Capcom's inaugural game for the Ghosts 'n Goblins franchise, starring Sir Arthur as he battles demons in his underwear! The series is known for its insane difficulty requiring precise jumps, very mobile enemies attacking a less than mobile player character, and a bottomless supply of thrown weaponry, and the first is no slouch.
The original arcade version is less well known than the awful NES port, but is substantially better. From smoother animation to controls that aren't so stiff and unresponsive, I'm amazed this isn't more popular.
Several traditions were started here. Not only being real hard to complete, but also red demons being the single most annoying thing in the game, a variety of weapons being staples, and requiring a special weapon before being able to fight the final boss. Later games would force you to run through the game twice to do so, but this game lets you waltz on in on the first cycle; however, you'll get the bad ending and be forced to go through it again to obtain the good ending. I went with the bad ending because running through the game twice would've been boring.
- Version: World? set 1
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- Bad end!
Tricks (note that A is jump, B is attack, and _ is no input)
- Ladder snapping: A common video game thing. If you hold up as you approach a ladder, Arthur will snap forward several pixels. You can do the same with ladders going down, but it's not as fast as going up since you have to climb back up.
- Rapid Firing: Ordinarily, the player can only fire once every ten frames. However, there are a few ways to speed this up considerably.
- Jump-land-jump. Make a jump, and as you're about to land, go B,_,AB,_,B, adding directions for the jump as needed. Best way to get a volley of attacks out while still maintaining forward momentum.
- Attack interrupt: When standing, input will look like B,>,>,B,>,>,B. Less forward momentum, but greater flexibility. If what you need to attack is below normal level, go v>,v>B,^>,^>,v>,v>B,^>,^>,v>,v>B. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to increase firing rate mid air.
Note that jumping is slower in this game than walking, unlike later entries in the series.
Level 1
- 1-1: The game opens up with Arthur and a princess doing... something in a graveyard. Before long, though, a hideous demon appears from nowhere and snatches her up, thus starting the quest. Nothing too spectacular here, just smash zombies and jump gravestones. You can catch a glimpse of rapid firing here; using it to fire off one shot is sometimes faster than jump attacking. Also mess around a bit on the moving platform here.
- 1-2: Got rather lucky here. I had to take out a ghost and a plant in one jump, and had maybe two frames to pull it off.
- 1-Boss: Just approach with a volley of lances and kill him as he hits the ground.
Level 2
- 2-1: While jumping is slower thanks to warm up, cool down, and some slower speeds, Arthur does accelerate brief at the peak of the jump. I need to take this into account a few times in the run, starting here.
- 2-2: The house, filled with ogres that look like they are pooping on you. Snag ladders to go through. The crow I damage boost off of could not have timed his appearance there any better.
- 2-3: Board the platforms! Nail some red crows to reduce lag.
- 2-Boss: Two cyclopes! Jump with a volley aimed at the first one. He'll jump over you. Make a few potshots more, then focus your attention at the second. While the second is airborne, fire a volley at the first, then kill both almost at the same time.
Level 3
- 3-1: The stalagmite monsters were very helpful here. They opened up so I could attack them with little slowing down, and no need to get hit during the entire level.
- 3-2: Demons, demons everywhere! I had to take some potshots at a few to manipulate their movements and keep them out of the way.
- 3-Boss: The dragon, one of the more annoying bosses in the game. His head starts low, so I have to do some rapid fire ducking shots. However, I had to space my shots out a bit since if I attacked too fast, some of the lances would hit his body instead.
Level 4
- 4-1: Here I screw with some weird collision physics relating to the platforms. Probably one of my best bits of wasting time.
- 4-2: I spend some time bumping off some imps here to get the shield, needed to face the final boss. I lose some time picking it up here, but nowhere near as much as trying to snag it from the later levels. Unfortunately caused an imp to appear at my feet that I had to jump.
- 4-Boss: Another dragon. This time I'm forced to get closer due to the shield's limited range, but rapid firing makes short work of him.
Level 5
- 5-1: Arthur starts this level a little above the ground. However, right at the start the game will think he's on solid ground, so I jump to eliminate the need to fall straight down. There were a few routes I could have taken depending on where I damage boost. The one I picked was faster by a small margin. The shield starts to become a real problem here as it can't really hit the skeletons reliably.
- 5-Boss: Hey, it's the demon from the opening! The single most annoying boss in the game. Very quick, mobile, random, given to periods of invulnerability, and takes ten hits to take down. Limited manipulation.
