S3E14: The Ghosts 'n Goblins trilogy -or- History Doomed to Repeat Itself

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't know where my Genesis could be.
I haven't seen my Super Nintendosince 2003.
That's all right. I don't mind.
I've got a Switch in the old Switch room.

(00:22):
My friend Mike and Jamo too. All right everyone, welcome back
to the old Switcheroo where we're talking gaming retro with
Mike and Jamo. I'm Mike.
And I'm Jamo play along on our epic quest to research and
review all 300 plus games in theNintendo Classics catalog.
Today we are spraying and praying our way through Ghosts

(00:43):
and Goblins for the NES, Ghouls and Ghosts for the Sega Genesis,
and Super Ghouls and Ghosts for the Super Nintendo in an episode
we are calling history doomed torepeat itself.
Now, Mike, I know what you're thinking, right?
Jamo sure is handsome and King Arthur wasn't a real historical
figure, right? I'm not sure on the accuracy of

(01:05):
either of those statements. Well, you know something, I
think it's no secret that history is not my strong suit.
We were also, you know, both in Mr. Klipfeld's APUS history
class. You can vouch for that.
But you know who is a legit video game historian?
Cyril Lachelle, founder and proprietor of Defunct Games.

(01:25):
Cyril, why don't you let our listeners know all about who you
are and what it is that you do? Well, my name is Cyril.
You may know me more as Defunct Games.
I started the website Defunct Games back in 2001 and then like
a decade later or so started a YouTube channel with the same
thing. We look at a lot of it started

(01:46):
out looking at old games, but these days I do a lot of modern
reviews, but also we like to look at a lot of old school
magazines. That's kind of our bread and
butter these days is looking through kind of flipping through
the pages of old, old reviews and and things like that.
The more wheat we peel this onion.
You're going to find out about me.
I don't know what you want me tosay, but I will say that I'm

(02:09):
excited to talk about ghosts andgoblins, ghouls and ghosts and
super ghouls and ghosts because I definitely have a preference.
Yeah, I, I think we all do. What I love about your site and
you and your mission is that youhear a lot about video game
preservation, right? But I think you're providing
this extremely vital service in preserving and archiving and
documenting video game journalism.

(02:31):
I mean, you've shared on our Discord recently some of the
ridiculously risque ways gaming publications used to be
advertised. But as someone who's documented
this industry for decades, is there something about retro
gaming that you kind of miss in modern times?
I look, I'm not somebody who looks at nostalgia as like this
thing I want to go back to. I love that there are these old

(02:53):
games and then I can, you know, I have a nostalgia forum and I
can go back and play them. But I think I honestly do think
this is a, you know, despite some problems with the industry,
I do think that this is kind of a golden age of gaming,
especially when it comes to the amount of stuff that we're
getting both from AAA publishers, but also from, you

(03:13):
know, the Indies and sort of therise of smaller games.
There's just a breadth of of types of games that we never
would have gotten 30 years ago. And I think that's one of the
things that I love about going back and looking at the
juxtaposition between like the old magazine reviews, you know,
the old electronic E monthly andstuff like that versus where we

(03:35):
are now. And you know, it's, it's fun
looking back, but I don't want to, I don't want to go back.
You can never go home again. I know a lot of people do.
I know because it was a simpler time and games were games and
stuff like that. But I mean, if you look at there
is just a lot of fun and going back and, you know, we spent a

(03:56):
lot of time looking at old reviews specifically on both the
website and the YouTube channel.And this will date us.
But one of the newest Nintendo classics that came out was Mario
Paint. Yeah.
Which to a certain generation ofkids is just this unassailable
classic. But I think that if, you know
it's fun is looking back at the reviews and saying that it was a

(04:20):
lot more polarizing back in the day.
There were critics that genuinely hated it.
I. Love someone having a hot take
on Mario Paint. You know, and that's true of so
many classics. You go back and look at, you
know, the reviews of Earthbound or Star Tropics or there are a
lot of other ones where, you know, yeah, there are a couple
of reviews that gave it nines or, or eights, but some of them,

(04:41):
you know, were threes and fours.Some of the the magazines really
hated it. And it's, it's fun looking back
at those and seeing what the reviews said, what the critics
said, and also what the the people, the readers were saying
at the time. And we we do a lot of that of
the channel and and of course the the defunct games website.
All good. So awesome.

(05:02):
Well, guys, I don't think Princess Prin Prin or Guinevere
or whatever her name is, I don'tthink she's going to save
herself. Are we ready to get medieval on
some ass? Let's do it.
Ready, Mike? Yep.
Mike's excited for this one. Oh well, this is the very first
game I know Mike's had a rough time with, and if you follow our
TikTok, you know that too. Let's dive in with Ghosts in
Goblins on the NES, released in 1986 as described on Nintendo

(05:33):
Classics. Take on the role of the night,
Sir Arthur, and delve into the realm of demons and monsters to
rescue your girlfriend, the Princess.
Choose your weapons wisely and take advantage of their
strengths to deal with the situation at hand.
Defeat the main boss at the end of each level and pass through
the gate to stand between you and Astaroth.
Teach him a lesson in chivalry he'll never forget.

(05:54):
The stage for adventure is set. Are you brave enough for the
challenge? Somebody got paid to write that.
Yeah, and this predates AI's rise.
I think someone wrote that paragraph.
So let's take a look at the Boxer, since I was having
people's first impressions on the NES Boxer.
We have Arthur, front and center, about to toss a javelin.
Looming behind him, you have most of the enemies from the

(06:16):
game snaring or sneering ominously.
Mike, I'm gonna guess you like this cover.
It's just solid cover. Granted, there's a part of this
where I'm distracted by like thegrid in the background.
Yeah, the red and blue grid, which?
That's pretty common with all ofthe the Capcom games of that era
on the NES, unfortunately. I figured it was it just it has

(06:40):
A to me a Tron vibe. Sure, definitely on the cover.
I like that it captures how dumbhis jumps look with one arm out
in front. And one leg out.
It's just the growing completelyvulnerable.
That's something I think we all experience.
I don't know though. I like, it's pretty colorful.
I I like that you kind of get the visual styling of the game.

(07:03):
Cyril also a fan. Yeah, no, I I like this cover a
lot. Did you know that when this was
released in Europe on the Nintendo Entertainment System
over there, just the NES versionover there was called Ghost and
Goblins, Not Ghosts. It has a typo.
Oh, we didn't just get more ghosts.
Yeah, it was just one ghost, buta bunch of goblins.

(07:26):
They're followed up by, Oops, Nothing but ghosts.
Yeah, oops, all goblins. Sorry, but you know the story
behind it. Do I know the story?
Oh, I thought you. I thought you had the story.
Oh, no, I I think that I think someone just made a mistake
because all the other versions, the Commodore 64 and the the

(07:46):
Amstrad and Amiga and whatnot, it all says ghosts and goblins
on that one. I just think someone made a
mistake, but I'm sure someone will correct us in the comments.
Oh, please do. This is probably influenced by
other games, but looking at how they spaced the writing on this
cover of Ghosts and Goblins, my brain reads this as Ghosts and

(08:09):
Goblins. Like there's an ING there that
we've shortened to just an apostrophe N, which is a
completely valid thing for any game to do.
Like cruising, yes. Yeah.
And I like the idea of verbing the first part.
Sure, So let's get to it here. This game was directed by Tokoro
Fujiwada. Fujiwada, excuse me, We enjoyed
his work in our last episode. Or more accurately, I enjoyed

(08:32):
his work on our last episode when we covered Mega Man 2.
We will see him again when we cover ghosts and goblin spin
offs, Gargoyle's Quest and Demon's Crest.
But not Gargoyle's Quest 2 RightCyril?
It's not on, not on there for some reason, not on the Nintendo
classics. Yeah, come on, Nintendo.
It should be. Yeah, it's weird to have the
gap. It's a great game.

(08:53):
It reminds me how Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is on the Genesis
emulator. But not one right?
And it's just like. But also, let's not let's not
jump over the the director there.
He put out a lot of bangers, like just a couple of, you know,
like around the same time, he not only made Bionic Commando in
the arcade, but he made the Bionic Commando on the NES,

(09:15):
which is the one that people like.
And he had just a, a bunch of big hits around that time.
And let's not forget the the Ghosts and Goblins, Ghouls and
Ghosts series was one of Capcom's biggest games in that
era. This was before Mega Man and
Street Fighter really, really took hold.

(09:36):
Yeah, actually, Wikipedia considers Ghosts and Goblins one
of the best video games ever made, having imported to over a
dozen different home computers in the late 80s, as well as
meeting the somewhat arbitrary requirement of being included in
an editor's best of the list from six different publications.
I don't know why Wikipedia needsit to be 6.

(09:56):
Why not 5? Not Why not 7?
Well, yeah, that's a weird arbitrary number.
Right, But so the publications that put this on their best of
list included Hyper Magazine, IGN, G4 TV, Zhu Video, Popular
Mechanics, and the Spanish version of Gentleman's Quarterly
Serial. Any hot takes on the video game

(10:17):
coverage in Popular Mechanics magazine?
I have not archived that one yet.
No. Now I kind of want, I've
archived A Maxim and Blender. So, but that's, I like hyper up
there. I recognize that cover.
That's a that's a Australian publication.

(10:40):
Of course, I think we really need to say this, that the
version that they're talking about is not the NES version of
Ghosts and Goblins. Right, it's not the best version
you could. Get no no they they are
specifically naming the arcade game the best one or the the the
best because the arcade games great.

(11:01):
Did either of you 2 play the arcade game?
I did. It is as I was telling Mike, and
I think I mentioned to you in the Discord, you know, I
downloaded the original arcade as DLC for the Capcom Arcade
Stadium. OK, so pretty recently.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, we'll kind of get
into it when we go over the gameplay, but very, very

(11:22):
superior version. Oh yeah.
The NES version has a pretty interesting instruction manual,
in that the cover has a character from a different game
entirely. Mike, you know what I'm
referring to. I'm not remembering it.
Yeah, the Captain Commando Challenge series.
It was this weird marketing brand added to Capcom home
releases including Mega Man fromour last episode, World War 2

(11:47):
biplane shooter 1942 and the Co-op Disney platformer Mickey's
Mascapade. And I don't know, that tickled
me. It's like, I've this was from
before an era where like Disney was that protective of their IP
that they would have a Captain Commando introducing Mickey.
But like now because of like public domain, we've kind of
come back around to something similar.

(12:09):
So like Mickey's kind of on the table again.
I don't know. Siri, you made a noise.
Were you familiar with the Captain Commando Challenge
series? Absolutely no.
I I you, you you reference, of course, that he did eventually
get his own beat em up brawler game Captain Commando, which is
a great, you know, a great game.It's technically connected to

(12:32):
the final fight series. It's technically a sequel, but I
love that. Like not a lot of people
remember that he he was represented in these old
instruction manuals and on the box and stuff like that.
He, he shows up all over the place and I think it's because
Capcom wanted to be associated. They wanted that name to stick

(12:56):
with people. And so they, they, I don't know,
they, they created this character which had its name in
it, so. You just blew my mind, Captain
Commando. Capcom.
I didn't. OK, Mike, you saw that.
Did you not know that? Neither did Mike.
He's just trying to impress. You, I, I had it before it was

(13:16):
told because I just kind of didn't register that there's a
lot of things that are in this game that I don't that I didn't
know were in this game. So I hadn't identified it as a
separate thing. So once I'm told Capcom created
it, and then I'm looking at like, I see what we did here.
Yeah, well, I didn't see what wedid there, but let's get into
this game here. Ghosts and Goblins, What's our

(13:37):
histories with the game and how far did we get?
So Serial can we start with you?Well, I'll tell you, I've beaten
all three of these games and notrecently, but I I've definitely,
and that's no easy task. One thing got to know about me
is that I'm a big horror fan. I've always been a big horror
fan, even when I was a kid. And so, you know, this sort of,

(14:01):
you know, 1985, I was what, 7, you know, this, this kind of
game and Castlevania and anything I could get that had
ghosts and goblins and Dracula or any, anything I was into.
And I loved this arcade game. Bought the, the, the NES
cartridge and it was OK, but loved the arcade game.

(14:22):
And then, you know, part of thatmay be that it was just that was
the arcade game at the godfathers.
And I was always at the Godfathers because apparently
that's where we went on Fridays.So I played a lot of this as a
kid. Did you beat it in the arcade?
No, that is the you need. You need a lot of money to beat
in the arcade. Yeah.

