Odallus: The Dark Call - Thoughts

I was greatly looking forward to JoyMasher's sophomore effort, Odallus: The Dark Call. Oniken proved that the developers knew what made the classic games of the 8-bit era tick, and though I didn't hop on the Indiegogo campaign when Odallus was announced, I was eager to play it somewhere down the road. Thanks to the recent Humble Bundle I came upon that road sooner rather than later, and man, is Odallus a really great game. It can be a bit tricky at times, wedging the player between a difficulty spike or a confusing progression path, but the game adheres to a philosophy that respects the player and fully expects them to use their arsenal in order to make it to the end of this dark, monster-slaying journey... and after wiping the blood off of your sword, you're likely to think back on it all and conclude (with a grin), "yeah, this was a lot of fun!"

Before I begin, the description on Odallus' steam page lists Ghosts 'n Goblins, Demon's Crest, and Castlevania as direct inspirations, but Odallus actually plays like none of those games. Sure it shares the same kind of oppressive atmosphere (in spite of its versatile color palette), but all three of those games play considerably slower than Odallus does—hell, JoyMasher's game doesn't even have a quirky jump mechanic like those do! Odallus is less about planning your next move and more about executing swift barbarian justice on your foes... kinda like Oniken! In fact, that's probably the best analog to the game: picture Oniken, enlarge the sprites, add in some backtracking and cool powerups, and there ya go!

The backtracking aspect plays a bigger role than the above sentence might imply, but it's important to note that the majority of Odallus is played as consecutive stages from an NES game (with a few branching paths to spice things up). Rarely will you have more than one viable stage to select from, keeping things feeling less Metroidvania-y and more classic, despite the fact that you'll still have to head into earlier levels to pick up goodies or find a secret exit. Thankfully the levels are shorter than you remember upon replay and offer plenty of permanent shortcuts to unlock (like activating a skull-face teleporter), never burdening the player with prolonged periods of boredom. The overarching design is a successful mix of "old meets new", playing like an retro platformer but having enough modern design sensibilities to never become overbearing or groan-inducing.

That said, Odallus can still be a prickly at times, especially once you reach the final boss (which is an astoundingly awesome fight, by the way). It's no easy task to reach the credits but I'd hesitate to call Odallus a difficult game, or at least difficult in the same way its alleged inspirations are. The only thing that conflates its perceived challenge is that the game sticks to a limited lives system despite not really needing to, given how prevalent the shortcuts are. I was also confused for a long time whether or not the unlocking a shortcut would persist after using a continue, but fortunately they do, which I wish the game had indicated to me beforehand somehow. For the most part Odallus is very gentle and rewarding at just the right times (like stumbling upon a full health chest after a section filled with fierce enemies), which is a testament to how tightly designed the game is; as long as you proceed cautiously and keep your side-arms ready, there's no reason you can't reach the final stage in a few hours (good luck beating that level though!)

Besides the limited lives, I suppose I don't have too many qualms with Odallus overall. The controls felt a little sloppy and slidey at times—Oniken suffered the same problem if I recall correctly—but they're easy to get used to by the third level, especially once you eventually obtain the double jump and command more control over your trajectory. I'm a little sad that the sub-weapons don't have an upgrade to enhance their use in the endgame, but whapping guys with just your sword remains fun for the entire duration of the game. The story can be somewhat confusing but the Berserk-inspired theme of the game in conjunction with the revolting Gigeresque pixel art is a super awesome combination that never feels trite or dull. Almost every time I think of something that might make me feel a little lukewarm on the game, there's always some other aspect that I really dig and enjoy.

Odallus is not a gigantic leap beyond their blade-swinging debut, but that's because since their inception JoyMasher has understood what made 8-bit platforming so much fun. Whereas Oniken made me a believer in their work, it was Odallus that cemented them as masters of their craft, doing far more than simply invoking nostalgia with their punchy visuals. It's somewhat hard to recommend the game to anyone that doesn't enjoy the era of gaming that inspired it, but for those of us who yearn for an oldschool challenge aided by some clever design, nifty bosses, and catchy pulse wave tunes, Odallus is right down our alley.

Gone in November - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

Gone in November is a severely undercooked game. Developed by Florastamine, its a walking sim that centers around struggling with three separate but related problems: loss of a friend/lover, depression, and leukemia—a powerful combination on paper. The visuals and price tag make it pretty clear that Gone in November an amateur piece of art, but I went into it with an optimistic outlook, especially since I know topics like these are probably really close to the developer's heart. Reaching the end of the tale less than twenty minutes later, I walked away feeling that it was in dire need of some serious feedback during development.

