034 · GHOSTS 'N GOBLINS

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00:00 Ghosts and Goblins, the beautiful princess is kidnapped. Her lover, the knight, in shining armor, armed with five different weapons to fight the enemy, sets out to rescue the beautiful princess.

00:26 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. What's up, guys? Hey, hey. We're only talking about one of the hardest games of all time, dare I say? It definitely has that reputation.

00:43 I think it's still up there in terms at least of reputation, of course. Yeah, I mean, this is pretty much the first game that I'm thinking of that's like NES hard, you know, or Nintendo hard, rather. Like, you know, we've had games that are just bad, badly designed, you know, but this is like an actual, like, frustratingly hard game. And so many, you know, YouTubers have made their careers off of starting off being like, you know, today I'm gonna play Ghosts and Goblins and freak out about it.

01:12 And it's like, yeah, but it's very relatable because anybody who's played Ghosts and Goblins probably, you know, I want to go back for a second and talk about the 1985 end of year review that we did. Yeah. It was a special best of 1985. And I talked about Ghosts and Goblins being one of the games I'm looking forward to.

01:31 I put this as one of the games that I was dreading. And I put it as looking forward to. We had a whole mix of. Right. And I don't know if I'm if I'm regretting that. I'll tell you one thing, though. I did say in that game in that in that episode that I was going to try my hardest to beat it. And I really think I did try my hardest, but I didn't even come close. Didn't even come close, folks. I'm not going to be pretending anything today.

01:54 I know that there's probably like, you know, maybe one or two lucky listeners listening in right now who has beaten it. Congratulations. You're awesome. And hopefully you did it the right way, especially including beating it twice. But we'll get into that later. Guys, want to do some first impressions on Ghosts and Goblins? Yeah, I guess I'll start. I like the art style. Like, I usually like the art style of these games. I think it's got a cool sense of humor in the way that it expresses the two hits that you get that you lose your armor and you're just in boxers.

02:35 Which he also he starts the game naked. And I have. Well, I just have a couple. Yeah, it's a good time. I have a couple of complaints here. OK, because, yeah, I get he was having a good time with the princess. Right. But why the graveyard at night? Right. Some. I don't know. Like, maybe she's a goth girl, you know, like it's just a cool like, hey, we're going to go to the graveyard with a picnic at midnight or three o'clock. The witching hour. Right.

03:01 It's like exactly at the wrong time. You know, and by the way, I should just tell you right now that Satan's been chasing me for like the last couple of nights. If you live in a world where these monsters exist, maybe they didn't know. But if you live in a world where these monsters exist, I'm not hanging out in the graveyard. I kind of prefer to think that the monsters never existed before this moment. And like all of a sudden it's like reckoning.

03:20 Like, think about it. This guy, he was naked a second ago. Now he has to like grab his arm. This is the opening cut scene, by the way. He's like naked. She gets kidnapped by Satan. And he's like, oh, shoot. Grabs his night armor. And then he's like, all right, I'm just going to go get her. Shouldn't take that long. And then it's like a perilous six stage journey where everything like everything that can goes wrong does go wrong. He walks into literally like one of the hardest games of all time. It's just like it's really unfortunate for this guy. Does anybody know his name?

03:50 No. Arthur. OK. I wonder if he becomes King Arthur. Maybe. Maybe this is like a, you know, romancing story of the. But yeah, probably not. I see where you're going. Yeah. Probably not. Sean, please continue with first impressions. OK, so I said the couple of things that I found charming about this game, but I was right to put this on my dread list, because even though I guess over time and through the changes in how we make difficult games like in this industry.

04:26 I like like new games that are hard. Like I do like Dark Souls and I do like Bloodborne and that kind of stuff. But I could not for the life of me get past like the second stage of this game. And I don't know if it's just because I lack determination. I need to get good or something along those lines. But I mean, I. I was in pain. I feel you. I don't think it is a matter of like determination because you can you can enter this like determined to beat this game. And then it's like, how many times are you going to see that overworld screen? Yeah. And then your little head still on stage one.

05:06 Right. How many times are you going to see that and be like, OK, OK, OK, this time I think I've got it. And then like, you know, Red Devil shows up and he's flying all over the screen. And you're like, I don't even think I could jump over it. Even if I like, you know, I wanted to do right now. It's like, when is my opportunity to strike Joe first impressions right off the bat? My first impression was this is this is insanely difficult. And I and I was looking forward to this game because I wanted to see that punishing experience just just to just to like I didn't think I would enjoy such a punishing experience. I just thought it would be interesting to see it.

05:53 But it's not punishing in the way I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be like you have to restart the game when you lose. So that's one thing I thought very early on was like, oh, it's insanely difficult, but I essentially have unlimited retries.

06:07 I which made it much more bearable to me. I was very surprised to see even at a game over it. You can start at the beginning of the stage or the checkpoint. There's even a checkpoint in the stage. I thought the checkpoint thing was even a step further of like, like, huh, wow. They even like have that like, you know, it's obviously not saving your game. But like, as long as you have the game running, it's doing the stuff. I was like, that's pretty neat. Like even Super Mario Brothers doesn't have that. You know, you get to the end of your lives and you go all the way back to 1-1.

06:37 I felt like I wasn't expecting to see that kind of mercy from the developers of this game, especially with the just with the reputation that it has. But I was thankful to see it. It didn't help me out that much. That's what I was about to say. If you don't mind me interjecting, Joe, it does help you in the sense that like you haven't you have a better chance at learning the new thing. But if you're just like completely stuck at a moment in the game, I don't think there's much that you can learn without like, you know, in our day and our age, you know, we're able to like go to YouTube and watch some videos about how people tackle these situations.

07:11 But, you know, that wasn't available to you at the time. And I just think like if you're going up against like, you know, let's just say those goblins, you know, from like state. I think they're in stage one, even, you know, the guys who like look like they're taking a shit. Stage two, they start. Stage two. Okay. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. They're in like the building. Yeah, yeah. They're called. You have to hit them ten times. I'm glad you brought that up, Sean. They're called big men. This just keeps happening to us.

