completely (oddly, a part of this scene is still played in the ending cutscene, as it was in the original).
The difficulty level was also toned down, adding a 'Practice' setting with weaker enemies; the game also featured infinite credits in every difficulty setting, additional continue points and even an easily unlockable cheat mode that allowed the player to become invincible against enemy attacks or slow down the gameplay.
Supergrafx
The Supergrafx translation, released in 1990, was considered the best home version of the game until the release of the Sharp X68000 computer port in 1994 and Capcom Generations 2 in 1998 (see above). SuperGrafx Ghouls 'n Ghosts featured superior graphics in most aspects than those of the Mega Drive translation, both in detail and animation quality, but with a noticeable loss in color depth and sound quality.
Sharp X68000
This port is an arcade perfect translation of the original, mostly due to the fact that this computer's hardware is almost identical to the one found in the CPS-1.
Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation
The second volume of Capcom Generations, which Capcom released in 1998 in Japan and later in Europe was titled "Chronicles of Arthur" and included almost exact arcade translations of Ghouls n' Ghosts and Ghosts n' Goblins along with Super Ghouls'n Ghosts.
Capcom Classics Collection
The PS1 port of Ghouls 'n Ghosts from Capcom Generation volume 2 was included in Capcom Classics Collection for the Xbox and PS2 and Capcom Classics Reloaded for the PSP.
Virtual Console
The Sega Genesis version of the game was made available in North America for the Wii Virtual Console on August 27th, 2007.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sega Stars: Yuji Naka, from Sega-16.com. Retrieved on 28 August 2007.

[edit] External links

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Ghosts 'n Goblins video games