Perhaps the most glaring issue is that the author of the game is (most likely) not a native english speaker, given the multitude of errors in the text and the Vietnamese on some of the billboards outside of the main house. In a game such as this that's highly dependent on its prose to convey emotion and evoke pathos, any broken sentences or irregular dialogue will fail to properly resonate with the player, only serving to distance them from the story. While there are a handful of times that what's written does work ("Time. Please don't take her away." and "I hate you for not being right here, right now."), there's a multitude of examples where I couldn't tell what was happening, who was speaking, or what the author was even trying to communicate to me ("She said they didn't allow her to go out. That if she was released, she would never come back. But that was everything." and "Isn't people were born to pay their debts?")

For the most part I could understand what the game was trying to tell me; Gone in November unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve, yet its dauntless attitude doesn't necessarily amount to anything special while you play it. You'll understand that the player character loved a girl, lost a girl, and feels isolated and cut off from everyone else... but there's really not much to it beyond that. A good chunk of the game is spent reading dialogue about how apathetic and cold the world (read: society) treats its inhabitants, but these generalizations are similar to those you're bound to make in highschool, during the time when you become disillusioned with both yourself and everyone around you ("Look at these people. They are all clueless about you and your problems. Like they care. It's not their business anyway." and "And here you are. Standing between a mess created by people's ignorance and your negativism.") Had I played this over a decade ago perhaps I would've been floored by the experience—likely finding the author to be a kindred spirit—but now it's too easy to recognize the raw, aimless angst that poisons early adulthood, each cynical remark made far from being unique, biting, or poignant.

The one aspect that Gone in November handles pretty well is its trippy visuals, but due to the simplicity of the textures there's not really anything that's worth more than a passing gander. There were a couple of instances that actually surprised me (the cactuses, the car), however the overall experience kinda just wanders around with its ideas until it reaches a screeching halt. As there aren't a lot of strong recurring motifs or optional goodies to find there's almost no reason to replay the game, especially since both of its endings only result in a mere difference of closing audio. I did remain entertained as I was playing through it, but this is far from being a sterling example of how beautiful and enthralling a walking sim can be.

I admire Gone in November's heart—any piece of art that attempts to communicate how utterly consuming depression can be is welcome in my book... it's just unfortunate that I feel it's not worth a recommendation. I mean sure, it's worth a look if you wanna see someone's personal take on the subject, flaws and all, but it essentially offers a perspective that you can stumble upon yourself in a random DeviantArt journal post. It's great that the game is both short and cheap, though I think its brevity conversely contributes to it feeling half-baked in the end. More than anything, I'm interested in seeing what Florastamine takes away from this experience, and if we see another effort from the developer—I want to encourage these kinds of products to keep being made, even if there's some ugly bumps along the way.

Thumper - Thoughts

There are a handful of games that are about journeying into the depths of Hell—Doom, Dante's Inferno, and Diablo immediately spring to mind—but no product more perfectly encapsulates the dread of such an endeavor than Thumper. I know it might come across as grandstanding (after all, how does a rhythm game with no discernible setting accomplish this?) but I implore you to listen: surviving Thumper is surviving Hell. In an Inferno-esque style, nine vicious stages await you as you descend into the maw of madness, obstacles and beats coming at you faster and faster until you're unsure if the human mind is capable of processing such an onslaught of information. Your vision will blur, your palms will sweat, and your fingers will tense up as you smash against walls and fly into spikes; you will die, and die, and die again, until your weakness has been purged... or you simply break. No game released this year has put up more of a fight than Thumper, and no game I've played this year has been more satisfying to finally conquer.

Part of Thumper's allure is in how deceptively simple it is: the only required inputs are a single button and the cardinal directions of a joystick. As your iron-clad beetle vehicle whizzes down the track, you'll press the button to hit a pad, or press the button plus direction to grind against a wall. There's also flying, multiple lanes, and stomp chaining that gets introduced later on, but Thumper eases you into these abilities one by one, teaching you a new trick for each of its first five levels. Perhaps the best way I can describe the game is that's it kinda like Stepmania meets Super Hexagon with an F-Zero exterior, requiring rhythmic precision at a blistering fast speed.

