Ghosts 'N Goblins

The Good
I really adore the graphics, the music and the atmosphere they create. And this one is a bit a different than the original game the port is based in.

What I like the most is the music. Instead of the classic arcade tunes, a different soundtrack was written especially for the CPC that is maybe one of the most amazing themes I have ever heard on the CPC. Actually the sounds/instruments that were used have a very unique sounding, one I cannot describe, a heavy bass sound, some sounding like cymbal some like deep underground drums, I really cannot describe but it's quite different and more reach in sounds and atmosphere than any other CPC tune you might have heard. It has remained in my mind since the first day I have played this game in 1989.

I also find the graphics quite appealing for it's time and not only. And the dark gothic themes are very well presented here despite the low resolution of the CPC. The sprites are smooth enough and there is even hardware scrolling used but only when the player reaches an edge of the screen (and the action freezes). Proper scrolling is not very easy to do on the CPC and this one was maybe one of the first games to do it for it's time. I think that technically both in music and graphics the game is really well done.

The Bad
There are a lot of cutoff's from the original. And some even make the game even harder than it is. Ok, there are no weapon bonuses and neither can the player shoot up or down but it's not very important as the fact that when the knight is hit he instantly turns into bones instead of losing his armor and getting another chance.

Also there are only 3 levels instead of the 5-6 (or more?) of the arcade. Still, it's not that bad since the controls/movement are nicely done and it gets quite playable in the easy levels. Learning it, despite it's difficulty, one case sometimes reach the beginning of the 3rd level but then the hell begins. It's doable though since I have seen people bringing the game to it's knees.

The Bottom Line
I was expecting quite a worse port for the poor Amstrad but I was positively surprised. This is one of the few good classics on the CPC, I believe you will adore the music and you will like the mood that the minimal graphics create. And quite the reductions in gameplay from the original and it's difficulty, I think it is quite fun to play for a while and the frustration in the later levels might fade out as someone learns how to play in specific levels. Check it out if you are into CPC games or if you ask for a challenge!

The Good
This port of the game has almost everything the Arcade game had to offer. The sounds are spot on. The graphics are not too bad. There's less colour variety but better use of colour and smoother textures. And there's no censorship, seeing as the developers chose to keep the Crucifix from the Japanese version. The instrumentation of the music is pretty different yet very eerie sounding to add to that hellish atmosphere Arthur goes through.

Gameplay carries a similar yet slightly less difficulty than the arcade version does. It is reassuring that you can get the Crucifix halfway through the game. If you don't have it, you automatically get it upon reaching the final stage. The biggest advantage is that you only need to beat the six stages once. Better yet, there is a proper ending to the game and no infinite looping. Huzzah!

The Bad
This game does carry the same clunky jumping as the arcade game, but that is to be expected. The only problem with the music is that it is lacking the boss themes. Also for some weird reason, the music track from the 3rd and 4th stage is also in the 5th one. Lastly despite the game having a proper ending, we never actually see Princess Guinevere reunited with Arthur, so it is a little anticlimactic. At least the text has correct spelling.

The Bottom Line
This conversion almost captures the look and features of the original arcade, so you can almost think of it as your own home-from-arcade game. I'd like to think that some of the proper ending and easiness of the game was made to compensate for the unfair difficulty of the arcade version, but it's more likely that those adjustments were due to software limitations. Anyhow, great port, great game and one of the very few fantastic Capcom Amiga games available.

The Good
Everyone knows arcade Ghosts 'N Goblins. If for nothing else, then the legendary difficulty - despite being a good game, it was deliberately designed to mess with the player!

The port done by Elite in 1986, is a classic on its own right for C64 users. While it is a very cut back version, I'd say it is neatly compact. Still, very fun to play.

What especially deserves highlight is the soundtrack. Mark Cooksey put just one tune in the game, an original composition that wasn't in the arcade, but what a spooky and cool tune it is! Can't get enough of it!

The Bad
The jumping physics is very wonky. Plus the platform ledges are very sharply and suddenly cut off - you don't even step onto the last pixel and you already fall. Lots of cheap deaths because of these.

There is only the first 4 levels in here. The 3rd and 4th levels are mixed up compared to the arcade. At the end of the 4th level, you just find the princess, and that's it, happy ending.

The Bottom Line
This was the C64 game we probably played the most back in the day, despite barely ever getting trough the first half of the first level. It just kept making us try again and again. Since then, I managed to play trough the entirety of this port, without cheating. It was a very good challenge.

It's bit of a shame that this version is so cut back (even if we couldn't know it). Realistically, it's neat what they could cram into just a 64 kilobytes single-load game on cassette tape.

But that is only true to the 1986 classic version. In 2015, a group of C64 enthusiasts did a makeover of this port. It was polished and reworked, and got all the levels from the arcade. That is the version to play nowadays.