07:37 The same guy from Kung Fu has now been mutated and tortured and cloned into the goblins you see in this game. But what I was getting at is, I mean, like if you're stuck on them and it's 1986, you're just done with this game. It doesn't matter where you are in the checkpoints. It's like this game only serves like a frustrating reminder is like, yeah, you've only been this far. Like it would suck if it started you way back at the beginning. Like you probably wouldn't even have a will to play the game. Exactly. I don't think anybody would have. And in fact, I'd like to know somebody who beat this game without any continues.

08:07 Oh, that would be insane. Yeah. I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure it's happened for like really good Ghost and Goblins players. I'm talking more like our fan base. But Sean is watching right now. The magician has turned us into a frog. So you can't even attack. I don't remember that part. Let me ask you, though, Sean, how long did it take you to beat the first level? The first level of the first stage? The first stage. I'm sorry. Like the first checkpoint. No, just the first full stage. OK, that took me two hours. OK, that took you two hours.

08:40 And then you got to level two. How much of level two did you play? Like you play for a while on level two? I played for a while, but I didn't get to another place. Imagine that the first time you played level two, you died and you had to go back and do level one again. Oh, yeah. No, I would never play that game again. So I think it like I think even if you don't realize it, like the fact that you don't have to go back, like helps you a lot. Only helps you continue playing the game. Sure. That you maybe shouldn't even be playing. It's like Jumanji at this point. You know, it's like now I'm invested. Like I'm on the pieces.

09:09 Like whatever happens in the game happens to me. I think it's very important that they don't send you back because it would just be demoralizing. And I mean, even more demoralizing than it already is. But I think it would be it would be suicide, like in terms of being a game developer to make to let that happen. Right. But I don't know. But I feel like in my in my not so educated knowledge of NES games, I thought that that happens a lot. And I could be wrong. Oh, no, it does happen a lot. I'm saying this is it's great that they offer it. Don't get me wrong. It's great that they offer it. And I'm like a console experience.

09:44 It should have been the norm because the whole idea was is like I own this game. Like I'm in control of it. But, you know, at the end of the day, I agree with Sean here more than you, Joe, just because like you're the harder the game gets throughout the stages, the less likely you are to be able to push forward, regardless of how many times you tackle that situation. But, Joe, please continue with first impressions.

10:05 I mean, really, that was that was the biggest thing was that I felt a slight bit of relief where like I can I can give this more of a shot if I just give it more time. Whereas I thought I was just going to hover around level one and keep dying, getting sent back to level one and then be like, yeah, that's it. That's as far as I can get. It definitely cuts back on the amount of tension that you would feel at just any time that you were in a new area or any time that you had inched maybe half a screen forward than you had ever. been before. I feel like if I was any further than I got and didn't have that. I know we've been talking about this for a long time now, but it didn't have that like respawn at the beginning of the level or the checkpoint.

10:47 And I died in a stupid way. Like I miss I miss space to jump or something. I would break my control. Right. But so if you want to if you're in it to try and beat the game. Yeah, it's good for this. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the you know, like if I missed a jump or something like that, because it's so funny how like that is the smallest thing in this game to have to happen, like to go wrong for you.

11:09 But even the platforming, right. Even the platforming in this game is incredibly hard. Like they couldn't even give us that much of like, you know, like the platforming is only an extra obstacle for you. It doesn't help you, you know, encounter the enemies differently. Sometimes the platforming even like makes it this way. You must pick up an object that you don't want to pick up.

11:30 Yeah. You know, like because of knockback, you can you can just fall into these pits even even unintentionally. It's crazy. And I have bad news for you. You're going to experience a lot of that in Capcom games. Oh, yeah. Capcom loves knockback for some reason. And that's just that's just the way they are. So so we have that real fast. You know, the interesting thing for me on my first impressions, the only thing that's different from you guys that you haven't mentioned yet is I was just shocked that actually like you only get two hits and you're done. You know, it's like there's this isn't like Super Mario Brothers where you can find another mushroom or something like that.

12:02 Yeah, there is a chance to find armor. It's incredibly rare and almost like not like twice considerate non-existent. And I would I would say that their pickups are very misleading because in even the beginning stage, not even the first stage, but like in the first screen of the game, you can kill a zombie, which looks like a clown. You can kill a zombie and it'll drop what looks like a one up or just an arm of armor. Right. And it's nothing. It's just 500 points or something like that. And it's funny because I mean, like just 500 points is bad, but I mean, and hopefully it's more. But like this is another game. We were talking about this in the Super Mario Brothers episode where like collecting coins is pretty imperative.

12:43 But it's another game where like, you know, there's there's points at lives, you know, like extra lives at 20,000, 70,000 and then every 70,000 after that. But it's like when you have a continue system like this, I don't give a crap about the lives. Yeah. And that is the other thing. The points that you mentioned, I noticed I never really look at points or care about points. But I did notice that when you continue, you start back at zero points. Yeah. So if you are going for a high score, then you don't want. Yeah. I mean, I think that's mandatory in any game that like if you if you lose, it should be game over on your high score because at least something should go. Some kind of permanence should be gone.

13:19 All right. So we've talked about that. One thing before we get too much deeper into the game, I'd like to bring up that this game comes out nine days after Super Mario Brothers in the arcade.

13:30 So like Super Mario Brothers comes out for NES nine days later, you have Ghost and Goblins. And I just think like, you know, these are two pretty big titles around the same time period. And even though it took a little bit longer to get to the NES, it's like these are these are longer form, you know, platforming style games. And I think, you know, I wonder what would have happened if Ghost and Goblins would have beat Mario to the punch. I'm not sure. And also the the arcade version of this game looks leaps and bounds better than the NES version. Oh, yeah. Of either Ghost and Goblins or Super Mario Brothers. So I think if I don't know how much timing would have come since they were this close to each other.