And Thumper is fast—very very fast. You'll need each of its sixty frames per second to read objects in the distance before they hie to your position, a mere two crashes needed to burst your beetle into bits. While the game showcases a lot of spiffy effects and visuals (some of the bosses in particular are real nifty), Thumper demands you parse the signal from the noise in order to survive, which can be a grueling task at first. Hairpin turns, claustrophobic tunnels, and a dizzying amount of particle effects and lights are all meant to obscure your vision, but hopefully you'll grow used to the bewildering amount of action onscreen, eyes squarely focused on the oncoming track.

And what rhythm game is complete without some excellent music? To say Thumper's soundtrack is catchy or melodic would be... well, a lie; primal drums accompanied by ambient hums are what urge you onwards, all other instrumental fat shorn away. Each oncoming obstacle adds percussion to the soundscape, with your inputs either repeating or complementing the audible attack. While it might seem like the dearth of other instruments would cause the game to get boring after a while, the clever twist that Thumper pulls is that each of its nine levels is a corresponding time signature: Level 1 is 1/4, Level 2 is 2/4, Level 3 is 3/4 and so on. Just when you feel you've mastered one stage's tricks, the next one hastily makes a fool out of you until you can grasp its completely different timing. To best survive, I recommend putting on headphones, cranking the volume, and zoning out until you become one with the beetle, naturally intuiting what every move will add to the battlefield of noise.

Rarely will you ever feel comfortable playing the game though, which is where the Hell analogy comes back in. In something like Doom the player is empowered as they march on, whereas Thumper immerses itself in cruelty and despair as you delve ever deeper. The world itself is alarmingly alien: cold colors reflect off of the iridescent metal track, strange and brutal geometric shapes forming from afar to distract or obliterate you. The gameplay matches the visual austerity as stages simply get faster and longer, always teetering the cusp of being too demanding. I thought Level 5 had shown me my limits, but I continued to bore downwards, improving my reactions and sharpening my reflexes. It's silly to say, but I'm pretty sure I experienced all five stages of grief whilst playing the game, emerging out the other end as a changed man... er, at least a man that can do perfect turns while flying.

Thumper is not an easy game—it will demand a lot from you. You'll have to endure (literally) odd time signatures, deal with sharp changes in rhythm, and retry sections a dozen times over if you want to earn anything more than a C Rank.  But Thumper is also a game about self-improvement, not submitting to the forces of evil, and the indomitable power of the human spirit. What first seems dark, belligerent, and frightening slowly grows on you until the fire and brimstone no longer burn; where once you were a prisoner, you now make the very road your slave. Beyond Thumper's pain is pleasure, and I can't recommend it enough—it's the best impulse purchase I've made in a long while.

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - Thoughts

The final console release for the mainline Ghosts 'n Goblins series stays true to its rough 'n tough roots. Being developed for the Super Nintendo instead of the arcade, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts feels more mellow and purposeful than its jittery siblings, being polished and waxed until you can see your reflection shimmering on its surface. Ah, but the red arremer hides in the detail! Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts takes inspiration more from the first game than the second, proud to amp up the difficulty and force you to make every shot count. Lost is the Contra-like speed, brevity, and tamer difficulty that the Genesis entry had vitalized the series with; Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is the textbook definition of "one step forward, two steps back".

My disappointment of the game notwithstanding, I have to applaud Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for switching out vertical firing with the double jump. It's usually not a good sign to lose a major mechanic from one game to the next, but the trade-off here is balanced: you lose an offensive capability for more planar maneuverability. Now enemies directly above you pose more of a threat and a greater emphasis can be placed on pure platforming, as exemplified by the midpoints of Stage 1 and 3. You have a chance to correct for foolish jump by leaping backwards, but it also means that fudging the second jump is more costly, since it'll take you longer to hit the ground. While I was a fan of the vertical firing from the previous game, I feel the double jump brings plenty of excitement to the series, further expanding your options for approaching the challenges on the road ahead.

And what a road it is! Seven grueling stages will test your mettle as you work you way to the heart of the demon castle... and then retrace your steps for the harder second playthrough. Because Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is slower than Ghouls 'n Ghosts, finishing the adventure will require quite a bit of endurance, especially on the last stage (more on that later). I was worried that the prettier, crisper visuals would lead to it being more "normal" than its kin, but there's plenty of kookiness and bizarre settings to be found as you charge nobly onwards to rescue poor ol' useless Prin Prin. My favorite location is the frozen mountain in Stage 5, the first half of the stage dotted by these crystalized, Seussian trees that hang overhead. It may not be as offbeat as the last game, but Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts remains a gorgeous title with a heckuva lot of charm.