(14:43):
No, this is a game that is designed to steal your quarters.
Absolutely, yeah, MM knows we'llget into it.
So Mike, you were streaming thisfor our channel and for our
Discord. Had you played it before?
No. And in fact, actually really up
until this, this is going to finally resolve a problem that I

(15:03):
have had in my brain for many, many years, which is ghosts and
goblins and ghouls and ghosts confuse the heck out of me
because I can't keep track what the heck's what, but not because
this was a game that I did not have contact with.
And so I've had a long standing just where it's like I confuse
the games or wonder if they're different games, if it's just

(15:28):
being talked about because like those are different names.
And it's because it's an odd level of we've done another game
in the franchise and we've just permutated around words a bit,
which I feel like games used to do a lot more because I think
like Star Wars did this with like dark forces, then you get
into like dark forces to something else.
Then it just kind of keeps rotating through words.

(15:49):
And so this one, I think after this I will finally keep track
that Ghosts and Goblins is the first thing and then ghouls and
ghosts followed it up and not beconfused of which, you know,
thinking that I'm thinking the wrong name or I'm thinking of a
different game or whatever, or, you know, unrelated game.

(16:09):
I I do see what you mean, kind of because this is officially
like on the Internet. The ghosts and goblins series,
sure, but the ghouls and ghosts label those.
That two word combination has been used way more.
You think so? No.
Well, let's see here. I mean they it was followed by

(16:29):
ultimate Ghosts and Goblins and Ghosts and Goblins resurrected.
So in 2006 and 2021, I think theGhosts and Goblins has it by
what's it 3:00 to 2:00, right? I guess so, huh?
I mean you're not wrong, it justthe G&G franchise.
The G and the GGGG game guys. Or we should just go back to
what they called it in Japan, which has a name that no one can

(16:52):
pronounce. Or I'm not going to take a stab
at. I can, I have, I just I'm not
going to now. I kind of want you to now so
this game when when we agreed todo this episode, Sarah was nice
enough to warn the discord. Hey, you got to beat these games
twice. Just so you know, before you
decide to do all three in an episode, you have to beat all

(17:14):
three twice. So first of all, in Ghosts and
Goblins, if you reach the last boss without the shield, you get
this message. Mike, would you mind reading the
screen for our listeners? This weapon has not effect.
Try again, get A and. Then a picture of the shield.
Which you couldn't get in the first playthrough.

(17:35):
Just for the ref for reference. Right.
And then if you make it back to the end of the game with the
shield, this time you're treatedto this message.
So would you mind? Oh, sorry.
And you beat the boss using the shield.
After the last boss dies, you get this message, Cyril.
Oh boy, is that what is that word?

(17:56):
Oh, is it hard to read on your screen?
I'm sorry. It's hard to read on any screen.
I think I know where he's stuck.This room is an illusion.
I do that without you. Hold on.
This room is an illusion and is a trap.
What? For our audio listeners, he's

(18:17):
stuck because there's a so huge.Typo.
Devil, devil, whatever. By Satan, Go ahead dauntlessly.
Make rapid progress. Make rapid progress.
I think it's divisive. Yeah.
Is that a U or AV or no It's. You go back far, far enough,

(18:41):
like it's impressive. That's so bad that I don't think
anyone then notices that progress is misspelled, but in a
way that is not phonetically important.
I did not even see that Progresswas also misspelled.
My wife I think cracked the codeI had her read.
It's like, oh babe, what word isthis?
She thinks it's a misspelling ofthe word devised.

(19:01):
Oh yeah, it's supposed to be devised.
OK. Devised by See, I didn't even
get there. I didn't even get there.
Oh yeah, no, I don't know how they got to that.
I it's like I'm looking like. I don't know how you messed up
in that way. Wow.
Oh look, there's not enough. There's not enough English or
text in these games early, especially in the first game

(19:25):
where they needed to hire a, youknow, somebody to localize it.
So they probably just did it in house and this is what they came
up with. Honestly, this feels as I think
about it because D&T are actually fairly close
phonetically. The word devised is spelled
DEVISUT on the screen, just for the record.

(19:48):
OK. Please, please continue, Mike.
Yeah, I I think it actually is aor maybe I thought it might have
been AV, but I'm in any case, what I suspect happened is the
person who actually wrote down the letters that should go in
did something like called someone to be like.

(20:09):
What is the English for this? Yeah.
And so I think the person who's actually like this is what this
should be in English, only communicated it verbally.
Probably, yeah. And then someone else try
attempted a transcription on it.I mean this is par for the
chorus for the mid 80s. Well, just the difference of
versus someone like in writing being like I wrote down the

(20:31):
letters you should put in exactly.
So before we lose the plot entirely, the point is that you
need to get to the last boss of this game and then go back to
levels to get the shield to killthe last boss, only to learn
that the last boss is actually an illusion.
And you are told to, as Cyril said, make rapid progress as the

(20:52):
game sends you back to level 1. Right.
And you now have to go all the way back through the game
keeping the shield. Yeah, to kill the last boss and
get the message. Congratulation.
And that is not me being problematic.
That is how it is spelled. This story is happy end.

(21:13):
Thank you being the wise and courage your knight that you
are, feelings that I can't even do it.
And courage your knight that youare, you feel strong, welling in
your body. Return to starting point
challenge again. So 0 you saw when you beat it in
arcade, Do you remember it beingthis badly trans?

(21:35):
Like I said, I I did not beat itin the arcade.
I beat it. I beat it at home, but I don't
even. I wonder if you go back, I
wonder if this is the same in the arcade now that I now that I
look at it, yeah. I didn't beat the arcade boat,
but you nintended beat it on theNES back in the day I mean.

(21:55):
Thank you. I beat it on the OR in the the
and I guess I did technically years later in with Mame beat in
the arcade, but I mean that's unlimited quarters.
Not back in the day. I who has that amount of money,
right? Yeah.
And, and, and like I said, this is a game that was designed to
steal your quarters, right down to the fact that it's like you,

(22:17):
you beat it once, you got to beat it again.
Get it back there loser. From defunct games.
Well like you have to put in theold clip now, otherwise I just
sound like a jerk. That was a reference to an
earlier joke Cyril had made using rewind though.
I nintended beat the NES game. How?

(22:37):
Many computer. Now Mike, have you changed your
ways? I listened to the first episode
and you were against save Statesand rewinding.
Do you? Are you still anti rewinding?
I'm still not using those. And then there's also the other
part, which is certainly for like platformers.
I'm just not good. Sure.

(22:58):
So like I went into this already, like we'll see how far
I get and I don't expect to beatany of these.
And so after a few hours, I had gotten initially very stuck on
the second level where there's that building that you have to,
like, work your way up through the building and then over and
then back down. And those enemies were just

(23:19):
wrecking me. And I I don't know how I'm
supposed to do that level correctly.
Yeah. Memorization.
Well, because they they move around in a way that I could not
It it seemed to be influenced bywhere I was, but not in a way
that I could easily control. And they take a lot to kill and
they move so fast that if I get into the same levels and they

(23:39):
will kill me. So I had just about written it
off and then I went and checked out a speed run on this and then
realized, oh, wait, I can, I canwork with this, which is the
upper right corner of that building.
You can get a damage boost to goover the wall.
So instead of having to work down the ladders, because I

(24:03):
would get there once or twice and like going through that,
like I had one, one good run that I reached the boss and then
died quickly. It was like, OK, but after this
building I can do all right. I just can't handle this
building. And so when I discovered the
damage boost was like, OK, this,this gets me past the part that
is wrecking me. Right.

(24:23):
And then I finally reached the end bosses and beat them and the
timer hit zero and I died as thekey was falling.
Which made for one of my favorite Tik Toks I've ever
made. Like, I don't know if you, I
don't know if you've checked it out, but it's brutal.
Yeah. And so basically I looked at
that and went, OK, you know what, I'm taking this like I

(24:47):
tried once or a couple times more to see if I could actually
get through, but then I don't like sure, you know, this isn't
stopping me from seeing credits or something, right?
The only thing that was going tochange was that I would now be
on a next level that I don't think like I already have seen
that in this video. I'm like, I'm not getting, I'm
not beating this game. I'm just taking this as no, I'm
counting this as I beat the second stage and that's that's

(25:09):
where this ends. That's where your game, that's
where your ghosts and goblins ends, Yeah.
I, I, I think it's important to remember that this game is
trolling you and not just this game, this entire series.
And, and we've already, we've already discussed it a little
bit when it comes to, you know, you have to beat it twice.
But also the fact that like enemies spawn when you're on the

(25:32):
ladder, you know, in such a way that they are ready to kill you
or there's, and this is in all three of them.
There are chests that you can open up where you'll get turned
into a duck or a little baby or into an old man and, and things
like that. This, this game, these games are
specifically trolling you. They they are.

(25:54):
They are laughing at your misery.
So let's get into some joy Pros.Let's say what we like about the
game because I we know Mike had a rough time with it and like
Cyril said, the game is almost daring you to have fun.
Yeah, it's like it's definitely against you.
Which incidentally is what I kind of like about the cover is
that I feel like it gave a really good sense that you are

(26:15):
going to be overwhelmed in this game.
Definitely. It is almost impossible odds,
but I think you know, that does kind of add something.
It almost endears you to the protagonist more.
Cyril, what do you like about ghosts and goblins?
Well, OK, this first game, this of the three we're going to talk

(26:36):
about, this is my least favorite, and it's partially
because it's the oldest, but also.
But look, the nice thing is thatit lays the groundwork.
We we find out right from the get go that Sir Arthur is pretty
terrible at dating. I mean, he takes the Princess on
a picnic to the cemetery of all places.

(26:58):
I think that's historically accurate.
Possibly. Was it?
I think cemeteries were used more for that kind of stuff in
the past. Huh.
All right, well, I will. I will default to your your
knowledge, but I like that like that it shows you where you are
like between levels. Like it's just like it's a it's,

(27:22):
it's just an on running thing that you need.
It's not like separated into levels.
It's it just feels like it's oneworld that you're running
through. I like, yeah, the, the little,
the little map there. And I like that.
I think all three of them continued with that.
Yeah, after you die, you see a map of the whole Kingdom and
your progress towards the evil castle.

(27:44):
And they do a pretty good job ofrepresenting what each one looks
like in the little the little picture there.
Yeah, yeah, I like that too. And I especially like that
because we didn't play two player mode for this podcast,
but when you're taking turns with your brother or else is on
the couch, like, you know, you'dsee how far they are through the
Kingdom and then where you are. And it sort of felt like this

(28:04):
turn based race because like yousaid, this game's really tough.
So you're constantly dying, but you're making a little bit of
progress. Can you get to the end of the
castle before the other player? It's definitely a cool map the
first few times you see it. Like mostly a positive.
I wish it was skippable and I'm glad it would become skeptical

(28:26):
because you see it a whole lot when you're dead.
For sure. But so I always loved as a kid,
I loved this in the Genesis version we'll talk about next.
But then, like Cyril said, this is laying the groundwork.
There are elements of the Ghostsand Goblin series that they got
right the very first time. And I really always loved the

(28:47):
animation of you get hit and your armor blows off and now
you're in your tighty whities. Or as later games will have it,
the heart-shaped boxers. And like, I thought that was so
funny as a kid, but I also feel like it does add tension.
It does make you feel more vulnerable because you're
looking at your main character in his underwear like this is.

(29:08):
And so then when you defeat a boss in your freaking underwear,
it's like, am I just crazy or isthis the very first let me solo
her like that was like Mike, areyou familiar with PC gamers?
2022 Gamer of the year? No, So this is a legendary Elden
Ring player. We I've talked before about how
you can join other players in that game and assist them.

(29:29):
And so this player became so proficient at killing the
hardest boss in the game that hecould do it in his underwear
with a pod on his head. And that was it.
But I think Ghosts and Goblins is visually, aesthetically
pretty cool, pretty cute, kind of everything feels like a toy
kind of version of it that wouldkind of want to.

(29:50):
Collect and I also I like the the enemy designs.
I think the, well, Castlevania definitely went towards trying
to mimic, you know, horror films, especially like the old
Universal films with Frankenstein and Dragon and
stuff like that. I like that this kind of went in
a different direction where, youknow, they had some fun.

