Ghouls N Ghosts (Genesis)

[VideoGameCritic]

It's getting close to Halloween, and Ghouls and Ghosts is just a terrific seasonal title. I especially love the graveyard stage in the beginning, with the hanging bodies in the distance. Awesome organ music too.

But dang, this is HARD. I just got my highest recorded score at 17200. My friend Chris got 18900 once according to my book. Can anyone top 20K?

There is one new wrinkle I just recently learned after about 30 years. You can KILL the magician! In the past I tried to run from his ring-shaped "spell" but would usually get turned into a chicken on an old man. Now, when I open a chest, I continuously fire at it just in case the magician appears. It makes the game a little easier.

Thoughts?

[Zack Burner]

Comparing this to Super Ghouls and Ghosts, this is the better game, yet both are equally challenging (not to mention incredibly frustrating). Why do I say that? For one, the bosses are more creative, like the beast who takes his head off, a flaming dog, a cyclopean lightning cloud, a larvae with exposed hearts, a giant fly who can become smaller flies, and the dark lord Loki who's gaunt and imposing adding to the fright factor. Compare that to the ones in Super: a cockatrice (blah), a barnacle beast (creative), a giant worm (not so creative), a hydra (blah), an ice golem (creative) and two demon lords (not as frightening). The weapons here are more creative such as the disc, the axe, and the super sword (only melee weapon, but the thunder dragon magic is beneficial, especially against those horrid red demons). Above all, to ease some frustration, unlimited continues, whereas in super only a limited number, although if you are playing it on the SNES Classic Edition, you can use the suspend points, but even that does very little to ease the frustration factor.

[DrLitch]

I had muscle memory for Ghouls and Ghosts and I beat it more than once without losing a single life (and mostly if I lost lives it was committing suicide due to a weapon drop on a platform that would be unavoidable in picking up).

Super Ghouls and Ghosts on the other hand was a far more miserable bastard. An incredible game for sure, but devilishly hard. I only ever beat this game once. This title is definitely as difficult as the original Ghosts and Goblins.

Ghouls and Ghosts is the best of the lot though. Very balanced. I prefer the soundtrack to Super Ghouls though. There is an ice level where the music makes me think of Conan the Barbarian.

[Herschie]

There is nothing like a cool autumn night after football to play games like these. The season is there. You drive through the neighborhood, people have these incredible Halloween displays. I especially love those LED purple lights. I'll drop an edible and just marvel at them like I'm a kid. My neighbors give me weird looks.

Anyway, though this is my least-favorite of the trio (Super Ghouls n Ghosts on SNES and Ghosts n Goblins on NES), I still enjoy it immensely. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they went in a completely different direction, as being a Madden fan, usually there's little difference between consoles.

And although I typically prefer original hardware on a CRT, I would actually opt for the Switch version of any of these. With this difficulty, and limited time, cheating with save states becomes a pretty tempting option. I know the SNES and Genesis versions are on the Switch, and I think "Ghosts n Goblins" is on there as well.

[RDReynolds]

Love the Genesis version, but really have begun to love the Turbo/Super Grafx version since I got that mini a couple years ago. Both are great and I prefer them to the SNES version as it has so much slowdown. Too bad, as the music on it is awesome.

All told, I prefer the original arcade version to any others though.