Where I start to wane on the title is under the inspection of its design. Stage 1, 4, and 6 are perhaps the only levels that I don't really have qualms with—every other stage in the game is hampered by some questionable piece of design that slows it down. Stage 2 has the loooong raft section that overstays its welcome, Stage 3 has these bland and listless towers, Stage 5 doesn't do enough with its cool avalanche mechanic, and Stage 7 is just a god-awful gauntlet. Compounding this are bosses that are pretty hit or miss, losing a lot of the simplicity that made them so fun to fight in the last game. The second boss can't be jumped over for some reason, the third boss is pretty unintuitive and confusing, the fourth slows the screen to a crawl, and the fifth is just plain stupid (it only has one real attack and looks absolutely dopey without its legs). These are admittedly minor nitpicks that don't significantly detract from the overall experience, except with regards to Stage 7.

Stage 7 is bad—Ghosts 'n Goblins Stage 6 bad. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to place so many cockatrice heads in the vertical climb at the start, but it makes playing through that section a vile chore every time you die. Some parts of the stage are laudable—the dual cockatrice fight in that one chamber and the ghosts harassing you as you bolt to the boss are clever (and fair!), but needing to get through all this (and a red arremer!) to face two similar, tanky bosses at the end is extremely taxing. Perhaps you'll feel that this degree of challenge is to be expected while running through it the first time, but it's the second playthrough that pushes this endeavor beyond humane limits, requiring you to basically not get hit once the whole level (since you have to have the gold armor to stand a chance against the boss). Reducing the health of everything on this level by 50% would alleviate a lot of my complaints, but as it currently stands it's arguably worse than Ghosts 'n Goblins Stage 6, largely because it takes so much more time to beat.

Besides the unjustified whipping I got while trying to finish the game, there's a couple of odd discrepancies that hampered my enjoyment of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Continues are now limited but can be restocked by collecting money (I think?) such that it's not really a problem... though their presence adds unnecessary stress. The bronze armor and shield add some more flavor to the game, but the shield requires you to stop moving to work and getting hit once outside of that immediately reduces you to your underpants. Your weapons are slower so there's barely a reason to use anything outside of the knives/lance/crossbow combinations (all of them being the fastest firing weapons), and the red arremer is absurdly obnoxious this time around, being able to instantly dodge all of your attacks unless you hit them as they're swooping down upon you or have an upwards firing weapon. It really is something you have to experience for yourself; even the original red arremer incarnation was more fair than this! Again, none of these are game-breaking problems, it's just that they contribute to how exhausting it feels to play through the game twice in a single sitting.

I wanted to be blown away while playing Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts—after all, I naturally lean more towards SNES games than Genesis, so I had high expectations diving in. What I had yet to experience was just how prickly this game was; limited continues, longer stages, and a ferocious final level barred my entry to the credits, Capcom asking if I had what it took to best their devious design team. There were certain moments throughout my journey where Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts astounded me with its creativity and visuals, but far too often I found myself groaning in frustration or questioning if certain sections could've been made better or more interesting. Perhaps during a replay I'll look upon it with a fonder gaze (I still do want to replay it after all), but that horrid requirement for a second playthrough will likely continue to keep my appreciation at bay.

Nanostray 2 - Thoughts

In regards to each of Shin'en's previous shmup titles, I've always had a fondness for their peculiar camera choices. Sure, it made dodging bullets quite awkward and it wasn't always clear if you were going to collide with something, but their cinematic bent was a style fitting for the experimental handheld series. Nanostray 2—Shin'en's final attempt at a "straight" shooter—is their most conventional and streamlined entry yet: gone are the strange perspectives and questionable collisions. Instead, we're given a game that takes notes from Life Force, providing ship-partnered "options" and alternating perspectives every other stage. Though I can't help but gravitate towards the other titles in the series (for no reason other than nostalgia alone), from a design standpoint Nanostray 2 is undoubtedly Shin'en's best shooter.