14:10 I don't think that Ghost and Goblins would be the new standard. Yeah. It makes me wonder if like, you know, even just like a couple of months, because I mean, back then development didn't take years. So it makes me wonder of like, if this game would have came out like three to four months before Super Mario Brothers and been a success. Would Miyamoto, you know, look back on the game and been like, maybe we should make it harder.

14:30 Maybe we should. Arthur would be the would be like the title character of the Nintendo instead of Mario. Yeah. It's interesting to think about. And, you know, I don't have an answer there, but it's just kind of cool to see like these games come out so close to each other and be kind of like at the time, the big games of their respective, like, you know, entries. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

15:26 Cool. So we know about Arthur. We know about the extra lines of that. I'd like to just kind of talk about your weapons real fast because they're similar to the misleading armor and points and stuff like that. I feel like the weapons are incredibly misleading in a way that Joe and I found out real fast. Yeah. You find that, you know, the fire, which is essentially the torch. You find that power up and you're like, give me some of that. You know, like I want to throw fire and I think that's going to be a lot more effective than my. What is that? What do you have? You start out with like a lance or something. Yeah. So I'd rather have the fire, right?

16:03 No. We don't want the fire. Don't ever get the fire is almost an obstacle because you have you jump over if you accidentally hit the fire. I feel like the fire is the only thing that has a range limiter. Is it a range limiter and also a how many you can launch limiter? Like if you if you throw two of them, you can't throw another one. You have to wait for them to expire. Interesting. I did not realize that even though I got stuck with it several times. The shield also has a range limiter. Oh, OK. The shield. The shield is an interesting one. I don't know why we're using that term. I just misspoke. It's just like it has short range. Yeah. I thought it was a term I didn't know. I wanted to sound smart.

16:41 I think the shield is an interesting one. I have no idea. I didn't look at the manual here. But like, does the shield do more damage? Like, I don't know. I didn't use it enough, but my initial thought on it was that it that it hits high and low. But I can't remember. I think I disproved that at one point. I think it's just it's just it has to mean like it would hit. So, you know, you can you can you can duck. Yeah, a bigger hitbox. You can duck and throw like the javelin or the knife low or high, like on two planes there. And I thought since the shield was wide, it would hit both. But I think it's just visibly wide. But it's not I can't don't quote me on this. But I think the hitbox is not actually as wide as the OK.

17:22 And then the obvious best choice, in my opinion, at least, is the dagger or the knife. You wouldn't think it to be. You wouldn't think it. But it just you throw so many faster. Yeah, it's faster. It gets like takes care of the the first boss, the unicorn demon. That's what that's what it's called. Takes care of him pretty easily, I feel like. And I feel like it takes care of most things in the game pretty easily.

17:44 Joe, you had some extensive uses with the dagger. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I mean, I got to a point where I thought if I didn't have the dagger, I don't know if I could have like done any of the things I was doing. Like, like there's a point at the end of level two. And I think at the end of level three, there's like a Chinese dragon. You know, the like snake. Yeah. I think he's just called dragon in the game. OK. But yeah, so it's like a flying long dragon. You have to hit. I believe you have to hit it from behind. Hit each each like segment of it.

18:15 Yeah, it's kind of interesting. It doesn't work like like centipede or millipede. You know, those games where it's like if you start from the top, you know, you'll split it in half or something like that. You know, it's lines of code.

18:27 I know. Yeah. And, you know, NES games at this point are having a bit of a problem with that, but not so true for ghosts and goblins. No, no, it's a I think it performs pretty well. But let's continue on with Joe's. But yeah, I thought it was it was so much easier with the dagger because of just how much faster you could chew. Because sometimes this this dragon will swoop down and you can't avoid it. So it's like one of the things where the quicker you can the quicker you can take it out, the better.

18:54 Absolutely. Because otherwise when he goes down, you have to dodge like a ton. And I don't even know if your jump would make it over him, you know. So you definitely want to like take out at least as much of its body as possible. One question that I have that maybe you guys have an answer to is does anybody know if these enemies have any like scripted sequencing?

19:13 Like they don't do the same thing every time, right? No, no, no. Because I remember like there's just the way you're talking about the dragon. Like just knowing it doesn't it seems like they don't telegraph anything to you. I know that the like once you start you get to like the forest area when you've left the graveyard and you're in the forest right in the beginning of the game. You're talking about with the unicorn demon or?

19:36 You've got the flying guys with the shields. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the flying knights. And they go up and down, up and down. And it seems like one in each wave will come down close enough to clip you and kill you if you're just staying on the ground. But it doesn't like it's never the same guy. So I tried to show this to Joe. There actually is a pattern for those guys in specific. Okay. But it's all about where they spawn on the screen in relation to where you are.

20:04 Interesting. So like if you're in the and I was showing Joe, it was like, you know, you got to jump onto the, you know, the first platform over the water. And then they'll show up and there's like a there's like a sweet spot at the edge of that island where you can just kind of like crouch and none of them will hit you. Interesting. And then you can jump again. And if you spawn them just right, you run back a little bit. It took me forever to figure it out. But I was like, it was great to have a surefire way to get through those guys.

20:29 Yeah. Because I'll say it like for the unicorn demon and stuff like that, you don't get those kind of advantages. I mean, sometimes he'll stand there for a little bit and then throw like, you know, some projectiles at you. Other times he'll just like jump over you and wind up on the other side or just rush you like a, you know, like a football player. He'll just like come at you. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, dude, you know, chill.

20:51 I didn't know you could charge, you know, like I've watched a lot of when you say the unicorn demon, you're talking about that huge guy. Yes. Yeah, it's funny because I forgot. I think we talked about the fact that he was called that the unicorn demon. But I forgot that he doesn't seem like a unicorn anything. He's just a giant like buff two legged guy. I guess they're saying I always thought that red thing on the top of him was like part of his hair or something like that. But I guess they're saying it is like, you know, yeah, a horn.