(30:12):
Like, I mean, even in this picture that we're looking at
right now, there's like, I don'tknow what that flying thing is,
but it always reminded me of like a hot dog.
Yeah. And, you know, and it had, yeah,
it had a gargoyle, famously one that had a spin off.
But I, I don't know, I think that throughout, you know, and
we'll get into some of those. I don't know what pictures you

(30:33):
have for, for ghouls and ghosts and, and super ghouls and
ghosts, but some of those character designs, those boss
designs are amazing. Yeah.
This feels closer to fantasy than horror, even though the
title makes you kind of think ofit as more horror, but this is
definitely more fantastical in it.
Sure. Certainly the one things you

(30:55):
call hot dogs. I think the speedrunner term has
become burrito. Oh, let's see, you know they're
all a sandwich. Yeah, they have.
They all end up in the food realm.
I mean, there's a fine line between fantasy and horror, and
I I'm one who gives horror a wide berth of what you know,

(31:16):
what is horror. I mean, if Silence of the Lambs
can be horror, then certainly fantasy can be horror too.
Yeah, I don't think horror has to be scary.
No, I agree with you. In fact, a lot of horror isn't
scary. Right.
But like, I remember as a kid first interacting with the
series and like, I was, I was a little kid, you know, I was like
maybe 5-6 years old. I was relieved that the games

(31:37):
weren't scary because I enjoy this aesthetic.
Yeah, but you know, but I didn'tat the time, I wasn't really
into, like, scary, scary or gory.
Mike, you like the aesthetic too?
I think you said that in our Mega Man episode.
Yeah, no, this is definitely an aesthetic I enjoy.
And usually with music that I enjoy, like it, like it, all of
that really helps. Situations where I played parts

(31:59):
of this game a lot, like if I was going to be going through
the same level for like an hour,it needed to have that.
And you know, you said the musiclike the the ghosts and goblins
theme that carries over through the whole series, it's just
timeless. It's a banger.
Like shut up, Ayako Mori. I just Mike, you said you saw a

(32:22):
rock band that played ghosts andgoblins music, didn't you?
I I may well have. OK, to quote another Christopher
Guest movie, he doesn't remembermuch.
Well, I just think this music isso good, even back here in the
little chiptune, you know, NES days.

(32:44):
I just think the game sounds cool.
I think the game looks cool, especially for, you know, what
it was back in the day, who whatit was competing against.
I'm not surprised that's stuck in people's minds.
For sure. Yeah, OK, yeah, Super madness.
Is the band that plays the Ghouls and ghosts?
Yeah. See.
See, Mike, I listen more than you think I do.

(33:07):
And you've seen them live though, and they were cool.
Yes. And I think the people genuinely
should play Ghosts and Goblins. I just don't think they should
play this version of Ghosts and Goblins.
I think they should play the arcade version because it's
faster, it plays better, it's obviously much better looking.
But I mean, you know, the, the, the version that was made for

(33:30):
the Nintendo Entertainment System was made by Micronics,
who had also famously screwed up1942 for Capcom like a year or
two earlier. What was wrong with that one?
It's slow and it it doesn't playreal well.
It's kind of slight. The scrolling's real bad because
it was an early NES game. It's real flickery.

(33:52):
This is the last job they had for Capcom, and they went on to
work for SNK and made the BakariWarriors one and two and Athena
ports for SNK. But I think that after this,
Capcom just as a, as a whole realize that they couldn't just
do the same thing. They couldn't just port the

(34:12):
arcade game over, but they actually had to reinvent it.
And I think that you, you saw that with like Bionic Commando
and a few other games that even Strider.
I don't like the the NES versionof Strider very much, but I mean
it's a completely different gamefrom the arcade.
Well, and so let's get into the joy cons, because it's not just

(34:33):
that ghosts and goblins is hard is that it's buggy.
As I'll get out. It's Mike had mentioned.
Mike taught me that the Mario flicker is when enemies will
flicker to control the number ofsprites that are technically on
the screen at any one time. But it flickers so fast your eye
knows where they are the whole time.
It's just like they're they're almost transparent.
This game is the term Sprite tearing, where entire pieces of

(34:57):
a Sprite start to go missing. Yeah, that sounds right.
Yeah, so this, that's this game solution to prevent like a crash
and to keep the game running. So I'm showing them a picture of
the worst one that I found in myrun, which is the big, they're
called Big man. The troll enemy is visible only
as a floating head. There's a demon with no head.

(35:21):
There's a demon with no torso. Yeah, I have.
His body's missing there. And Arthur is visible only
through the top of his cap and but all the hit boxes are still
intact like. A lot of the.
Deaths. You say this game is trolling
you, Cyril, but it feels like itwas trolling me also through
like bad programming. Mike, would you agree?
I'm not sure how much of it falls into what I'd consider bad

(35:42):
programming and how much is just.
Hardware limitation. Yeah.
Well, like you said, it's 19 what, 1986 this came out, yeah.
That's only a year after the arcade version, which came out
around, you know, the later halfof the later half of of 1985,
around the same time as Super Mario Brothers.

(36:05):
And I just think that there are a lot of companies, especially
those, you know, those ones thatwere porting arcade games that
didn't quite grasp what you could do with the hardware.
And years later, as they added chips to the cartridges and
whatnot, it would become easier to, you know, to recreate some
of these things. And there's better ports of

(36:27):
this. I mean, there's a better port on
a handheld system. But yeah, it's just the problem
is it's, it's early and it's, it's just not one of Capcom's
best ports. Yeah.
I think I had because I was redoing level 2 a lot and right,
because you kind of, you run past like kind of would be like

(36:48):
a haunted house with things thatcome out the windows and really
the Resident Evil of its time. And then there's like a bit of
water to jump over. And I had on more than one
occasion come short on the jump and landed like 1/2 step down
the wall and then been able to just continue to jump to jump

(37:11):
again and get back up. And it's like, I appreciate this
is happening. It shouldn't be happening.
But I'm a right now. This one's coming out net me,
but I think I had one of those happened where it's like I
crouched on an edge or something.
It was like, I'm not dead yet. And then as soon as I stood up,
I fell and it was like, that isn't how this should work.
This is there's a very wily coyote kind of feel to some of

(37:33):
the gravity in that. It's very janky.
Yeah, But I will also say, though, that I think there was
just some bad ideas in this game, like, so needing a
specific weapon to beat the game, the shield is actually
kind of a cool weapon because it's the only projectile that
you can fire that will absorb enemy projectiles.
Yeah, so you can use it like a shield.

(37:53):
And like, I don't know if I've ever played a shooter that had
that function in. And I was like, this is cool,
but a lot of the weapons are just bad.
The torch with its little fire, it creates this little AOE
effect, but you can't throw another torch until the fire on
the ground has dissipated. So it's a frantic shooter.
Have fun shooting every other 3 seconds almost.

(38:15):
And then, you know, the dagger, or is this booklet calls it the
sword, but it's a, it's a knife.We can all see it's a knife.
Yeah. Everyone agrees through all
three games, that is the weapon of choice.
It is the only weapon that can kill certain monsters fast
enough to avoid getting hit. But what this game will do to
you a lot is that it'll put a weapon you don't want, like a

(38:36):
power up that now suddenly you want to avoid and oh, it's right
at the foot of a ladder I need to climb.
It's trolling. You it's got a lot of deaths for
that reason. So I don't know if it's just
harder limitations. I do think and and they figured
it out, kind of. I believe also there's that
certain weapons don't work on certain bosses.

(38:57):
Yes. Which is mean.
I think from what I gathered from this paper and was added to
this like that wasn't a ported over thing.
Yeah, and the last boss is tougher to kill in the NES 2.
No Wait. Or was it harder to kill in the
arcade? Cyril, do you remember the very
last boss? You one of the versions you can
hit both faces and the other oneyou have to hit only the middle

(39:17):
face. I don't remember.
I don't remember. Yeah.
There was also the controls really had a stickiness to them.
I mean it felt very mid 80s. I had one or two times where I
was like I had finished ducking like as far as controls are
concerned for like a second before it finally stand back up.
Yeah, he gets and he gets stuck on ladders.

(39:37):
At the top of a ladder. He'll show you his ass for a
second and but you know what? It's trolling you.
It's a game that doesn't like you.
The thing, OK, the jumping, I can understand because this was
just how jumping was in the mid 80s.
And now everybody remembers, well, you know, Super Mario
Brothers came out and that kind of taught us how we can alter

(39:59):
the jump, mid jump, you know, and, and whatnot.
And that added a lot. But you got to remember this
arcade game came out basically at the same time as Super Mario
Brothers. So that wasn't even the thing
that they could copy. That wasn't a thing in their
mind at the time. And Nintendo cracked the code.
Now, Capcom never did actually improve the jumping.

(40:20):
In fact, I would argue with super goals and goes in the
double jump, they actually made it worse.
Yeah. But at least with the first one,
you can make the argument that the jumping, it just felt like
that's how jumping was in video games, is very precise.
But Arthur doesn't move in a funway that, you know, it's a way
that's really that fun to control.
And so although I do love his run, I love his elbows up run,

(40:43):
you know, it's very heroic. No, you commit to a jump.
Also, I do hate the birds in this more than I hate Medusa
heads. Wow.
Because there's, it feels like there's more of them and they
keep coming back. And sometimes they drop a weapon
you don't want. Are the birds worse than this?
The Ninja Gaiden. Yes.
OK. These birds definitely may be in

(41:04):
the running for the my personal most hated enemies.
OK. And Mike's never like birds to
begin with. I like Turkey, but that's
because it's delicious and honestly I have been having to
listen to parrots every day for the last like couple weeks now
and those are just incredibly loud and annoying.
So yeah, not having a good monthdealing with birds.

(41:25):
Are you living at a zoo? I.
Was wondering Pasadena has has apopulation of parrots that have
ended up in the wild and I suspect because of the fires
earlier this year they're finding new places to hang out.
Yeah, that makes sense. Mike versus the parrots.

(41:47):
It's kind of a combination of bird demic and the birds.
I do love the idea that you're having this horrible 4D effect
where like, you're being killed by birds and ghosts and goblins
as parrots squawk outside your window and you're just like,
it's coming from all directions.All right, anything else to
complain about a ghost and goblin before we move on to our
second game for today. I don't think I saw enough of
the game to have more things to complain about.

(42:07):
Oh, actually, no, I did have one, which is parts of this kind
of are doing either random or pseudo random stuff, I don't
know which, where you'd end up with situations where it's like,
I don't see any way that I don'tget hit here where it doesn't
feel like it is a are you good enough for this?
Some of it's just like. I don't actually think this is
doable. It's there's definitely points

(42:29):
where I'm like, I mean, you know, I abuse rewind.
I rewound 20 times. I've like gone at this from
every possible angle. It's kind of the ending of the
flash. I don't if you guys saw that
movie. The new one.
Yeah, the new one, even with rewinding, there's some things
you just can't prevent. And so I would just take damage,
which felt dirty because like, I'm used to, I'm used to keep my
armor on because I'm a cheater. And it's like, well, even

(42:52):
cheating this game is tough. Boy, I haven't thought about the
I'd completely forgotten the endof the flesh.
I had like Supergirl and. I Loki.
I Loki like that movie. All right.
And Cyril has left the. Race.
I did a double feature of that in the new Indiana Jones movie
at the Drive In, and that was a day I have done many drugs to

(43:18):
forget. Do many drugs.
You enjoy the problem. All right, so let's go on to the
second game for tonight, Ghouls and Ghosts on the Sega Genesis,
released in 1989. A much better game.
Much better game. Here we go.
I'm ready for this one as described on Nintendo Switch
Online. Which by the way, 10 second rant

(43:40):
because I alluded to it in our past episode.
I forgot to explain it. Nintendo Classics does not
include the Genesis app. There's finally A1 button or one
menu where you can launch any Nintendo Classics game.
But they have shunted the Genesis app into a Nintendo
Switch Online feature. And I get it, it's not a
Nintendo classic system. But maybe that's why Nintendo

(44:03):
Classics was a bad name. It's a bad name.
So anyway, according to NintendoSwitch Online, the Powered Up
sequel to Ghosts and Goblins returns three years after the
defeat of Satan. Love that they just go for it
there, Princess Prince Prince Soul has fallen to the schemes

(44:25):
of a new demon. The time has come for Arthur to
rise again and Vanquish evil. Now, technically not Satan in
the Nintendo Entertainment System version because Nintendo
would not allow religious imagery or things like that.
Wait, I thought the scream did. The scream we saw for that did

(44:45):
say Satan in there. Not in the manual, but they
forgot to remove it from the endof the game.
Yeah, if they forgot to remove it from the end of the game and
I think that is still Satan in there.
All right, in a way, don't we all have a little?
Nope, Nope, I'm not going to go there.
OK, so let's take a look at the box art.
Often people's first impressions.

(45:06):
You have Arthur dead center in his powered up golden armor new
thing from this game, his red Cape raising his first, and his
javelin in the air as lightning crackles out of him in all
directions while the game's first boss is roaring out of the
forest behind him. Guys, can we all disagree?
This is incredible. Yes. 0.