Part of the reason why I didn't warm to Nanostray 2 when I was younger is that the Adventure mode (the standard shmup campaign in the game) was structured too rigidly for me to complete. Whereas the previous games had an imbalanced health system where one bullet took a small chunk off of your health bar while any ship collisions outright killed you, Nanostray 2 addresses this by making all damage immediately lethal. I do prefer playing STGs that take this "1 hit = death" approach, but Nanostray 2 awkwardly attaches limited continues it, making it so you have to restart a level should you lose all your lives on said stage. Not only that, but the game saves your lives remaining if you quit to the main menu, which means that all lives lost on a stage are permanent unless you hard reset the handheld.

While it's fair to say this keeps the game feeling like an oldschool shooter that you have to complete in a single sitting, I think the simultaneous inclusion of one hit deaths, limited continues, restart upon game over, and inability to return to an old save makes Adventure mode ultimately too demanding. Knocking out two of those facets would've provided me with an enjoyable—and still challenging!—experience, but instead I had to play it with a prudent mindset, powering off my DS should I die within the first minute of a stage. Thankfully there is an Arcade mode that lets you play the individual stages with five lives and all of the weapons available, but there's no cozy middle ground between the two modes; you're either playing each level as its own separate experience or struggling to make it through the brutal campaign thanks to its harsh, disciplinarian structure...

... which is a shame too, because the game is pretty fun!

With the shedding of unconventional camera angles comes more conventional gameplay. No longer do you have to pray to the RNG gods for your warping hitbox to avoid damage near the top of the screen—its pretty clear what the size of your ship is and when you'll get hit. Like with the first Nanostray, you have a handful of nifty special weapons available to you, though you'll only be able to equip one of them for a mission (and why would you pick anything other than the highly damaging Ionstrike?). The luminescent satellites orbiting your ship can be placed into three customizable configurations which is neat too, though like with the special weapons you're likely to find something that works for you and stick to it. There's also challenge modes and cute minigames that add some quirky variation to an otherwise standard shmup, but they feel more or less like distractions from the delicious meat of the main game.

Eight decently sized levels are at the core of Nanostray 2, and there's not a lot to comment on here other than that they're a blast to shoot through. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing while playing the game is that difficulty is all over the place: Nanostray 2 peaks in difficulty at Naizoh Habitat (level 3) while Daitoshi Station (level 5) is the easiest in the game. Besides that perplexing roadbump, you'll get plenty of variation from each of the settings and their denizens, whether it be the claustrophobic sewers of Kohai City, the Life Force-inspired organic interiors of the Naizoh Habitat, or the arctic laboratories of Himuro Base. Bosses are also a hoot to duel too, nearly all of them (besides the first) putting up a fair fight on your very first encounter. In a way, it truly feels like Shin'en took everything they learned about level design from the previous titles and applied it here. The game is crisp, clean, and offers some no-nonsense fun from its first stage to its last, no doubt helped by the standardized camera angle.

As prosaic as it sounds, Nanostray 2 in one word is "competent". The unattractive parts have been hewn off in favor for more stability, almost all of the weirdness of Iridion 3D finally stripped away. True, I think it doesn't have heart in the same way the old GBA titles did (their soundtracks probably played a major part in establishing that), but it's not hard for me to recommend Nanostray 2 to STG fans looking for some portable action. Had Adventure mode been more accommodating, I could easily list this as the best shmup designed for handhelds—as it stands now, it's simply one of the best.

(And a special thanks to Manfred Linzner for contributing so much to these games... awesome to see him promoted to director here!)
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Images obtained from: nanostray2.com

Ghouls 'n Ghosts - Thoughts

Capcom's second attempt at the Ghosts 'n Goblins franchise is—without a doubt in my mind—a superb improvement over their original formula. There's a greater variety of stages, more interesting weapons, a gentler difficulty curve, snappier controls, and better design overall. It's still loyal to the G'nG formula (ie, you're going to die and you're going to die a lot) but it no longer leans so heavily on you fighting against lightning-fast foes. Whereas I felt the first experience was surprisingly devoid of merit, the Genesis port of Ghouls 'n Ghosts is when the franchise finally comes into its own, letting you truly enjoy running around in your underwear.

Before I begin, I have to get something off my chest: I think being required to finish the game twice before reaching the credits is dumb. I didn't know before diving into the series that this was a part of every game, believing it to be a design choice that made the first game—not the franchise—infamous. Besides artificially extending the length of the game, it constrains the player into a particular playstyle (since you need to wield a certain weapon to reach the endboss) and makes the loop typically reserved for experts unfortunately mandatory. In most games, replayability is naturally enforced by tiered difficulties or optional paths; forcing the player to retrace all their steps under a specific condition is cruel and unusual. I firmly believe that axing the second replay would go a long way towards making the series more approachable, and dare I say appreciable.