21:18 But, you know, yeah, he's like the he's like the first boss. And then they just like double down on that idea. And the very next level, you fight two of him at the same time. I'm like, excuse me, like what's going like? It was hard enough fighting one of them. Now you have to defeat two. But I did look up on YouTube. There is a pretty sound strategy to beating the unicorn demon. I don't know if anybody else wants to share theirs. My strategy is have the dagger.

21:41 Have the dagger is a great strategy. Also, though, going backwards. I mean, like as long as the unicorn demon is chasing you, there's a certain point where like as long as you're retreating, it can't like necessarily catch up with you. And you can continue to just kind of like get it to keep following you and throw him over. And then just thankfully, if you kill him like pretty far out from where he spawned, he won't be there waiting for you again. And that would have sucked. Yeah. All right. So we have the unicorn demon. We've talked about the dragon.

22:14 Here's a good question for you guys. What do you call the pigs in the blanket in stage one? Oh, well, that's the closest thing I can think of. I called them pigs in the blanket jokingly, but I think they're ghosts. They are wraiths. They're wraiths. Are they are they like wrapped in a in a blanket? That's just like, I guess, like, you know, wraiths always have like that cloak over them. Right. Like I'm thinking of the Witcher style wraiths. But like, you know, it's that kind of thing.

22:38 And like, yeah, they're just supposed to be like peeking out from it. It's really bad. And I like how like someone on like GameFAQs refers to them as woody pigs. Woody pigs. It's like those are woody pigs. Goblins are sometimes referred to as big men. And the monster tower, which I'm sure no one has any idea what I'm talking about, is the golem.

22:57 And the monster tower isn't like that's its name in the book. And that sounds pretty epic. But that's just like the thing with the eye that shoots at you occasionally. Oh, you mean the instruction manual? Yeah, the instruction manual. I called it a book. Based off the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have anybody ever read The Goblin's Novelization? King Arthur and Princess Prin Prin? Every page ends with, and then you died. I just, I brought that up jokingly, but like we need to talk for a second about how lazy that name is for the princess. Her name is Princess Prin Prin. Okay? So basically it's like Princess, Princess, Princess.

23:28 Okay, that was a common last name. Not that she means anything. I mean, like, I feel like we get so little of her in this game that we barely should care about trying to save her. Yeah. So I think, um, it's either stage three or four, Joe, where there's like the platforming elevator clouds.

23:46 Yes. That is stage three, I believe. This is a new territory. They're, they're, they're, I consider them eyeballs, but they're probably, they're more likely clouds. I thought they were clouds. Eyeballs makes more sense in the Ghost and Goblins world. But like, you know, that's just like an unfair challenge. Thankfully, like there's not like enemies or anything like that. Right. But I think at this point, like that's the point where your platforming skills are finally like put to the test. The other times it was more about dodging.

24:11 Yeah. This one, it was like, I'm just, you know, for a game like this, Joe, do we really need something like that? I agree that we don't need that, but I was just, I think I was just so relieved that there weren't enemies. I'm like, yeah, it's fine. I can do this because no matter how many times I fail, I can just keep doing it. Like you have such a, I didn't worry about dying there. You have such a rigid jump in this game that I don't think it should ever be used in a platforming situation.

24:34 But I get it that they needed to make it harder than it even was right now. Right. And in that same stage, there is a magician who can turn you into a frog. And then there's a red devil in that same like sequence. So it's like you could be turning into a frog and be at the mercy of a red devil. We didn't talk about the red devils yet, but they are terrible. The red devils are honestly like the worst thing outside of the bosses.

25:01 I agree with that. And in fact, in some regards, I think that the red devil in stage one is harder than the unicorn demon. It was it's mostly because of I think you just aren't prepared for something like that in stage one because you're just fighting these things that just crawl across the ground or or the ravens that have a predictable pattern or the weird like plant, the plant demons, which just shoot from a static point of view. And then you've got this guy that clips the walls and goes up into the air and he'll just swoop down at you at high speeds.

25:37 And you're just not. And he shoots, too. He fires. Yeah, he shoots at you. So what doesn't he do? If you think about it, right? Like like all the other enemies maybe are just like the the sum of all of them is the red devil. Like all the other normal enemies. And again, my same strategy is have the dagger because then you can you can maybe if you're really, really lucky, you can get two hits before he jumps in the air and then two hits instance before he hits you. Yeah. So it's like maybe you can kill him without getting hit.

26:06 Yeah. I just I found them to be like probably the most unfair part of the base game, I guess, like the base game. Yeah. Just like like the non boss battles. Oh, OK. Yeah. Like they're just so they may as well be like mini bosses. Exactly. But but then there's like a whole stage four even has. I think it's that's the blue cave. Right, Joe? Yeah. And there's a point in stage four that I couldn't find a way to not activate two of them at once. While there were there was also a skull, little skulls that if you get close to them, they jump up and they jump back and forth.

26:41 And I think there was one other thing. I think it was maybe one of our pig in the blanket friends. I think it was four of them all at once. And I was like, I didn't even know where to begin to take them out. It's a it's a nightmare of a level. And there's so many of them, too. It's not like in stage one, just encountering the first one feels like it. Like you said, a mini boss or a boss fight kind of thing. And it's like now that there's just like nine of them in the same stage. It's like, what is this? It might be stage five, actually. Stage five. OK, it's like, what is this? I don't I don't want to do this right now.

27:39 So what do we think has changed? I'm going to go in a slightly different direction. Love it. What do we think has changed over the years of what we think makes a game challenging? I guess instead of just Nintendo hard. What makes it a challenge now? Instead of just, let's throw red devils everywhere. Well, I'll say this much, okay? I love it.

28:04 Love it. When a game includes a very easy mode and a very hard mode. So this way people have the option of like, I love this game, but I want to play it brutally, you know, or like that. And then also like, I really just want to play this game for the story and the experience, you know, like it doesn't hurt anybody to include a very easy mode. You know, back in the day, I can understand why it might, because that was your game, you know, and that's all you had. So you had to make it like challenging.