(45:27):
No, what I mean, yeah, I like this cover, OK.
I I, I kind of prefer the cartoony look.
But look, this was from an era of Genesis box art where, you
know, it, it all looked very fantasy, you know, painting and,
you know, I think of the Golden Axe cover and things like that,

(45:47):
but it's very serious. It's very, I don't know, it
looks, it looks more serious. It doesn't look like a cartoon,
like the original. I kind of prefer the as an
adult, I kind of prefer the art,you know, the, the original box
art. But this is fine.
This is what grabbed me as a kid.
I saw this on the rental shelvesand I was like I gotta check

(46:09):
that out but it looks scary likeyou said.
I agree tonally it's not really a match.
I just think it's just so well drawn the the the lightning
crackling. It has strong panel of a van
energy. Yes, in a good way.
So shout out to Masayoshi Kodakawa for this one.
I this is this is perfect. Can I show you something
heartbreaking though? Look at what happened in Europe

(46:32):
when it was released for the Mega Drive.
Do you see it, Mike? I mean, are we just talking the
faded colors? No serial.
Do you see what's happening? Oh yeah, it's the I the the, the
larger Mega Drive logo, the. Wazowskidom.
Mike Wazowskidom So the word Mega Drive takes up more space

(46:55):
than the word Genesis. And so the logo being half an
inch wider completely blocks this really scary cyclopean.
I in a very Mike Wazowski esque thing.
Mike so I totally had the same thought.
So got some quick trivia for youguys on this one.
Like it's predecessor, Ghouls and Ghosts received a wide
variety of ports, including its most notable one, the 8 bit Mega

(47:17):
Drive version in 1991. Excuse me, say that again, the 8
bit Master System version. Wait, that's most noticeable.
Wait. Well, let me explain.
This version had several extra features added to it, such as
customizable armor that changed Arthur's stats, item shops that
allowed him to select a desired power up, and a pause screen

(47:38):
that let him switch his equipment at will.
Mike, wouldn't you have loved this?
I mean honestly I think I just got 1 weapon and then just made
sure it'd never pick up anythingelse.
But yes, that would have been a nice improvement.
Yeah. Now I think that in some regions
that Master System version was published by ARC.
System works. Really.
Yeah, that's cool. So Arthur's depiction from this

(48:01):
game has had a number of fun cameos, including a the
depiction of him as a undead background character in the 2022
brawler Jitsu Squad, a playable fighter in the Marvel Versus
Capcom series, and and my personal favorite, a mech pilot
in the OFT forgotten steampunk shooter Cannon Spike for the
Sega Dreamcast serial. Do you ever play this one?

(48:22):
It's it's forgotten for a reason.
That's so cool. Though, no, I, I did a game over
episode that's the the show where we kind of recap the story
and then I show the ending and, and this one famously has just
dozens of endings and I go through all of them and they're

(48:42):
terrible. Now this, this game is bad
cannon Spike is it's like a 30 minute game.
It's an arcade game. Yeah.
That shouldn't have been ported to the Dreamcast at full price.
You got you got Cami from StreetFighter, Mega Man, BB Hood.
But they're all on skates. They know the skates are cool.

(49:02):
Shadow proved it. Skates make characters cooler.
All right, Well, you. Know what proved it?
What? What?
Gen. Z is with me on this one.
Shadows rocket skates are cool. All right, all right.
Well, you know what I know you think is cool?
Ghouls and ghosts. So you have quite the history

(49:25):
with this game serial. Can you walk us through it?
Oh, sure. Well, I mean, do you want to
talk? All right?
Yeah, I I knew that's where you were.
Do you want to talk about the game first or you want to talk
about team game pro? Which is more interesting?
Follow your heart. I'd like a little bit of both.
Well, it's OK, Let's, let's, let's first talk about the game
a little bit here and then we'llall segue into now I I'm going

(49:47):
to ask the same question. Have either of you played the
arcade game? No, no.
OK, well, OK, so the night the the arcade game came out in 1988
and this was brought out. This is one of the very first
must own Genesis games in 1989. And so just about a year later,
and you have to remember what's actually pretty interesting

(50:10):
about this time was that this was an era where Nintendo would
forbid their third parties from making games for other systems.
And so Capcom sold the rights toSega or, you know, licensed the
rights to Sega to, you know, so Sega could make a version of

(50:32):
this, a version of Strider, Forgotten Worlds and Mercs
Strider and ghouls and goes to the two both both remember or
best remembered. But they're all OK games.
They're all actually pretty goodports, too.
Sega knew what they were doing. So this is this is an impressive
game. I I got the Genesis in 1989.

(50:53):
I was right there at the very beginning.
I got it, you know, the altered beast pack in one.
I still have the box for it. I was ready and I and mostly
because all the magazines loved ghouls and ghosts.
They they raved about it. It's one of the best games ever
made. We'll, we'll talk about the, the
awards because it won a ton of awards, But so in February of

(51:15):
1991, Game Pro magazine put out a, it was like a contest to
pick. They called it something else,
but it would eventually be team Game Pro.
And the idea was that they wouldselect a couple of 100 people
that would kind of act as like agroup that, that people or that

(51:37):
maybe if they wanted to know what, what their readers were,
were interested in seeing more of in their magazine or what
games they should cover or things like that.
That's kind of how it was pitched.
Like, you know, that you'll havesome input in the making of the
magazine. And, you know, here I was, you
know, 13. I was like, hey, that's, you
know, I love gaming. I'm already doing a Zine.

(51:58):
You know, I, I don't know if they either of you made zines
back in the day or if anybody inthe audience remembers what
zine's work as. That's old.
Our audience probably is as well.
Hopefully I'm not going to explain it, they can look it up,
but I was like, all right, I canyou know, I'll fill this out.
And they wanted to know my age, sex, address and phone number.

(52:20):
They wanted to know how many systems I own.
And at that point I was buying everything.
I had a turbo graphic 16 and theNES and Master system.
I was always buying all the systems.
And then what kind of games I played, how many years I've been
playing, what my favorite games were, my top ten, I have no idea
what I said. And then, you know, just a short

(52:42):
paragraph explaining myself. And I was always a pretty good
writer. So I feel like that's what
sealed the deal. Now, I honestly do wish that I
knew, like, if I could see what I wrote in, I wish that I had
like, photocopied it or taken a picture of it or something.
But of course I didn't. Now a bunch of months later in
the August 1991 issue, they theyshowed the they showed who won

(53:06):
and I was one of 250 winners andevery one of them got a pin, the
team game pro pin, which I stillhave.
Nice. And then a few months later now,
they said that some people were going to write quotes that would
go in the magazine and then somepeople would, they were going to

(53:27):
kind of toss people into different groupings that would
do different things. And my grouping were the people
that would be on Game Pro TV, which was a syndicated
television show the Game Pro wastrying out in the early 90s.
It was hosted by JD Roth, who was a big, I think Nickelodeon

(53:47):
host back in the day. And then also Brendan Howard,
who was kind of the surfer bro, you know, Hey, they, you know,
just he was, he was basically a green dog.
Right. Is that game on Nintendo Switch
Online? No, and I forgot Green Dog
existed till you just said that,Mike.

(54:08):
That's, that's the, the, the worry.
Anyway, he was basically, oh, I'll make this easier.
He was basically a Pauly Shore type.
There you go. Mike knows that one.
Anyway, So what they wanted me to do was they sent me a script
they want you to give. Some of them were codes, some of
them were just like, here's a strategy on how to beat a boss.

(54:30):
And the one I had which I was excited about was for ghouls and
ghosts. It was how to beat Loki in, in
goals and goes. It was an easy way.
You know, you just stand in one place and shoot up and then you
know, so on so forth. And I, I read the script.
I did it in my little, you know,my game room and my, my parents
attic, which is still there. The games aren't there, but you

(54:52):
know, the attic still there. And it was, it was a lot of fun.
We did it on like an old school,you know, just VHS camcorder
sort of thing. We sent it in and then we waited
a bunch of months and eventuallyit showed up.
And if you watch any of those old episodes, I don't know how
many there are, there's a coupledozen of them.
But between commercials or in, but you know, they're like two

(55:13):
or three times they, they, they do a thing where they, we get
one of these from a different team game pro person who has a
different code for the audience.And, you know, if you, you can
see in the picture, I actually have Loki queued up there at
the, you know, on my television.Oh, you legit got there.

(55:33):
Absolutely. OK, so I was wondering because
you said like you had to give a code and I was like, were you
provided the tip to give? So you didn't.
Yeah, this wasn't your tip. You were given the tip to give,
but you could get to the boss legit.
So you put it in the background just to show you had the
receipts. Absolutely.
And then I, you know, have the Genesis poster and, and, and
stuff like that didn't have the Genesis games on display there.

(55:56):
You can see the NES. You can see my, you know, just a
handful of Turbo graphic 16 games above it.
Yeah, No, I, yeah. They gave me a script.
They told me to, you know, read it verbatim basically, and then,
or memorize it and then, you know, and, and go from there.
And of course, I, I did. And it was, it was fun.

(56:16):
Of course, you know, it's one ofthose things where you hope that
everybody in your school is going to see it and recognize
you. And of course, nobody did.
I mean, he was game Pro TV was on like a Saturday morning
syndicated. So it wasn't on, you know, a set
channel. It was, you know, whichever
station, you know, whichever area you were in, you know, had

(56:37):
picked it up. And, you know, I was always
happy with it. I got a, you know, I got a
T-shirt out of it. Yeah.
And so, yeah, and it's one of those things that I always said,
but I, I never had like the the,I'm sure we recorded it off of
the television, but I mean, who knows where those cassettes are?

(56:57):
And, and so until somebody uploaded it on on YouTube and I
was like, I, I watched all thoseepisodes looking for the one I
was in. And then I found it and clipped
it and and ever since then I I have always been associated with
ghouls and ghosts. It's huge, it's awesome.
So you Nintend did beat this game even back as a kid,

(57:19):
correct? Yeah, yeah, definitely back as a
kid. I mean computer.
Not not the arcade one, because I actually had not played the
arcade version of this one. It didn't show up in the arcade.
That or Strider. They didn't show up in my local
arcade. So my first experience for both
of those were the the Genesis versions.

(57:41):
Mike, how far do you get in Ghouls and Ghosts You're.
Gonna break my heart. So I don't know how far I got
through this game when I would have played this in the past,
but I know it was not very far. Sure.
I'm thinking it was somewhere around that, the bridges at
most. OK.
Quite possibly earlier than that.

(58:02):
The tongue. Bridges or the rope bridges?
The rope bridges. OK, so I'd be level 2.
I would not count the tongues asbridges.
I mean that's what I thought too, especially looking at that
picture their. Platforms at most.
I feel like a bridge cannot onlybe connected to one side.
Well, you know, the mounds get alittle frisky then.

(58:22):
OK, so I'm like, how far did youget this time?
This time around I think it's 5 levels I think.
Right, something like that, yeah.
Not real. So I got to the second-half of
Level 5, basically sort of the start of the boss rush.
Yeah. OK, so you didn't you didn't

(58:43):
tend, did not beat this game. No, definitely not.
Yeah, pretty far though. I got further than expected.
I'm actually still sort of pleased with myself for
independently discovering many, many years after everybody else
figured it out. The one part of I think level 4,
the second part of level 4 whereyou have the sliding down area

(59:06):
where I decided to just use someiframes and jump to the
basically the end of that. Sure.
Yeah, that's a famous way to glitch through that level.
Yeah, it's like, I don't think Idiscovered anything, but I don't
think I the first one. But I did independently figure
that out and it was like, OK, yeah, no, we're I'm doing this.
This is much better. Yeah, and little 5, you know,
this game is hard. It's no slash to get that far.

(59:28):
So yeah, I I beat this back in the day using Game Genie, which
I will absolutely not count, butI nintended beat this game using
rewind and ever seeking Chico's approval.
I'm very happy to say that I nintended beat this game without
any rewinding or any safe stating all the way back through
because once again, you got to beat this game twice.

(59:48):
Got to go back, get the goddess bracelet, the only thing that
can kill Loki or as Cyril calledhim, Loki in the video.
No, look, I was young. Nobody corrected me.
You know, The Avengers were not out.
Loki wasn't in the lexicon yet. No, I also pronounced Toki the
same way. That's true and we all toki

(01:00:12):
well, you know what? I Nintend did be ghouls and
ghosts for this podcast legitimately.
I'm in computer. Nice, and I think Toki did the
same map map thing, didn't it? Yeah, similar thing, yeah.
Yeah, but I I love this game andI forgot how much I loved it
until we went back to replay forthis episode.

