Gogo the Ghost

The Good
The title screen looks brilliant. It shows the castle you have to navigate through, with Gogo floating near the entrance and his “dream princess” standing at the top. Judging by her appearance, she might as well be the game's antagonist. The castle actually has multiple colors, and if you press the [Restore] key, you'll be able to see them all. Personally, I like the green and yellow color schemes. Gameplay wise, the enemies that you need to avoid look as if they were taken out straight from Jet Set Willy, and they take many forms. My favorite is the spiked Pac-Man lookalikes.

The music from the title screen is well composed, and I like the little tunes that you hear when you collect specific power-ups. You hear them when you collect the different items scattered around each room. Firebird has designed the game in a way that whatever tune you hear has to be played out in full before you can collect another item. There is a lot of sound effects, with the most obvious being the constant background noise in each room.

Gogo the Ghost is a very challenging game. There are a few tight spaces in some rooms that you have to navigate through, so you have to be really careful floating through them. Just touching the very edge of the wall with your tail is enough to lose a life. I just couldn't do this in some cases. Also, Gogo is equipped with a shield which you can activate with the fire button, but this depletes real fast so you need to use it in short bursts.

The game can be played in a non-linear fashion, and there is no pre-defined path you have to take. There are multiple exits in most of the rooms, allowing you to skip a number of levels. Having said that, the game is replayable because you can go back to level one and go through the rooms you may have skipped the first time. Some of the levels have passwords, meaning you can have a break and restart the game at that room.

Unlike most games from Firebird, I was glad to find out that Gogo has an actual ending that appears when you get through the last room.

The Bad
There is nothing that I can think of.

The Bottom Line
Gogo the Ghost is a very challenge game that was only released for the Commodore 64. The graphics and sound is excellent, and there is always room for replayability. A must have game for your collection.