The compulsory replay really gets my goat because I think Ghouls 'n Ghosts is an excellent game barring that one criminal exception. It's similar to Castlevania but sped up to play more like Contra, requiring a mastery of your arced jump but with the stipulation of a sharp reaction time to neutralize any problem you'll suddenly encounter. Sir Arthur doesn't feel responsive but you actually have a surprising amount of control over what happens onscreen, provided you respond quickly enough. Granted, you'll get cornered into plenty of instances that are impossible to escape unharmed, but with infinite lives and two checkpoints per stage on your side, no death should theoretically break your indomitable spirit. The journey ahead is not an easy one, but thankfully nothing like Stage 6 from the original awaits you on your quest.

What sticks out to me the most about Ghouls 'n Ghosts is how frankly odd the levels are. While you still have to traverse through a mountain to reach a hell castle, the locales are a bit more... exotic, shall I say? This time around you'll be traipsing through a stormy forest, climbing windmill-dotted dunes, hopping across a mountaintop of stone heads, and a delving into a gem-encrusted cave, each setting vibrant and distinct from the last. The bosses too are a delight to look at (and battle!), my favorite probably being the double-screen filling slug in Stage 4 that requires you to keep track of its numerous babies in-between attacking its throbbing lung sacs. Though certainly colorful, the game isn't exactly a looker in the same way its Super Nintendo sequel is, but thankfully the bizarre locations and enemies more than make up for it.

Mechanically, Ghouls 'n Ghosts doesn't play any different from its predecessor except in one major area (well, besides fixing the controls): you can fire up! This shows how an adjustment as small and innocuous as adding another direction of attack can vastly change the way you approach foes, Sir Arthur now able to swat them out of the sky before they descend upon his fragile person. You'll often find that if you're struggling with a section or boss battle, it's probably because you're not thinking vertically; even the new and improved red arremers will hastily fall victim to a flurry of knives in the rear. True, the game isn't all that difficult thanks to it (I managed to beat the final level of the second loop on my first try!), but being able to complete the adventure in a single sitting is personally a godsend, not a curse.

Ghouls 'n Ghosts isn't as cutthroat as Ghosts 'n Goblins but it's a far more fun experience by journey's close. Though the mandatory second playthrough still irritates me to no end—especially since if you play on "normal" since there's no noticeable difficulty increase in loop #2—it's impossible to spite the game for it. Its improvements are in equal parts level design and player control, having more fun things to throw at the play along with updating the movement so you can now deal with oncoming threats. No longer do repeated deaths feel like the game is pummeling you into oblivion until luck is on your side—there's always a way out and you're always learning. I think as time spirals on, I'll look back on Ghouls 'n Ghosts and envision of it fondly as one of the best platformers in the Genesis library.

Ghosts 'n Goblins - Thoughts

I am not one to shy away from a gaming-related challenge—in most instances, I welcome it. But drawing the line between something that is "challenging" and something that is "unfair" can often be tricky, especially when looking at the entries from gaming's prepubescence. Nestled between the classic arcade era and nascent modern design (difficulty settings, saves, point-less), games of the third console generation had their fair share of problems finding a way to be challenging without being cheap (though not that many cared). What best typified a product caught between the two was the NES port of Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins—a game so tremendously daunting that it demands that you to beat it twice. Relentless enemies and cruel design choices await you if you dare tread upon its accursed grounds (after two hits you're dead!), but spend enough time with it and eventually you'll grow used to its sadistic nature.

While Ghosts 'n Goblins may share many similar external traits with Castlevania—reaction-framed platforming, predestined jumps, high difficulty despite infinite continues—the comparison diverges when you spend time with both. The latter is what I'd champion as a stellar example of how to make a difficult game with a precise control scheme while the former is... considerably less-than-stellar. Around Stage 2 of Sir Arthur's adventure it'll become apparent that Ghosts 'n Goblins is a very sloppy game: the frame rate is choppy, character movements are jittery, flying enemies are far too nimble, ducking tends to glue you in place, and bosses easily outpace and ram the player. Having played most of the notoriously difficult games in the NES library, I can honestly say that none of the other titles handle this poorly.