(01:00:32):
It's really charming. So, Cyril, can you kind of roll
in the awards this game won withwhat you personally like about
it? All right, look, I say that this
was, you know, a critic's darling, but as somebody who who
spends a lot of time looking at old magazines, especially now
kind of going through the ones from other countries like Europe
and and Australia, I know Europe's not a country.

(01:00:57):
Other regions. I had so much fun reading back
in the day. It was just talked up as the the
best game ever made. And so I had to get a Genesis
for that. And one of the big reasons for
that is I want to kind of go through the in their best and
worst awards of 1989, this won five awards from Electronic

(01:01:19):
Gaming Monthly. Let's see if we agree with these
now. One of course, the best game of
the year. It was their their game of the
year. That year it was the best
graphics in a video game. I think it's gorgeous.
I think this game has aged so well, and especially going from
the NES version to the Genesis version.
Like one of the pictures I'm showing the boys here is this
tower level where it's the firstvertically scrolling level and

(01:01:43):
there are these suits of armor inhabited by sentient mud and
those are the enemies along with123456 like 8 dive bombing
goblin bats. And the game doesn't really slow
down that much. Like it, it chugs, it's good.
The chug sounds bad, but I thinkyeah, best graphics.

(01:02:03):
I agree with that one. Yeah, and and and some pretty
clever uses of the of the technology to like they I mean,
it is still a 1989 game. It is early Genesis.
It doesn't look as good, I wouldargue as super goals and ghosts,
but I think the characters that they made and it builds on

(01:02:23):
everything that I loved about the about the the first game
100%. It also won best sequel for an
existing game. I always thought that wording
was a little funny because I mean can't you just say best
sequel? Every sequel is to an existing
game right? Unless you're Leonard Part 6.

(01:02:44):
But I mean, in terms of like, OK, so if we're assessing this
as a sequel, enormous step up from any ghosts, absolutely.
So I'll give it to that one too.And then one of them is cool as
boss attackers. I agree with that too.
Like I mean, there are a couple of duds here.
You know, the fog with the eye is OK, but look I the the very
first one with the you know, thebig towering night, You know,

(01:03:08):
goblin character with a detachedhead is awesome.
Yeah, and he he rips his own head off at the start of the
boss fight. Yeah, what a flex, You know what
I mean? I was always partial to the fire
dog. The boss too.
That's a good one too. Because he's pouncing around
back and forth and you can duck below him but like there's this

(01:03:30):
cool trail of fire that falls and wherever he goes and and the
boss of level 4 disgusted me andto this day gives me the heebie
jeebies. Just too cool for you?
Well, like, what is it for our listeners?
How would you describe them? Like you're a scientist.
What are you looking at? So it's sort of like, it feels

(01:03:52):
like a sort of submerged insectoidish kind of thing that
then has what I thought of as like maggots, but it can be any
kind of small grubby little thing kind of coming out up to
this to on top of it where you are.
Yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're running around the back
of this monster that is not moving.

(01:04:14):
It's just laying in the water. But Mike, the reason it disgusts
me so much that you're also attacked by these kind of
parasitic worms that that that Pierce its skin and flies out
and then goes back inside of it.I don't.
Know if that's that, if they're parasitic.
Maybe they're a defense mechanism.
Sure. I was going to say, I think.
That's pretty. That's pretty symbiotic.
OK, OK. But the grubs that Mike is

(01:04:36):
talking about emerge from these like little pustules of the skin
that you have to break. But Mike, look closely at the
grub that's a baby version of the boss.
It's giving birth all over itself, and you're killing its
infants as you try to take down its weak spots.
What a memorable and gruesome boss design.

(01:04:57):
So best boss attack? I don't know.
That's also it's also worth noting that that's a boss that
you couldn't do in super goals and goes not from a technical
level, but simply because you don't have the gameplay like
they they took away the ability to shoot in all directions in in
super goals and goes so you wouldn't even be able to hit

(01:05:18):
some of the the parts in in thatgame.
And that's also one of my favorite things about this game
is that as Mike experienced, there's so much vertical threat,
either enemies dive bombing you or enemies on the platform above
you or the enemies on the platform below you.
And you're like, it sure would be nice to shoot up or down.
And Genesis game is like I got you and my God didn't improve

(01:05:40):
the gameplay. Absolutely.
So best boss attackers? I'm down for that.
And then the final one, I don't know if you have a picture for
this one, but it's the worst stomach problem in a game.
Worst stomach problem would thatbe?
Because it's, I don't know if it's, it's early in the game,
there are enemies that vomit. The pigs.

(01:06:02):
Yeah, and they really, they had a whole award for that one.
I appreciate it, Mike. What do you like about this
game? I mean, certainly the ability to
fire up and down was great. I think this has the armor a lot
more. Accessible like they appeared

(01:06:23):
more often. Yeah, like it felt a lot more
like I was like, oh, I've actually gotten additional
armor. And upgradeable armor.
That I saw less often I I didn'tkeep the armor long enough.
Usually I. Guess.
I had it once. Did you do the the the thing on
the cover? The special move where you see
the the lightning. I did not.
The one the one time I had I hadthe armor.

(01:06:44):
I did not figure out how. I didn't really expect to get to
do that, so I didn't really remember how to use it and then
it was gone. You just hold down the attack
button. So what they're referring to is
that this game introduced goldenarmor, which is a new mechanic.
If you already have a suit of armor and you open up a chest

(01:07:05):
and you're lucky enough for it to not be the magician turning
you into a duck or an old man, you can.
Which it gets so funny. Like, I love that the old man
can still attack, right? It's the only magician
transformation in this series where you're not helpless.
And again, you know, I've never had it, but killing a boss is an
old man. That'd be pretty tight, but the
Super attacks are pretty cool. So there's the one from the box

(01:07:26):
art where you're shooting lightning in all directions.
And then I think other noticeable ones are the dagger
super move, which summons a doppelganger of you.
And now every time you press thefire button, Arthur's throwing,
well, you're really throwing 2 daggers.
You can just shred through enemies with that thing.
Cyril, was that your favorite? Yeah, yeah, no, that, that's a
cool that also that reminded me a little bit of Ninja Gaiden

(01:07:48):
too. Yeah, yeah, I totally see it.
But I think the the weapons werejust better in this game.
Like I felt like there were lessduds and they all kind of had
their purpose. Like I really love the axe
passing through so many enemies as it goes across the screen,
right. Even the discus has its use in,
like Mike said, the water slope level because that's the one

(01:08:08):
that travels along the ground. But OK, so now I can fire and
it'll travel up the slope and hit the enemies coming at me.
Oh, I ended up using using that thing for the rest that I had
it. I I think that was my favorite
weapon. The discus.
Yeah, although I was glad to seea Golden Axe in a Sega game
because I've promised that and denied it.
I also, I I'm a big fan of the sword, yeah.

(01:08:30):
What's? What's cool about it?
Well, I like, you know, they finally give you a short range
attack, but it's I like the swing.
I like the the animation of it. It reminds me of a little bit of
strider. Always a big fan of strider.
And no, I I like that it adds a new it's it's terrible against a
lot of the bosses, though a couple of them, but it's
terrible against most of the bosses.

(01:08:52):
But I don't know, like I I couldgo pretty far with just the
sword. And it's fun to use.
It's like, you know, you get thesword and you're like, well,
this is short range. This thing better be strong.
Oh, it's strong. Yeah, definitely.
It can just erase a boss's health bar.
Yeah. And like you said, it's kind of
a different. It kind of changes the whole
gameplay because now you're not.It's not a shooter.
It's a slasher. Right.

(01:09:12):
And and it's, it's just this game, I had so much just pure
fun playing it. I also feel like this one maybe
the only one of the three that really like for like the first
level where you have the zombieskind of coming in that you can
kill them on their way in. Right.
Yes. Like they're starting to peek in

(01:09:33):
and before they're a problem to you, you can kill them.
Which is satisfying and also, well, a lot less frustrating.
We're going to get to that with the last game.
But the zombies in the next game, they, they are
troublesome. So, I mean, we could gush all
about this game. Can we criticize it because it's
not perfect? No, I mean it has a lot of the
same problems that were in any of the the ghosts and Goblin

(01:09:56):
series arcade games. And you know, it probably didn't
need to redo the hey beat it twice thing and especially for
the home thing. Honestly, I kind of wish that
Capcom, or I guess it's Sega would have maybe made some of
the changes that the Master System version had to make it a

(01:10:20):
little bit more unique as a as aconsole experience.
Sure, this is definitely It feels like an arcade game and it
has the difficulty of an arcade game.
It feels like it's trying to to steal your quarters.
It's more fair than the first game I would argue, but I mean
it, it is definitely tough. I think what makes it feel more

(01:10:41):
fair is that Mike, if you agree with this, it feels less random,
like you can learn where enemiesare going to be and the behavior
they're going to show. And so you can and, and this
game, oh, bless this game for having a checkpoint before each
boss fight. Losing at a boss and having to
redo the levels in both Ghosts and Goblins and Super Ghouls and

(01:11:04):
Ghosts was really frustrating because like Mike has complained
about before, like you're makingme replay the level just to get
to the boss. But like, I'm fine with the
level. I've gotten good enough at the
level. It's the boss I need to
practice. So really all you're doing is
wasting my time or a Serle wouldsay, robbing me of my quarters.
Right. It always bothered me, though,
that like the level 4 boss cannot be beaten with the sword.

(01:11:27):
Yeah. And and because of the way the
checkpoints work. So.
So Mike said you're on top of this creature and you have to
fire down to hit things on its side where Arthur cannot reach
with the melee weapon. Yeah.
And since you restart at the boss, if you accidentally reach
this boss with the sword, you have no choice but to hard reset

(01:11:49):
the game because you will not find a weapon that can hurt it.
That's inexcusably bad design, that is.
And then like the discus. So all the Super moves are
pretty cool, but the discus 1 serial, it's pretty lame, right?
The Mirror. Yeah, that's not great.
Yeah, what? What makes it underwhelming to
you? I actually like you more in that

(01:12:11):
picture now that I look at that that hand and everything.
No, I you really should stick with just a couple of the
weapons and their power ups. And honestly, though, most
people aren't getting the I mean, you have to really good to
get far and actually still have the golden armor.
Yeah. And most people, you know,

(01:12:32):
especially the first or second time through, aren't getting
that golden armor. But I do agree with you that the
the sword, like they. Yeah.
So like a little extra QA was needed for that boss fight.
Somebody needed to like, say heyat the checkpoint, put another
weapon. That's all it would have taken.
And then I did also notice that,you know, this game does not

(01:12:55):
have the graphical problems of the NES version, but it did have
this weird thing where I don't know what the term for this is,
but you can see very clearly thestraight lines of like a Sprite
where it should very clearly be curved.
So I'm showing them like the city of Decay, which is a great
concept for a level. This whole town is pussing and

(01:13:16):
swelling up almost like it's flesh, but you have like these
little pustules. And instead of a round curve,
like most of it, the back half is just these straight
noticeable lines. And sounds like I'm nitpicking,
but it kind of takes you out of it.
I think that's one of those things that if this had come out
a year or two later, you would not have seen.
I agree. I think that a lot of this was

(01:13:38):
pushed, you know, I think that because this was an early, you
know, came out a year after the arcade and was a very early
Genesis title. I I just think they were rushing
to get it out. I think they did a really good
job. I mean, I know a lot of, a lot
of people will argue that, you know, the, the Super Graphics

(01:14:00):
version, I didn't know, I don't know if you were gonna bring
that up at any point, but that port is superior and it is like
visually. But of course nobody owned a
Super Graphics cuz it only had six games.
That was one of them. It was, yeah.
Never even heard of it until youjust mentioned it.
It's from the same people that made the turbo graphics, but it
was only released in Japan. Had had six games, did not do

(01:14:24):
well. It was the follow up to the PC
Engine. So anything else to say in
defense or criticism of ghouls and ghosts before we move on to
our last game of the day? No, I think that this is, I
think this is something that even if people had never played
it before and just have a Switch, maybe a younger person,
I think this is, you know, in most cases I say track down the

(01:14:47):
arcade, but I think this is 1 where you can play this one.
You're going to be OK. For sure.
All right, well, let's get on toour last game of the night,
Super Ghouls and Ghosts for the Super Nintendo, released in
1991. As described on Nintendo

(01:15:08):
Classics, the third game in the legendary Ghosts and Goblins
series of video games, Super Ghouls and Ghosts follows Arthur
in another quest to rescue the Princess, his fair maiden and
damsel in distress at large. I don't think that's how you use
that large, but anyway, players take control of Arthur and
defeat the creatures of the night to save the day once more.