28:32 But now I think, you know, having that range of difficulty helps, but we're still running into that problem, even like with very hard games where it's not like, it's not actually changing the game. It's just like, you know, oh, they do more damage and like things, you know, like more enemies and they have more stuff than you. And it's like, okay, but I'll give a great example of this. Breath of the Wild, the base game. Great. You know, like if you're playing it on the normal difficulty and everything like that, it's a really interesting game. They can be a little challenging at times, but for the average player doable.

29:05 The master mode just like makes it this way enemies do double damage and some enemies are like, you know, like the easiest enemies are no longer in the game. So everything's just like a little bit harder throughout. And I'm like, it's not really like a solution. That's just like a more torturous way to play the game. Yeah. You know? So I don't know how I would fix Ghost and Goblin's difficulty, but I'll also add, I don't think you need to. Oh, no, I don't think so either. I was just trying to get an idea of what we think, like the philosophy of difficulty.

29:35 I think that what I, and this is, I'm going to be really vague about this because I have like an idea, but not really a way to implement it. But I think that if a game is difficult in a way that when you play it enough, you've learned and gotten actually improved and it lets you develop it. It's not about like, it's so crushing that you just have to get kind of lucky.

29:56 Yeah. Then in that, in that case, it sucks. But if it's something where like you can feel like you feel satisfied because you feel like you improved and like you learned from, from all the times you lost. And that's what I think is, makes it a good difficulty spike.

30:11 Like, I think that that's sort of what a game like Dark Souls is. And, um, whereas there's, you don't have any control over how difficult the game is, but if you, once you learn the, um, like the telegraph of these enemies and how to conserve your stamina and all these little, um, mini skills, like you will just get better at the game. Um, and once you learn like all the, all the traps, like you get that soul that, that like spatial recognition as well. Um, but I also do see the value in having, uh, like that sliding scale.

30:46 And I know that like one thing I like about some games is there'll be, let's say in like Fallout, you have the regular mode in which you just sort of shoot stuff. Right. And then you have like survival mode when you also have to, uh, find water and food and make sure your radiation doesn't get out of control.

31:03 Like, I think that that's a good way to go about challenge as well. Um, Mike, what did you say? No, no, I think, I think that's a great point. And, uh, especially the Dark Souls thing. I feel like Dark Souls and Ghosts and Goblins do kind of go hand in hand because initially Ghosts and Goblins gets like this incredibly hard, like reputation of like, oh, it's unbeatable and stuff like that. And I'd say like, yeah, it's really hard to beat, but you can master this game on your own. Like, like, I think that's, that's kind of interesting that like you have a game like Ghosts and Goblins in 1986.

31:35 That's totally about like, hey, you're going to die a lot, but learn about the enemies, learn how they attack, learn what you should be doing, figure out the puzzles, figure out how to do the platforming and you'll get through this game just fine. And you can, you know, you can say you're a real master at this game, you know? And Dark Souls in a way, because it doesn't have the difficulty slider and stuff is kind of like that. You know what you said? Like, learn, learn the attacks, learn where the enemies are positioned, learn where the surprises are and be prepared. You know, it's more about preparation.

32:05 I would say even on another scale, like, you know, Shovel Knight isn't necessarily like a hard game, but I think it takes as many cues from Ghosts and Goblins as it does from like other, you know, 2D side scrolling games of that time, you know, where it kind of understands that like what's challenging in a game sometimes is like something that's challenging the first time you encounter it and then you get better every time you encounter it. It's not about them like the developer saying, let's give him less health. Yeah. Let's give him or her like less armor or like the end. Let's just make the enemies take forever to kill. It should just be more about what actually in the way the game is attacking you is difficult. Like what's, you know what I mean?

32:52 Yeah, I think we should, um, we should probably talk about just at least for me, this game kind of surprised me in the sense that like, I thought I was going to have a really bad time with it. I wound up having a bad time with it. And then after playing it for a while, I was like, well, now I feel like I'm pretty proficient in stage one. I never got past stage three, but I did feel like for stage one, I was like, yeah, if you asked me to go back and play that now, I would feel pretty good about my playthrough of it because I know where things are. I had been defeated enough that I was like, okay, here's what I got to do.

33:23 And like, sure. It kind of stinks that I never beat the game, but I think there is something about this game that's really cool that it's not just unfair. It's, it's not unfair at all. Actually, it's just really hard. Yeah. I would hate for this game to be one of those things where it's like, oh, you didn't like this randomly spawn thing that like, like imagine if the zombies just spawned on top of you instead of like telegraphing that like they're coming up ahead, you know, like that would be unfair. You know, imagine if like the unicorn demon, instead of like, you know, taking like a couple of steps before he charges up at you. Imagine if he just moved right in front of you, you know, like that's unfair.

34:02 Learning these attacks and learning how to deal with the different enemies. And yeah, it's, it's a little random each time, but for the most part, you know, they're, they're just computer AI. They're programmed to behave a certain way and you can get over that. And I can almost always see what, what I could have done. Like, I know I could see the path to victory.

34:21 It's, it's not like, it's not like if there's a, there's a run where I'm like, that would have been literally impossible to beat. I'm just not, I'm just not good enough yet to get through like the point that I'm at, but I can always see like, oh, this is what I have to do. And a lot of them, it's like, there's, there's all these enemies and I have to, I have to beat all these different, you know, these five different parts that are bugged that are, that are hard for me right now, but they, I can beat one of them. I could be three of them, but like, it's when can I, when am I good enough to beat all five in one run?

34:50 Right. So that's what, you know, it never feels like there, there was no path to victory. It just feels like I haven't gotten there yet. I'll add to that, that I think I'm really bad at this game and watching myself play it. I didn't feel like Joe, where I was like, oh, I just gotta do this one thing. I was like, oh my goodness. I stink. You know, like, well, don't get me wrong. I felt like I stunk, but I felt like I knew what, what, what I was supposed to do. But I was going to say, I couldn't do it. Watching other people play the game, even you, it would, it would seem a little easier when I'm watching somebody help. For some reason when I'm in control, it's like, oh, that this is, this is bad.