Level 6
- 6-1: The opening here shows just how inconvenient the shield is at taking out skeletons quickly. Right after that, two cyclopes again! Except I can just damage boost and ignore them. Then another dragon, but I ignore him.
- 6-2: A small gauntlet of ogres, skeletons, and red demons. The game was kind enough to provide a spare armor, so I could damage boost again.
- 6-Boss: The most annoying boss in the game, and now there's two! Very impressive looking whatwith their flying all over the place plus the activity below the arena.
Level 7
- 7-Boss: A boss monster staple is introduced. Here he's the grand finale, but elsewhere he's usually a higher mook. To me, he's very iconic. Considering all the crap you have to go through to get here, this guy is insultingly easy. Slow, limited range attack used only occasionally... His vulnerable spot is the face on his belly, so you're supposed to jump and attack. However, I let him stomp on my so I can rapid fire it from between his legs. That's right, the fastest method to take care of this guy is rapid shield bashing to the crotch. Commence bad ending!
Thank you for watching!
feos: HD encode.
Mukki: Judging...
Mukki: This is clearly a great run and the audience seems to agree, however, the obvious controversy is whether or not this should obsolete the NES run or be published alongside it. We have had a similar problem with this series before as it was decided that the Genesis and Arcade versions of Ghouls 'n Ghosts would co-exist. However, adelikat stated clearly that it was not intended to set a precedent and that an obsoletion of the Genesis version could be added later. In other words, no decision was made on the point of cross-platform obsoletion, perhaps due to lack of feedback in the thread, or perhaps 2009 was the wrong time to make such a decision, when so many of our newer emulators were still young. In accordance with adelikat's wishes I will not consider the Ghouls 'n Ghosts example as persuasive in reaching a decision on this submission.
In my decision for submission #3271, after establishing the publishable quality of both runs, I asked myself two questions: whether there were sufficient differences in the substance of each run to warrant seperate publications; and which version should be prefered if this was not the case.
There are some differences in gameplay substance between these two runs. The arcade version allows for rapid fire, allowing the bosses to be defeated faster. This, coupled with use of the lance in earlier levels, allowed for some very fast fighting indeed. In the second level the bird used for damage boosting through the building appears on a lower floor than the NES version (and so is faster). Enemy placement in the arcade version also allowed for better damage boosting in levels 5 and 6. It also appears that Arthur runs slightly faster in the Arcade version (though it is difficult to tell between different platforms).
With this in mind perhaps I should clarify what I mean by a sufficient difference. We will not publish two similar TASes of the same game and, regardless of the differences that I outlined above, the NES title is the same game as the Arcade title (as would have been the developers' intention). We will, however, publish TASes of the same game that are very different (we have countless examples of this on the site e.g, Glitched v. Any% v. 100%). There will, of course, be some differences between versions of a game and in some cases these differences will appear to the viewer as if watching a faster (or slower) version of the same run, whereas a sufficient difference will make the viewer feel as if they are watching a different TAS entirely. Examples of the latter may be a unique glitch, exploit or goal that completely changes how the game is played, or the route and management decisions that the player makes, in a visible and meaningful way (perhaps in a similar way to how we distinguish between Glitched and Any% runs, or how we distinguished between Super Metroid In-game vs. Real Time). Sometimes hardware limitations may make the game very different, despite similar goals (Example). The gameplay differences between the NES and Arcade versions of Ghosts n' Goblins do not fall into the above categories as subtle differences in speed and enemy placement are relatively minor. As a viewer I felt as though I was watching a faster version of the same run, as opposed to a different TAS altogether. For these reasons, I don't believe that these runs are sufficiently different to warrant separate publiscations.
The second question is comparatively simple; which version is to be preferred? I doubt that anyone would argue with the fact that the Arcade version is a superior version in every concievable way. The sound is cleaner and graphically there is no contest. The gameplay differences outlined above also make this version faster and far more entertaining from a TAS perspective. Perhaps the only thing that the NES version has in its favour is that more people are familiar with it, however, this has nothing to do with the ports or TASes themselves and TASvideos, with the importance that it places upon aesthetics, should not distinguish between games and runs on this basis. Therefore, it is clear that the Arcade version of Ghosts 'n Goblins is to be preferred.
Accepting as an obsoletion of the currently published NES run.
sgrunt: Going ahead dauntlessly and making rapid progress.