That's not to say it's impossible to get accustomed to the game's programming, but you certainly have a steep hill to climb if wish to survive until the end (er, both ends). The first red arremer you encounter is the harbinger of ill-tidings that await you, as you'll notice there's not much of a rhyme or reason to certain enemy attacks. Since the smirking devil is locked to your screen and not the location, avoiding his dives and getting hits off on him feels entirely like a gamble, each victory earned under the sweet grace of lady luck (and learning to get those two hits in before he's off the ground). Sure, the game is predictable enough that a no-death run is technically possible, but the initial foray into the world will have you scratching your head at every obstacle. Three separate sections in particular immediately spring to mind: Stage 2-2, Stage 3-2, and Stage 6; the rest of the journey is astoundingly tame in comparison.

Stage 2-2 will see you wrestling with dozens of ladders and beefy ogres that chuck blue orbs at you from above. As soon as you climb to their plane they'll charge at you and camp on top of your character, ensuring death if you allow them to reach you. Combining this with the undulating crows can create nasty situations, since if one approaches your backside while you're keeping the big monster busy, you have to quickly fire a lance at the bird and hope it hits. Tack onto this an awkward platforming section and two unicorns—the Stage 1 boss—lying in wait at the end (the first of which will jump behind you and ram you if you try to power through it), and you have a very bitter drink to swallow not five minutes into your quest.

A whole level later, Stage 3-2 assaults you with a cold nest of red arremers to stop you dead in your tracks. While it's hard enough fighting off one and surviving, having to battle 4-5 of these little devils in a row is a real test of willpower, since two hits is enough to end Sir Arthur. The fact that they lock themselves onto your screen once aggroed will make it tough to shake them (though occasionally they'll fly away), and as I said, trying to predict what angle they'll swoop in at you is infeasible for a beginner. Even when you have the correct route through the level mentally mapped, you'll die, die, and die again trying to figure out the precise timing you need to most quickly dispatch them. Topping off this soul-crushing sundae is a serpent-like dragon boss at the end that's also locked to your screen, meaning its lengthy swoops are just as deadly (oh, and it's immune to your starting weapon, meaning that if you're still carrying the lance you have to swap it out for the awful torch weapon).

Stage 6 is the final trial of the game and an arduous one, asking that you to fight a unicorn, dragon, two ogres, a red arremer, a legion of randomly spawning ghosts, and two Stage 5 bosses all while carrying a specific weapon. Think of something like Ninja Gaiden's Stage 6-2 or Batman's Stage 6 in terms of relentlessness, except instead of insane precision you just need six lucky die rolls in a row. During both playthroughs I had only a fraction of the formula required to make it through this hellhole unscathed, unable to figure out how to avoid damage for each part (towards the end I was kinda understanding how to beat the Stage 5 boss I guess). It's not only tedious and repetitive, but sometimes a skeleton will awaken too soon or a ghost will spawn on your position while you're on a ladder, meaning that if the game desires you dead it'll certainly find a way to make that happen. Your only reward is that the final boss is one of the most hilariously impotent foes outside of Gradius' big brain; there's nothing but a hollow victory awaiting you at the top of this troublesome tower.

I hope it comes across crystal clear from my descriptions, but a lot of this game is about you—the player—not being in control. For every instance where you conquer a red devil a ghost will fire a spike through your skull. Every time you narrowly avoid a stray projectile an ogre will camp a ladder. Every successful battle you have with the dragon on Stage 6 will allow the unicorn to charge right through you on your next attempt. If you touch the game after finishing loop two you'll likely notice you do in fact have a lot more power over your character than you thought, but it never feels like mastery; there's always some situation that will arise that you have no appropriate response for, other than to exhale and bite the dust. And in challenging games like these, as long as you could've deduced a solution, a death doesn't feel wasted—so expect a lot of wasted deaths.

I don't think that Ghosts 'n Goblins is by any means a bad game—I've reached its "proper ending" twice now and don't really harbor any anger or regret towards it. However, I do feel that the game could've been ported better, made more stable, or programmed to be less temperamental... axing loop two entirely from the equation (or rendering it optional) would go a long way to polishing its fondness. It's not a game I'm eager to replay but it's also not something I've sworn off and sold; Ghosts 'n Goblins occupies this weird territory where I want to like it more, but simply don't. The haphazard design, merciless encounters, and wonky controls make it so the experience can only be appreciated through nostalgia or a masochistic lens—viewed any other way, and it's impossible to understand why this game received any sequels.

(please excuse my cruddy laptop camera)