35:23 But like, I don't know if it's like a controls thing or something, but watching another person play, I'm like, oh, why don't you just dodge them in? Yeah, I think it's because you aren't as focused on just like making sure you are where you want to be. You have the, you have the freedom to have your eyes wander across the screen. Yeah, and this game totally requires like nonstop focus.

35:40 Like you can't, you can't not pay attention. There might be a section where there aren't enemies spawning. It's like a nice little break, but just hit the pause button, you know? Exactly. All right. So we just got a couple more things to talk about here. We have to talk about Satan. He's the, excuse me, Sean. We have to talk Satan because he's the guy who kidnaps Princess Prin Prin.

36:05 And he's technically your last boss fight, but not really. Did anybody like, I don't care how you got to him, but did anybody try and fight Satan? No, I could not. I gave it a shot. And I, you know, I just said like, you know, let me just, you know, load up a save state that gets me right to Satan and see, you know, how hard is this boss battle? It's like the red devil on drugs, you know, it's real. And it's funny because like, this is another one where you watch someone else play and you're like, well, he's a little slow. And, you know, I could just keep going from left to right, back and forth, back and forth and have him chase me and attack when appropriate.

36:39 But you wish it was that easy, you know, like, like, again, I think Sean brought up earlier that there is like a weird thing with the jump in this game where it's not quite as perfect as Super Mario Brothers. Not bad by any means, but it is a little jank. Yeah, I would say I think you're giving it more credit than I even would. I think it's I think it's a on rails jump.

36:59 I think it's as stiff as as like an ice climber jump to me. I'm not going to put it there. Yeah. But I just think like it doesn't help you necessarily when you're trying to like fight a big boss and dodge his attacks and dodge itself. Exactly. You know, I'm I don't care for a lot of jumps in on the NES. This included. I don't think it's bad as ice climber, but I don't think it was a very great feeling jump. I'd say it's as good as Mario Brothers.

37:28 Mario Brothers. OK, OK, that's fair. I would put it up there. I think Mario Brothers is better than ice climbers. I guess we should do a definitive. We should do an article like the real jump sliding scale. That's funny. OK, so then you defeat Satan and it's over, right?

37:47 No, this room is an illusion. Oh, you know, and it's like, wait, what what's going on? And then you go back to the beginning and you have to defeat the whole game again. Right. Then just listen about that. If you didn't know. Right. I mean, I'm sure most of you knew, but if you didn't know by now, you beat this whole game. It's frustrating our game where you probably continued like 500 times. If you're lucky, that's low. And then you think you've beaten Satan and you're about to see Princess Prym Prym. But it's like, no, this room was just an illusion.

38:19 Come back again. In real life this time. Right. Who is so certain that like, oh, OK, I understand. I just need to do this one more time. Like who isn't certain? Who like like doesn't it seem like if I just go back to stage six, it would just be like this room is an illusion. Your daughter has been kidnapped again. Girlfriend. No, I'm princess. Oh, it's your girlfriend. Oh, you're talking about. No, it was daughter. I didn't play gumshoe. You're a knight. So you're not a prince, you know, so it's more like your girlfriend. So then, you know, you go through the whole game again. Right. Like like most normal people would do. They would just play the whole game again.

38:53 And then you get to Satan and you defeat him. And then instead of the room being an illusion, thank goodness. No, it's the final boss. OK. And he's like a giant Satan. Satan, except for he's not Satan. His name is Stan. Asteroth? Oh, OK. Yeah. Is that like a thing in lore? I feel like it's a thing because I hear that name, but I don't know. OK. Maybe they just have a lot of Ghosts and Goblins fans.

39:40 Asteroth is this gigantic devil who like wears like a big red suit. It's kind of funny. I actually think he looks ridiculous. He's got like this blue beard and stuff, too. It's like, all right, whatever, you know. Is it like a pinstripe suit? It's not a pinstripe suit. It's just like a solid red suit. OK. Anyway, I don't find him to be nearly as challenging as Satan. I loaded up a safe state just to fight him, too. And it's a pretty easy fight if you get the shield, I think.

40:04 That's why I was asking earlier if the shield does more damage because he didn't even take that many hits. I mean, don't get me wrong. He took more hits than any enemy in the game, but I would have thought it would have went on for like a long time. And I didn't feel that wrong. And it was kind of weird that I was able to defeat him after multiple attempts. But like Satan was just like impossible. Yeah. Taking a look at Asteroth right now, it kind of looks like a goofball. I wouldn't be that afraid. Right? Yeah. I don't know. He's not like the stuff of nightmares.

40:26 Yeah. So this is something I didn't notice while I played, but while we're recording, we're watching footage of of Ghosts and Goblins and I could be imagining it, but it looks like whoever it is on YouTube that's playing this is using the shield to block things. I think I did see that. You could you can block at least some like energy orbs or something.

40:49 Wow. So that's a game changer. I'm sure it doesn't help that much. I'm sure it helps. Every little bit helps. Exactly. And I'm sure that like that was doing something for me in the boss fight that I wasn't even noticing because I was just so worried about dodging stuff. But I think that's kind of cool that like the shield does something different. I would have liked for each item to be like unique enough. Unfortunately, most of them are just unique in a bad way.

41:10 You know, like what is the lance except for just a slower dagger? That's exactly that's exactly it. That's all it is. So I'm going to take some quick information from the Ghosts and Goblins wiki. Great. And it says that it does block projectiles in the NES version. In the Commodore 64 port. Which everybody cares about. Much contrary to the original one. The shield is a rather slow weapon which goes through enemies after hitting them so you can kill more than one enemy at a time. But it does not block any projectiles. I think I prefer the block. I prefer the block as well. It's more strategic. Yeah. Strategic.

41:46 So, you know, you beat Aceron and then like what happens next? It's like, nah, never mind. How about you just play the game again? You know, like just do it. Just keep doing this forever. And like that makes sense. You know, thankfully you are given like a, you know, congratulations. This is happy end.