(01:15:29):
Discover what glory awaits thosebrave enough to take on the
armies of Super Ghouls and Ghosts.
Let's take a look at the box art.
So, Cyril, you didn't like how overly serious the Genesis 1?
Felt No, I don't like this coverat all.
OK, we have Arthur once again, front and center.
Behind him you have the first level of the game, the graveyard
stage, with various monsters presented in deformed art style.

(01:15:53):
Large head, stubby limbs. Is that what you don't like
about it, Cyril? They made a choice, they made an
artistic choice. And I mean, I don't mind it.
Like it's not a bad cover, but it's not.
I prefer the other two. I don't like that logo.
No, like the font they used for super ghouls and ghosts is

(01:16:15):
atrocious. And and my issue with it, and I
kind of if you agree with this, but this doesn't this they made
the knight look generic. This doesn't look like Arthur.
His face isn't even showing. Arthur's face is always showing.
So, you know, what's Arthur? It just it doesn't match Mike.
You'd you agree? I don't think so.
Like I don't think that jumps out as a concert.

(01:16:37):
And I'm like, I don't remember his face on the Genesis 1
either. It wasn't.
That's true it. Was just that first game the one
that had the best artwork? And it's something about the
proportions, though the proportions feel not stylized.
It feels like a very meat and potatoes drawing of a knife.
They have made him more generic over the years.

(01:16:58):
It definitely feels like the style of the night here does not
fit the style of anything else. Yeah, and I don't remember.
I don't remember him having a Cape.
Not with the silver armor, no. Like the the red Cape feels like
a not a thing. Well, it's a thing when you get
the golden. Armor.

(01:17:18):
Oh, he has a red Cape thought. Yeah, OK.
Yeah. Did he have a Cape in the cover
of the Genesis 1? He didn't, right?
No, he did. It's the full.
Yeah, I guess. We've flown behind them.
It's yeah, it's just it's reallyhidden back there.
Amongst all the awesomeness. So like many games we've
covered, Super Goals and Ghosts was modified for its western

(01:17:39):
release. Most infamously, the crosses on
the plethora of coffins and level 1 we're all replaced with
Ancs, which makes this a Egyptian graveyard in Europe.
Don't think too hard about that one.
When the game was released in Europe, enemies and obstacles
were reportedly removed to help reduce difficulty and slow down.

(01:18:02):
And Mike, you're sure to love this one.
Super Ghouls and Ghosts was central to the plot of the final
sketch in the British comedy Series A Bit of Fry and Lori.
Have you seen the show? I have, but I haven't seen it in
full. So in the finale of Series 4,
Episode 7, Hugh Laurie plays a depressed teenager who has

(01:18:22):
dedicated his young life to beating super ghouls and ghosts
instead of trying to attend school.
Stephen Fry plays his frustratedfather who pesters him into
suicide, all so that he can finally have a turn on the
controller and listen. If you're listening to this and
you have suicidal ideations, seek help immediately.

(01:18:44):
Do not play super ghouls and ghosts.
I don't think it would help but.Mike freaking dark.
That is great. Hold on now we need to get we
cannot pass by this I first thisthis is news to me.
I have not heard or seen the show.
Yes, but let's not pass. We can't just pass by the fact

(01:19:07):
that Super Ghouls and Ghosts is 6° connected to not only Fry and
and House, but Baywatch. The Hugh Laurie character has a
Baywatch poster. But we can connect this to Borat
in 2 steps. It's just I was, I didn't enjoy

(01:19:33):
Super Ghouls and Ghosts that much.
So to find such a fun bit of trivia I really enjoyed.
So let's get into it. Our history with these games and
how far have we gotten? So Mike, I remember you
borrowing my Genesis copy of Ghouls and Ghosts, but I was not
a Super Nintendo family. So had you ever played this game
before doing it for this podcast?
No, I mean honestly I don't, other than I clearly must have

(01:19:55):
seen it on our lists. Like I would not have known that
this game existed. OK, wow.
And how far did you get? I never saw the end of the first
level. Oh.
I I really disliked this game. OK.
Had very little fun with it. OK, All right.

(01:20:16):
So Cyril, what's your history and how far have you gotten in
this game? All right.
Well, like I said before, I did buy all the systems.
So I was a Super Nintendo house,but also a Genesis house, or I
guess it was family, right? I had a family of systems.
And you got to remember this is what, 1991?

(01:20:38):
This is an early generation. I don't remember if this was a
launch Super NES launch game or if it came out.
It's in the launch window at least within the the first month
of release. And and so I was especially
after the first one, I guess thesecond one it ghouls and goes.
I was excited about super ghoulsand ghosts, but man, were things

(01:21:00):
different in 1991. Like, 1989 was a year about like
proving that, you know, you needed to jump to a 16 bit
console, whereas by 1991 we'd already had the Genesis and
Turbo Graphic 16 for a couple ofyears.
And you know, the Super NES coming out, there was such a big

(01:21:21):
fight between Sonic and and Mario, Streets of Rage versus
final fight. And this one is hyped as I was,
and I got lost in the shuffle. Sure.
However, I do have to say it wasamong the the launch window
titles. It was up there with ACT Razor

(01:21:42):
as one of the best reviewed games for the Super NES in the
early days. So did you ever beat it as a
kid? Yeah, I beat the yes.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the first of the Ghosts
and Goblins series that was not based off of an arcade game.
This was a console original and I wished that maybe it would do

(01:22:05):
what Super Mario World did, which was be a little bit more
for the console and feel less like an arcade experience.
And this one doesn't. It's just it feels like an
extension of the first two gamesin good and bad ways.
So Unit 10 did beat it, yeah. I'm in computer.

(01:22:25):
Though only recently because I did a video about it.
So this one I wanted to beat this without cheating.
Hard. I got through the first run
without cheating, sure. I have not found the Princess
bracelet on my second run through and I'm on level 4

(01:22:46):
Cyril. Is it too late?
It's song 5 isn't? It that sounds right. 5/2.
Oh, they don't put it till later.
The game's done quick speed run that I watched.
There was one person on the couch whose entire job was to
add a certain point. Be like hey don't forget to get
the bracelet on this level. Sure.

(01:23:08):
That was the person in the corner.
Yeah, there's a couple other people for commentary and one
person was like, all right, thisis my one job.
Don't forget to get the braceletlike.
Thank you. That's.
Funny. OK well so I might go back and
actually see if I can do the full proper beating without
rewind and save states. But I did beat it using rewind
and save states I intended. I'm in the computer.

(01:23:31):
And I'm glad I did, because now not only do I know that Princess
Prin Prin and Chun Li have the same measurements for their
bust, waist, and hips. Thank you, creepy 90s game
developer for including measurements of your one female
character. But I got what apparently is a

(01:23:53):
pretty rare glitch. The game ends and during the
credit sequence there's a montage of Arthur fighting
enemies and running through the levels again.
But my Arthur on the replay montage dies, He boops a jump
and this screenshot I'm showing you guys is from.
I'm not controlling the game, this is the AI controlling it.

(01:24:14):
And when Arthur dies it will actually stop.
The music of the credit sequenceshow the level select as if
you're still playing Wow, and the rest of the credits continue
silently. And I'm like, this game is so
hard it can't even beat itself. Were you doing any kind of
control mapping? No.

(01:24:35):
OK, why? One of things that happened to
speedrun actually when they hit the credits is it goes Arai and
they were talking about that. I think what it was doing is
that it's kind of just doing like a similar to like a tool
system speed run. It just has like a series of
inputs to do. Yeah.
And mapping. Remapping the controls actually

(01:24:56):
gives it the wrong controls. I know what you're talking about
now. The one thing I did do is I
swapped the fire and jump because it felt weird jumping
with that button that's. Hilarious.
That's probably why, yeah. It's not rare, it's just.
Not intended. Yeah, it's just not intended.
I think in their case that they had like doubled up like attack
or something. OK on 2 buttons for a for a

(01:25:20):
reason. The speeder.
The speeder will be in the shoutouts.
But yeah, so they actually do talk about that of just
basically it has a. These are the button inputs.
And if you've remapped them, then the inputs it's doing or
not what it actually should are not having the result in game
that it should. That's cool.
Well, so Cyril, you'd said that this is one of the best reviewed

(01:25:42):
Super Nintendo games. I'm guessing a lot of that has
to do with the look of it, right?
Because like I think visually not not talk about how it runs
and slow down all that stuff because that's a major joy con.
I think this game is a stunner to look.
At yeah, this is definitely the best of the three, visually
speaking. And, I mean, it shows just how
big of a gulf there was in thosetwo years between, you know, the

(01:26:08):
Genesis game and the Super NES game.
Could this have been done on theGenesis?
Well, there are a couple of Mode7 effects that probably would
have been harder to pull off. Those are gimmicky.
But I think for the most part, they probably could have been on
the Genesis. But I that aside, I do think
that this. Yeah, I, there's stuff here
that, you know, is some of my favorite, visually speaking,

(01:26:30):
some of my favorite of the series.
Like I know that Mike, you didn't get very far in it.
But my, all my favorite stuff islike the water levels of the the
haunted ghost ship, which is, you know, in the, the, I think
the second stage and the tidal wave that comes up and all of
that felt new and next generation at the time.

(01:26:53):
I think I saw the tidal wave twice.
Yeah, yeah, and and. But it's interesting too,
because like with the wave sequence, you're in the
foreground and the water is ebbing and flowing.
But when the water drops in the foreground, it rises in the
background and you can actually see the Gila monster or whatever
you want to call him, the monster from the Black Lagoon
bobbing in the background. And that's your warning.

(01:27:14):
He's coming. Yeah.
And that's, that's the neat gameplay wise, the ice level
with these avalanches that don'thurt you, but they push you
pretty much almost always off ofa platform to your death.
The only way to survive them is to grab onto the ladder and just
let the snow hit you. Because as long as Arthur's
gripping the ladder, he the avalanche will pass and he won't

(01:27:36):
die. You can also jump him.
Can you? Yep.
Wow. And, and this game does a lot
with deforming the the the platforms, yeah.
Or I mean, you know, right from the get go, you know, you see
the level, you know, deforming around you as enemies come up
and, you know, or there's a right here in the picture of the

(01:27:58):
little flaming guy skeleton likecart on wheels.
Like that's something that on its own isn't that big of a
deal. But then, you know, you get a
little down that hill and it it deforms just enough to, you
know, to to send it after you and.
There's like physics there, likeit's rolling, you know?

(01:28:18):
Yeah, I think the big stunner serial feud agree was the level
where it's, I think it's called in the ghouls belly.
And imagine a 2D platform or when you jump onto these certain
platforms, the level rotates around you so that now what was
previously the wall or the ceiling is now your path
forward. Yeah, no, I mean that was

(01:28:39):
definitely them having fun with Mode 7 and seeing what they
could, what they could do. And I mean I the other big
horror franchise Castlevania didnot the same thing but did a
similar thing with Super Castlevania 4.
So Mike, did you see any of the bosses?
Not for myself, I didn't. OK.

(01:29:00):
Like I checked out a speed run, but yeah, I could just could not
get through any of that. Sure, I think the boss is pretty
cool. I wouldn't put them quite on the
level of ghouls and ghosts, but no, I think though there's an
interesting concepts. There are a couple of them that
I really like. Such as?
I like the first one with the the Vulture, the bird fight.

(01:29:22):
I think the bird looks great. Yeah, the dragon one the the OR
hydra or whatever the the the three headed dragon.
I think that looks great. The the snow 1 is OK or a
crystal whatever the that that. Marshmallow.
The rest I'm a little iffy on and especially like I'm a huge

(01:29:45):
fan of the way Loki looks at theat the end of the second game.
And I think that the I forget the the villains name in the
third one, but I that's a big step down and he doesn't even do
anything. You kind of have to, like they
had to invent floating platformsjust to make something out of

(01:30:05):
it. And I don't know that that
didn't work for me. What he's referring to is that
Loki at the end of the second game, he's this giant muscular,
scary looking demon and the way that you get high enough to hit
him is to stand on his feet. This was his game Pro TV tip.
Stand. Stand on his feet, and then when
he raises his knee, you can jumpup and hit him in the chin.