42:04 Yeah. Sure. Okay. Like, you know, I couldn't even get like happy ending or this is a happy ending. But you see Arthur and Prin Prin and they're happy and stuff like that. So I'm happy. And then every loop after that, which I've only ever seen people get up to like loop seven, which is insane. I just want to throw that out there. Like, you guys don't understand how hard this is. Every loop gets like faster.

42:25 Enemies spawn quicker. They attack faster. It's like, it's like, what's going on? Like, how does this game continue to find a way to get harder? Like, it just doesn't seem right. I mean, maybe I'm not competitive enough. But if I, if I ever beat level six once, I'd be like, I'm, I'm good. Like, I'm done. I'm done here. I beat it. In my heart, I beat the game, even though I didn't come close to beating the game.

42:50 And I, I obviously didn't get to level six, but I knew that you would have to start the game over, but it didn't really dawn on me until just now that like within the story, they're telling you that what you did wasn't real. Yeah. Like that, like none of that was more obligated to be like, well, now I need to really do it. Even though it's exactly the same. So, uh, you know, that's pretty much ghosting goblins for me. Does anybody have straight thoughts?

43:20 You know, Joe's always good for some straight thoughts. I will say this. Watching Joe play this game was fun. You know, I, I like when I can watch someone play an older game and have a good time with it. That's like rare. I mean, like now there's Twitch and stuff like that, but you know, like watching it, if someone play an older game, it's like, no, I don't even want to play this myself. You know, like watching Joe play ghosting goblins was fun because he was, he was very determined to beat it. Yeah. It's always good to see, uh, that determination, right?

43:47 Determination to, even though I just said that I would be satisfied, satisfied with not completing it. We mentioned on the other episode that Fujiwara made, uh, commando. He made ghosting goblins. He'll go on to make mega man. So these are all very important games. And I definitely feel like ghosting goblins is a very important game just in like Nintendo history. Like forget about Capcom's history. It's kind of like, that's like a, you know, the original Nintendo hard game. It's also like referenced all the time by like pop culture is like, Oh, this is the hardest game. Like be, be careful and stuff like that. So I think, I mean, that's kind of cool, but ghosting goblins is also like a series. It's not just this one game.

44:23 Correct. Just wanted to see if anybody had anything to throw in there. Uh, I'll mention that, uh, after ghosts and goblins comes ghouls and ghosts. I don't know why they decided to change the order of things. Super ghouls and ghosts, right? Uh, no ghouls and ghosts first. Okay. Um, and the reason why you might jump ahead is because ghouls and ghosts never came to the NES or the SNES. It actually went to the Sega Genesis. Oh my God. Yeah. They, they, they took that route. Um, that's really strange of them, but it did eventually come to virtual console. So there is a way to play it on Nintendo platforms after ghouls and ghosts, then came super ghouls and ghosts, which I mean, I watched some videos of that with Joe.

45:02 I thought it looked really cool, Joe. Yeah. It looked, it looked aesthetically better than obviously even like a little bit like a remake of, um, ghosts and goblins a little bit. So I thought that was cool. And then there was like, they made these gargoyles quest games. That was a part of that's part. It's well, it's in the ghosts and goblins universe.

45:22 Apparently gargoyles quest. And I think those gargoyles quest, uh, I'll have to correct myself wrong here, but I'm pretty sure they're game boy games. I've played, no, the second one is NES. I've played that one. Gargoyles quest two. You mean? Yeah. Yes, it is an NES game. The first one is definitely a game boy game, but the second one. Wow. I remember that cover. Yeah. What year is gargoyles? I want to play that. 1992. Okay. Yeah. We got time. We got like 10 years before.

45:45 Uh, but then there was like a bunch of other Japanese games and then there's also demons crest, uh, which is a super Nintendo game. And these, these games are like, it's just weird that they're in that ghost and goblins like universe. Like there's a universe, like where's the animated series, you know, like the expanded us. I want to know more about this. So maybe there is a novelization show and we were joking earlier about me reading the book, but maybe there is. And then ultimately, um, and that's really funny. They use a choice of words accidentally, but ultimate ghost and goblins came out on the PSP in 2006. And that's just more of, again, ESP. That's just Capcom doing their thing though. You know, they're like, we've remade 1942.

46:22 We remade commando, you know, like in all these different spirits. And that's what ultimate ghost and goblins is. It's just basically like a re-imagining of the first game all over again. Fun. Why not? So, uh, with that, we've talked an awful lot about ghost and goblins. And I think we're going to see something interesting in our essential games list.

46:44 All right. It's the essential games list. And while we know that this game was pretty revered for its time, we're not talking about 1986 anymore. We're talking about 2018. You got a game like dark souls. Uh, you know, they just did that remastered edition not too long ago. So you can play that or go back and try ghost and goblins, but only if we think it's essential. Sean. Joe.

47:09 Nobody wants to touch it. No, no, no. I've got, I've got it. Um, I'll be honest. I did toy with the idea of making this an essential game. And then I thought, you know, I, I thought about the welfare of the players. The reason, the reasons that I want to make an essential game is first of all, the big reason is what I was saying before about being able to see your path to victory. I feel like that means that it's not impossible. And the fact that it's, that you can have basically unlimited respawns makes it feel like it's one of those experiences where it's very difficult, but you can try for a very long time to beat a level and eventually get, get good enough to beat it. Uh, and that's like a very satisfying feeling.

47:55 One huge thing that keeps it, that I've decided keeps it off the essential games list is that you can't, there's no save states. There's no battery. You can't save the game. So even though you can restart over and over again, it's only for as long as you keep your NES running.

48:11 Um, so that's a, that's a big factor. Like, I feel like I would have, as a kid, maybe played this over and over again, trying to, you know, uh, trying to progress. So maybe over months I would have been like, I'll play this, I'll play level four for a month until I beat it. Like over and over again, you know, I may be playing with a friend or something like that. Um, that coupled with the fact that there are a lot of, a lot of things in there that I feel like weren't fleshed out. Like there are all these collective objects, these weapons you can collect that don't matter. They're like pointless seeming objects that you pick up. I'm not sure what, what some of them even do. The ones that look like armor, they just give you points.