(01:30:28):
Yeah, it's just the last boss ofSuper Ghouls and Ghosts, just
not nearly as clever, but the ones that I really liked.
I really love this weird worm boss that through mode 7
graphics, zooms in from the background and swirls around you
in such a tight circle that the only way to move is to stand
completely still. And sorry, the only way to

(01:30:50):
survive that's that was weird. The only way to move is to stand
still. I'm a great teacher, Mike.
The only way to survive is to stand completely still.
Like you're fighting the T Rex in Jurassic Park and as long as
you don't move, he'll circle around you harmlessly.
But then, you know, you have to pick your window to attack the
Hydra that you mentioned, you have to kill its heads in a

(01:31:11):
certain order, and if you kill it in the wrong order, its heads
will detach, fly to the other side of the screen and regrow a
body for the boss. So stuff like that.
So I do agree it's not quite as good, but I think there's some
neat things here. Definitely.
Mike, did you ever get the greenarmor in level 1?
Green, yes. Yeah, or excuse me, they call it

(01:31:33):
bronze armor. This game added a new middle
point armor. So it's not it's not the fully
powered gold armor where you cando your super attacks, but every
projectile gets powered up and some of them are pretty cool.
Yeah, it upgrades the power ups and in a lot of fun ways, though
the the axe one becomes useless.Why?

(01:31:54):
Well, he, he shoots it like directly up and and then it has
like a weird trajectory and likeit's never going where you want
it to go. No, like I, I could never figure
out like there must be a part ofthe game where that would be
super useful. But for 99% of the rest of that
game, it's not it. It's actually a detriment.

(01:32:18):
But like it turns the dagger into this long laser, it makes
the crossbows into homing shots and then, you know, all of these
carry over into the Super attacks that you can do if you
get the gold armor again. But again, kind of a step down
the Super attacks. Well, also it makes you know not
to be too negative here, but it makes the some of the bosses too

(01:32:39):
easy. Yeah.
Like the homing, the homing shots basically make a couple of
the bosses super easy. Like there's no no challenge to
them. Yeah, So should we get into the
joy cons? Because I think Mike's got
something to say about super goals and goes, what was what
was so bad about it, Mike? I think one part is I think it

(01:33:02):
for as neat as it looks, I thinkit runs really badly.
Yeah. Just how easily it was for that
game to really start to noticeably slow down.
Actually to the point. One thing we had touched upon
which I never saw for myself wasthat you also have the shield
that you can get, which is like an additional power up which the
speed earners avoid because it will avoid for a lot of it

(01:33:26):
because it basically is just another Sprite.
It is separate from Arthur and it already the game is
struggling so much that it makesit harder for them just to have
it. Oh yeah, that's, that's not
great. Yeah.
And then I think, I think Cyril mentioned this a bit earlier,
but like the way this handles the double jumps, I do not

(01:33:52):
really like, especially to the extent that it kind of feels
like it makes them necessary, but they feel kind of clunky.
They're real clunky. The double jump is bad, yeah.
And they they design the platforming around kind of the
worst part of it. And yeah, that it's not that
part of it is not fun. And the reason it's so bad for

(01:34:14):
those who haven't tried it is that you can double jump, but
you can't really influence the 1st jump or the second jump.
The only variable is when are you going to double jump.
So it requires crazy amount of precision because essentially
for one gap now your timing, youneed two different jumps with

(01:34:35):
perfect timing, perfect placement.
But my biggest issue with the double jump I, I would hate it
not even in a platforming section which are awful.
Like, look at this one. You got these platforms rising
out of the lava that'll only be up for a limited amount of time,
and you're jumping to something that has a jagged edge to it.
Like, it's like there's so much opportunity for this to go

(01:34:57):
wrong, but it would screw me up in combat because Arthur is
never more vulnerable than when he's jumping.
In this series. When you're jumping, you cannot
retreat. You cannot adjust your placement
to dodge projectiles. You're helpless until Arthur
hits the ground. And so now with a double jump,
you've doubled the the amount oftime in which I'm helpless.

(01:35:20):
It's rough. Yeah, rough.
It's rough. It's rough.
And this is, I mean, if you don't have a whole lot of
experience with early generationSuper NES games, then the
slowdowns are real noticeable. But that's just how Super NES
games were in the early days that that processor was not real

(01:35:40):
fast, especially compared to theGenesis.
And this one isn't as bad as like the Gradius game that came
out the Gradius 3 and and some of those or even Final Fight,
Capcom's other launch game on the Super NES, like that had
terrible slowdowns. But here, yeah, it's real

(01:36:03):
noticeable and it just, it gets in the way.
I I feel like I don't know, Cyril, you had all the systems,
but someone listening will understand this.
It was kind of hard being a Segakid in the 90s because there
were so many iconic series that kids would be talking about in
the playground that you just couldn't get.
You know, the Nintendo IP has persisted in a way that the Sega

(01:36:26):
IP simply hasn't. So this felled me with a bit of
Sega pride of like, you know, you don't really think of the
Genesis of being that much more powerful than the Super
Nintendo, because Super Nintendogames are quite the lookers.
But to go from ghouls and ghoststo this and to have it run and
play so much better on the Genesis, I was like, OK, OK,

(01:36:48):
Genesis. And look, eventually a lot of
those franchises did come to thecome to the Genesis.
I mean, obviously the the reasonthey were stuck on Nintendo for
a long time is because Nintendo wouldn't allow the third parties
to make games on other systems. I.
Didn't know that. Yeah, Oh my goodness, there's a

(01:37:09):
whole Nintendo. Yeah, it was draconian back in
the 80s, especially with, you know, they can only release a
certain amount of games every year and, you know, the third
parties could. That's why you had, you know,
companies like Konami releasing games under another label,

(01:37:29):
Ultra, things like that. And then also that they couldn't
port the games or release their games on other systems or even
be a third party to the other. That's something that, you know,
Namco had a big problem with when, you know, they teamed up
with Atari and, and created Tengan.
But eventually Nintendo couldn'tcontinue to do that.

(01:37:54):
The, the third parties rebelled and eventually both Konami and
Capcom and then everybody else basically became a, a Sega third
party and you know that. Then you got Street Fighter,
then you got, you know, the mutant turtles.
Then you got all this, you know,Contra and all the other stuff
that people wanted those franchises on the Genesis, for

(01:38:17):
better or worse. Well, I I definitely think for
the genesis for this series for the better and and it's weird
that this game I I agree with Mike.
I didn't like it nearly as much.I I I kind of really disliked it
at points. I would get so frustrated
playing the same area for hours and it's like, what am I doing

(01:38:38):
with my life? Is this like I kind of
understood the Ryan Laurie bit better?
Anything else to complain about super ghouls and ghosts before
we rank these and render our verdicts?
Well, I, I want to bring it backto the positive a little bit
because I, I, let's not dump toomuch.
Like I, I agree that this is notas good as ghouls and ghosts,

(01:39:00):
but I also don't think it's a bad game.
And, and at least if we look at,you know, I already mentioned
that the reviews were really good, but like this won an award
in in EGM's best and worst awards in 1991.
It didn't win game of the year that went to Sonic the Hedgehog
over Mario, but it was a good year for for the Genesis.

(01:39:21):
They really came out swinging in91.
They saved up all their best stuff for that Super NES launch
year. And then but it this did win
best sequel to an existing game,which I again think is a clunky
award title. And this is a fitting game to
get a clunky award title. Clunky.

(01:39:43):
There you go, Mike. But people, you know, people
liked it and I think it's sold well though.
I mean, you know, the next sequel was eight years later on
the Wondrous 1 and never even came over here.
And then, you know, another seven years for Ultimate Ghosts
and Goblins on the the PSP and then Ghosts and Goblins
Resurrection just a couple of years ago in 2021.

(01:40:06):
So like, you know, there's been some big gaps after this.
I think the only real problem with this game is that it's too
sparing with the checkpoints. Definitely because I think,
like, you know, Ninja Gaiden is also notoriously difficult.
But Mike enjoyed that one because it was generous with
checkpoints. This game is stingy with

(01:40:27):
checkpoints, but I do think it'sfrom an era where a game being
tough was considered a value addbecause he wanted to play it for
months. I think that also with that is
two other things that felt like it was coming up short. 1 was
the lack of control on where you're shooting comparatively,
like the inability to just kind of make well this one shot goes

(01:40:49):
in this one spot that may or maynot be useful.
You can no longer shoot up and down, which is a huge quality of
life. A degrade, yeah.
Yeah, like if, if that crossbow had a little bit of extra aiming
where it's sending out two at like a 45° apart thing, but it's
always a bit up and then a lot more.
And if he's like, well now I'm on a hill so anything down is

(01:41:13):
now impossible to hit. Which is not how crossbows
usually work. Yeah.
And then the other part to that was also that the one bit of
this that is actually not arcadelike is you actually have a
limited number of continuous. Yes.
Like the point I stopped was I had done one round through on

(01:41:34):
what turned out to be not the lowest difficulty setting, and
when I reach just the game over,I can no longer continue.
It goes back just to the intro screen.
I tried it again on the lowest difficulty and I played through
again until I reached the and now you're out of the game, you
know you can't continue. And that is, that is for me a

(01:41:55):
thing that switches it from, OK,this is difficult.
I'm dying a lot, but I can just kind of keep pushing through to
like, Nope, now I have to start over.
And even in this case, I was always starting over at the same
place because I was never reaching any checkpoints, right?
It's still, it disincentivized me to go further because I knew
that was going to happen later. Whereas the others, as hard as

(01:42:18):
they would get, was like, OK, ifI keep pushing through like I
have, ultimately I just need to get to that next little bit and
then I'm good to go until I can figure out how to get to the
next little bit. This.
Having that, Nope, you're done. Well, and I mitigated that by in
the menu you can up your number of lives.
So I don't know if you did that,but I put it to 9.
And you can change the difficulty.

(01:42:38):
Right, but at the point where I started not being able to
proceed, the monsters are worth enough points that I was just
always earning continues and stuff.
So I never ran out. But I could see how if you did
run out, that'd be super frustrating.
Any other talking points for this game before we wrap up the
episode? Well I would say that Demons
Crest is the like what this should have been the the sequel

(01:43:01):
that this should have been. Oh, we're going to get to it and
you're going to come back and talk about it with us because
the. Scarlet Quest games?
Did either of you play either ofthe Maximo games?
No, but I love that it's I mean,so I I know that it's the
spiritual successor at the minimum because of the you get
the hit, you get hit in your boxers and everything.
And it's kind of and I got that cartoony medieval horror vibe to

(01:43:24):
it. Is it in this universe though?
I think it's technically in there.
I mean, it's it, yeah, it's considered a spin off, but I
mean, you know, it has some of the same enemies and stuff like
that. It's more in a 3D though.
It's not like Super Mario 64 or something where you know you
have a level you can go and explore.

(01:43:46):
It's very much more in like a Crash Bandicoot where you're
limited and you're kind of always going forward.
Yeah, but that allows for some pretty cool effects.
And I talked about deforming landscapes.
They do that really well. In both of the Maximo game is
where the levels will kind of break around you in some pretty

(01:44:06):
fantastic ways. That's dope.
The problem of course, is that it was always designed to be a
trilogy. And you know the the 1st and 2nd
have you essentially doing the same thing, which is trying to
to save the the damsel in distress that you didn't save in
the first game. And by the end of the second
one, she's still out there somewhere and they never made a

(01:44:28):
third one. Justice for whatever the Maximo
Princess was. Yeah.
Oh yeah, and this also went backto as the zombies are coming in
now you can't really do anythingabout them.
Yeah. However, sometimes you could
jump on the coffin and sometimesthat would kill you and
sometimes you could use that. I I there was weird rules to
whether or not that would be a problem and I'm not fully sure.

(01:44:49):
Yeah, Level 1. The zombies rise out of the
ground in their coffins, which cannot be destroyed and will
hover in your way. And you have to wait until the
zombie jumps out of the coffin to destroy it.
It's just the game simultaneously makes a good and
a bad first impression because Ithink, like he said, the
earthquake is deforming it. There's all these coffins

(01:45:11):
floating around. This is crazy, but is it fun?
Yeah. I don't know, I really like the
like that picture you have up right now.
I I love the art direction of the graveyard of how like the,
the OR the, the tombstones and everything.
It just, it all flailed in all directions.