48:48 Yeah. Um, so those I think could have been fleshed out more. So that's another little thing that keeps it off. But I was close. I was close to putting it on the essential games list. Sorry. I'm, I'm rambling a bit. You're fine. We love rambles. Sean, would you like to ramble for us? I'll ramble for a bit.

49:04 Um, I'm, I'm also kind of of two minds on this because I do not enjoy playing this game. Uh, and I think that's kind of what this is about. We always have these, uh, we always struggle with the, uh, with the soul of the essential games list. It is what you make it. I know it is what you make it. And, but because I don't enjoy this game, I should enjoy this game because I do like difficulty for difficulty's sake, but I don't know if I can, the difficult games of today are, they still have a lot more, um, margin of error. I think that you can, you can still get hit a couple of times and it'll really, it'll really put you behind, but you can rally back.

49:54 But I think just with how little, um, how little wiggle room you get in that makes this much less enjoyable to play for me. Uh, I think that if there was more of like that telegraphing, I would, I would think that the, the enemy design was a bit better, but there's also the, the reputation of this game to take into account.

50:20 But ultimately, because I, I can't enjoy this game to the amount that I think I should, and this is a very personal struggle that I'm having. So maybe our listeners won't really understand why I feel so, so torn right now, but I can't make this an essential game simply because I wasn't having all that much fun. But I think what you're saying also kind of makes sense is that you're a guy that loves really difficult games and this is a really difficult game and you didn't enjoy it, which means like maybe it's doing some other things wrong. Like I think so too. And I'm just having trouble, uh, articulating it at the moment.

50:58 And I think that's what I'm going to get at here. Uh, I think that for me, this game has a lot of like credibility to be added to this list, but it's, it's a few steps back. It's, it's for me, maybe the closest I've ever come to voting a game into the essential games list. I really thought about it and I was like, well, you know, after like playing it for like five, six hours, you know, you start to realize like, oh, I could beat the first level, you know, and you, and you think about that and it's like, that's kind of a cool experience, but who can be asked to do that in 2018 today? And it's not even so much about how hard the game is.

51:37 I think it's more to what Joe was getting to that. It's just a couple steps away from like what's still considered a good game. There's just some, there's some problems here in the design of the game and like the way that like sometimes the torch, which is honestly the worst weapon is just like unavoidable. Like it just spawns on the staircase that takes you down to the next thing. And now you have to actually know where to not go to get it to spawn. Like that's not good game. It's the idea that you have to like beat the game twice to see the true ending.

52:08 It's like, it's small things like that, that I mean, video games today still do stuff like that, but that doesn't mean that I think they're, they're essential either. I think that ultimately what it comes down to is while this game is really hard, but rewarding when you get it through, it's also sometimes really hard for reasons that aren't necessarily like great.

52:27 Exactly. You know, I don't think that the platforming needed to be an extra obstacle. I think it should have been like, especially think about if you're like a little kid, right? It was like, you know, terrible motor reflex as it is. How are you going to have like a good time with this game? You know, and like, yeah, we're not talking to kids right now. We're talking to people who are really interested in old video games.

52:47 And I don't think any of us is saying like, don't try this, but don't be surprised if you can only play this game for five minutes, you know, like you'd be like, oh my God, I can't believe how fast I'm dying. I'm never going to get anywhere. I want to stop. You got to give it time. You know, you gotta, you got to really sink in time to this game because I remember when we were first starting to test this one out, I kind of told everybody, I was like, look, you might be discouraged right away after like 30 minutes of playing thinking I'm never going to get past stage one, but it's going to be worth it when you continue to play this game because you'll start to learn the patterns and the behaviors and get past that first stage.

53:21 Unfortunately, I just don't think like that alone is like a rewarding enough experience to put this on the essential games list. So I'm at a, I'm at a no, but I would definitely say if what we've been talking about for the last 50 minutes has been interesting, you like get out there and, you know, play this, play it on NES. Yes. It's interesting playing it on the NES. I mean, the arcade is just as good, but I think you'll find a copy of the NES pretty easily. And I think it's worth a shot.

53:51 Yeah, I'd say, I would say to play it. And it's hard to think of such a, of a game that we have, we clearly see so much value in, but it also has so many demerits that like, we are telling you to play this game, even though it's not essential. I just think that, you know, it's not even that things have done it better. That's never, that's for me, that's never even like a consideration. I think it's more like, is the game still like worth playing today? And I just think like, I don't know, we've come a lot further in game design and, you know, like, like just even, even the ridiculous like asks of this game. It's like, I just don't know. I think they're asking a little too much.

54:35 So I'm out. Anything else you want to say before I throw it out? All right. I'm throwing out. Go for it now. Yes. Goodbye. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'll probably never beat Ghost and Goblins. If I ever do, you better believe I'm going to mention it on this podcast, but I don't think it's going to happen. Definitely not in one sitting. But in the meantime, that's all we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Gradius or Gradius or however you want to say it. I think it's Gradius, but I'm pretty sure the Wikipedia tried to tell me it's Gradius. So you know what? You'll find out in the next episode because I'll definitely say it right by then. Right? Chubby Cherub?

55:13 Anyway, I'm Michael Espinosa. You can find me on Espinosa Film on Twitter. Nostalgia Cast has a website. It's called www.nostalgiacast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-C-A-C-T-O-T-C-O-M. Please subscribe everywhere on the website. As fast as you can. Please subscribe fast. And if you like the show, you know, let us know.

55:30 Contact at NostalgiaCast.com. That's contact at NostalgiaCast.com. We'd love to hear from you guys. Every now and again, I will hear from someone. I just want you guys to know that really brightens my day. It makes me feel like what we're doing here is worth it. But I'll tell you one thing that's worth it. Ghosts and Goblins? No, because it's not in the essential list. But it is. It's worth something. It was worth my time. That's all, guys. Thanks for listening.

56:14 good good good good good!!!! good