(01:45:31):
And I guess, I guess those are caskets that have come up,
aren't they? Right.
But it's still, it's cool, though.
It's cluttered in a scary way oflike, Oh my gosh, this is it's
chaotic and it's cartoony. I do also I also appreciate as a
design choice that this throws in and apart that I never saw
for how much you kind of hope for the chests in the first two

(01:45:52):
games yeah the way that this throws in basically the mimics
on like the pirate ship yeah is a nice additional touch like the
design elements visually looked neat.
It was just the gameplay for me was enough, enough of a wall
that I if I if it wasn't for speed runs, I wouldn't have seen

(01:46:14):
them. Yeah, You know, I, I never had
noticed that they had changed the crosses to Unks, like that's
maybe back in the day that untilyou brought that to my
attention, I I never did notice that.
I guess I always thought they they got away with that.
You can never Unsee it. Did either of you play?
I'm sorry, I'm continuing this on Did either of you play Holy

(01:46:36):
Diver? You know what that is?
The Dio song. It is sort of related.
It's an old, it's an old IRM game for the Nintendo
Entertainment System that was kind of similar to this and, and
Castlevania, except all of it isheavy metal.
Like all the people in it and all the names and power ups and

(01:46:56):
everything is all references to to Heavy Metal like Dio and Ozzy
and stuff like that show up and not the real people, but you
know, the names and power ups and whatnot.
And that was a game that was going to come out of, I think
they'd finished it for the US version and Nintendo denied it

(01:47:20):
because it had too much just religious imagery in it.
And now the retro bit package that came out and that's the
first official release of it. And I worked on that.
Wow. That's cool.
That's my. My name is in the instruction
manual that's on that picture there.

(01:47:40):
As like a historical consultant for the game.
I did the marketing for it. That's awesome.
My, my day job, if you will, is to I do the marketing over at
retro bet publishing. And so if you ever watch any of
their trailers or read any of their press releases or anything
like that, I, I made it. That's why it's so good.

(01:48:02):
And yeah, they've, they've been doing a good job not to, you
know, I know I'm biased, but they've been doing a good job of
bringing those games back that never, never came out over here
or came out in a limited fashionand are now going for, you know,
6 or $700.00 and then, you know,so the people could own them.
And that was the very first gamethat they brought out, and

(01:48:26):
that's a real good one. And if you like Ghosts and
Goblins, you like any of the games we talked about today, you
owe it to yourself. It really should come to the
Nintendo classics. There's no reason why it can't.
You should check out Holy Diver.It's really good, especially if
you're in the metal. It has a lot of fun references.
So let's do a really quick rank and retro segment since we have

(01:48:47):
covered the entire Ghost and Goblin series available on
Nintendo Classic slash Nintendo Switch Online.
So we have the three categories.We have the game that's the most
super, the game that's a bit ghoulish, and the game that you
should probably ghost. So starting with the Nintendo
NES version of Ghosts and Goblins Cyril, we are comparing

(01:49:10):
the Genesis Ghouls and Ghosts versus the NES Ghosts and
Goblins. Yeah, Oh yeah, the Genesis
Ghouls and Ghosts is way better.Right.
And then, so then it comes down to Super Nintendo's Super Ghouls
and Ghosts. That's better than the NES
version. Yes, I agree with that.
I would pump up ghosts. I'd pump up ghouls and ghosts to

(01:49:33):
superb or super. And I would agree and I think
Super Ghouls and Ghosts is better than the NES version.
I don't think Mike agrees but I think we have vote him 2 to one.
So the official old switcheroo ranking for the Ghosts and
Goblins series Ghouls and Ghostsis super super.
Ghouls and Ghosts is a bit ghoulish.

(01:49:55):
And Ghosts and Goblins on the NES.
If you had the ghost one, probably ghost that one.
You get a bunch of other like are we going to, are we going to
rank the Master system? They're not on the service.
We're just comparing the three that our listeners going to
access. But after recording, I'd love to
hear what you thought about the other ones.
So I think we're going to wrap that up for today, guys.
We've covered the joy pros, the joy cons, and every bit in

(01:50:18):
between. So it's time to declare each
game from today's episode as a Nintendo or a Nintendo don't.
Starting out with Ghosts and Goblins on the NES.
Mike, this wasn't your least favorite game of the night, but
does it crossover into Nintendo territory for you?
For me, I think it actually does.

(01:50:39):
It was frustrating, but I think the fact that once I reached a
checkpoint or end of a level, like I could continue from there
and there was just enough of those to kind of keep going.
Like this was one that after thefirst round buy, I still came
back to to try to push further than I'd gotten before.

(01:50:59):
OK, so Cyril, Nintendo, yeah. No, I, I I this is not as good.
Like, I would not say that you should play this version over
the arcade. You should definitely play the
arcade version. But, you know, if if you're not
going to do that and you're justgoing to play one and you're
stubbornly going to do it on theSwitch, then yeah, I'd say this
is a is just on the cusp of being a do.

(01:51:22):
Well, I will just be the contrarian and say that it's,
it's, it's rough. It's rough for me.
I think the the stickiness of how the game controlled made it
frustrating to the point that I think your time can be best
spent somewhere else. Ghouls and Ghosts on the Sega
Genesis. I think it's a Super Nintendo.

(01:51:43):
I think this game is so good andI love how fast it is and I love
that once you learn it, it doesn't really take that long to
get through even if you do 2 full runs.
So Super Nintendo for me. Cyril also.
I mean, it's got to be a recommend if you're doing.
Oh yeah, yeah, no, the I spoileralert, I'm going to be a do for

(01:52:04):
all these. They're all pretty good.
Well, with Is this a Nintendo 64for you?
Is this a must? Is it a must play?
It's. More of a 3DS.
OK. So Mike also recommend.
Yeah, I think I'd also go Super Nintendo on this.
I think it is easily playable and I think actually didn't
bring up I don't know too much other than the speed run runners

(01:52:26):
talk about this for different reasons was that this also had
AI guess a little bit of sort ofa dynamic adjustment to
difficulty. And so like basically if you are
not dying at all, if you're kindof doing stuff very well, it
will up the difficulty a little bit, which was not a problem for
me. But like for the speed runs of

(01:52:47):
this, there's spots where they'll take a death so that
upcoming stuff is not harder, right?
Of these three, this is definitely one that I felt was
like the most accessible. Yeah, it's the best of the
three. So going on to the final game,
Super Ghouls and Ghosts, I wanted to say Nintendo because

(01:53:07):
of how visually cool it is, but something feels off about this
game coming out two years later and just being so much less fun
to play. But then I'm like, well, but you
got to get the expansion pack ifyou want to play the Genesis 1.
So is this a good enough substitute that it's still a

(01:53:28):
Nintendo? I don't think it is.
I think this is a very reluctantNintend don't just because I
don't think I thought the weapons were worse.
I thought the bosses weren't as cool.
I thought that the jumping was much worse.
I thought the checkpoints were worse.
Not saying it's it has no value,but I don't think I I my heart

(01:53:49):
says reluctant. Nintend don't.
Cyril, where do you land on super goals and ghosts?
Best sequel to an existing game?OK, so a Nintendo.
So you're a Nintendo for this one as well?
No, I think yeah, I like I said,this one is the middle of the
three for me. But I you know, I still, I think
they're all like, I wasn't even thinking about it in the sense

(01:54:09):
of like the, yeah, I guess you do need to pay extra to get the
Genesis, you know, if you if youdon't have the expansion pack.
I wasn't even thinking thinking about it that way.
I assume most people that don't have a switch are just emulating
it anyway. But.
We can't formally recommend that.

(01:54:30):
Mike, How? How far in the world of Nintendo
are you going to go for Super Ghouls and Ghosts?
I mean, I think it lives up to the Super I I'd go Super
Nintendo on it. Yeah, OK.
We're not in Nintendo 60. 4 levels though, No, but it it
definitely just, I mean I I in aheartbeat I'd go back to the NES

(01:54:51):
game over this one. Wow, OK.
The graphics are better, but I think the gameplay is just so
much less fun that the graphics don't overcome that.
Gotcha, gotcha. Now it's worth mentioning that
recently we did a thing based onreviews where I counted down the
top 276 games on the Nintendo Classics or Nintendo Switch

(01:55:17):
Online. Oh yeah, where do these land?
And so now there have been two games since then, so now they're
up to 200 and I think 78. But at the time when it was 276,
it was so Ghosts and Goblins was#212 that had an average of 72%.

(01:55:37):
According to old critic reviews.Yes, the the reviews at the
time, no, nothing that that camelater.
And then Ghouls and Ghosts on the Genesis was #38 with a 90%
average, Yes. And Super Goals and Ghosts, with

(01:55:58):
an 89% average, was at 49. Wow.
Closer than I would have expected though.
Yeah, so I mean wolves and ghosts, the top Top 40.
Yeah. That's, you know, that's, that's
pretty good. It's right in between Metroid 2
and Super Mario World 2. So I mean, it's good company.

(01:56:18):
Streets of Rage 2 right in there.
At the time you did that, do youremember offhand how many games
there were that didn't have reviews to get included?
Like I I think Sudden Punishmentwas the one of the ones you
mentioned specifically. Yeah, yeah.
Sin and punishment there. There's a a handful.
I can actually get you that answer real quickly.
It's 33. OK.

(01:56:39):
But it's OK, it's a lot. There's the Japanese stuff like
Pulse Man and F0 Climax and, and, and obviously like Star Fox
2 didn't get any reviews back inthe day because it didn't come
out. But there's also stuff like City
Connection on the NES or Donkey Kong 3 on the NES that just
nobody reviewed it. There are no English magazine

(01:57:02):
reviews for Donkey Kong Junior Math.
Like just no magazine covered it.
Well, you know who's gonna coverit?
Us. Cuz I mean, you have to, you
have to remember that, you know,for the most part, after the
great games crash of 83 here in the US, magazines were gone.
Like gaming magazines didn't really pop up and I mean Steve
Harris with Electronic Gaming Monthly tried to start his own

(01:57:26):
they he had electronic game player come out in 1988 and
nobody he couldn't get national distribution And then you know,
Nintendo Power comes out a couple of months later is huge
and suddenly everybody wants game magazines again.
But by that .1989, you know, four years of the NES, you know,

(01:57:47):
there had been four years had passed since the NES came out.
So a lot of the early stuff didn't get reviews.
And you know, Tecmo Bowl and Mighty Bomb Jackets like it just
they didn't get covered. So basically anything from 1989
on got reviews? So if you want the most in depth
coverage of gaming coverage, yougot to check out Cyril's website

(01:58:10):
because we're going to call thatgame over for today.
The final scores are Ghosts and Goblins, a Nintendo, Ghouls and
Ghosts, a Nintendo and Super Ghouls and Ghosts because Mike
and I had a rare moment of agreement, decided to knock that
one down to Nintendo. Cyril, you've been so amazing
today and thank you for always being so involved in our

(01:58:31):
Discord. You make it so, so informative,
so fun. More people should join it and
they should go to defunctgames.com, check out the
Defunct Games website, and if they go over to Kickstarter,
they should pledge for the Electronic Gaming Monthly
Compendium, which I'm featured in.
That's a book coming out about the history of Electronic Gaming

(01:58:54):
Monthly. It has something like 1.6
million earned already. It's huge.
It's going to be amazing. It's going to be so cool.
Congratulations on that, by the way.
So all that sounds Northeast. Excellent.
Everyone join us next time. We'll be crusading through our
very first SNK title, the cult classic Crystallis or
Crystallis. Crystallis.

(01:59:16):
Crystallis for the NES. That's a good one.
Also don't forget to visit www.theoldswitcharoo.com.
There you can find links to our Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and
all the social medias you can shake a joystick at.
You can even leave an old timey voicemail, meaning we would
literally love to hear from you.Or even better, join the fun on
our Discord server where you canplay games, talk games, and even

(01:59:37):
make a friend or two. Big thanks to Crystal Fields for
our incredible intro song. And thank you dear Listener for
liking, commenting, subscribing,reviewing, and playing along
with us every step of the way. This has been the old switcheroo
where you've been talking gamingretro with Mike and Jamo.
I've been Mike. And I've been jamo game on
everyone. The Genesis days were great.

(02:00:10):
I that's, that's my, that's my bread and butter.
I almost put the Genesis in my favorite console.
Really. Almost.
Definitely one of the more underrated.
I mean, it was beloved, but you know, it lives in this shadow of
a lot of other things at this point.
Yeah, at this point, I mean, maybe it didn't beat Nintendo,

(02:00:30):
but at least Tide like that was,you know, unthinkable a few a
few years before that. A couple years they were beating
Nintendo in sales and that I remember that being like
monumental. Well, and I think that I mean,
you know, you look at the sales now and you know, they basically
tied that generation was a tie. But that's fine.

(02:00:52):
It's like Rocky. The object isn't to beat Apollo
Creed. The object is just to get him to
the end, just to just to live the whole the whole game.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S3E14: The Ghosts 'n Goblins trilogy -or- History Doomed to Repeat Itself