A knight's tale

The first two things most long-time gamers relate to the Ghosts series are the protagonist's penchant for running around in his boxer shorts and the extreme difficulty level, not necessarily in that order. If ever a game deserved the "Expert" classification, this is it. Only the most determined will see the ending screen, and only the doggedly resolute will even want to try.

The story follows brave Arthur as he descends through various dreary locales into the bowels of the earth to save his beloved Lady Prin Prin. Arthur wields a number of different weapons along the way, though only a couple are valuable for general usage. His armor completely falls apart at the slightest contact with enemies or their projectiles, leaving our poor knight one hit away from being reduced to a heap of dry bones. (Boy, entropy works fast in the Demon Village, doesn't it?)

The action starts in a cemetery, moments after the fair maiden is abducted by the minions of Satan. You quickly realize that Arthur cannot shoot upwards (although he could in the arcade version), nor are his jumps easy to control. He prefers to vault with all his might where a simple hop would have been more advisable. Once he is in the air, the only options are landing or double-jumping. There is no pulling back to stop short, and many, many times, you will find yourself hurtling into an enemy shot or zombie with little to do about it. Worse, yet, getting hit propels the hapless hero in a backwards arc, sometimes straight into a bubbling pit of lava or some other hazard.

The jump mechanics are part of the character of the game, though, and help make Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts what it is. The desperate all-or-nothing bounds over gravestones and across chasms define the experience. You judge the distance and safety, you leap, you decide whether a mid-air jump is in order, then you wait for the parabolic plunge to end. If you played your cards correctly, you will live to throw another lance.

Speaking of lances, those are the missiles you start out with, but not usually the ones you'll want to stick with. Daggers have the same trajectory, but fire much more rapidly. Arrows fire forward and up-forward, while other armaments take curved paths. Weapons can be powered up twice by equipping one of the two special armors in the game. Put on the bronze and you have a souped-up version of your original item. Don the gold and you get that plus a charge attack that is not directly related to the nature of the weapon. For example, the arrow power reveals hidden objects and the dagger power releases a serpentine dragon.

Training kids to hate, since 1985

You'll need all the fancy armor and weapon effects you can get, because this is one of the most difficult games you will likely ever play. As mentioned, the armor is only good for one hit and most of the projectiles aren't terribly useful to beginners (or even to experts). Using the charge weapon will cause Arthur to stop and pose triumphantly, but wouldn't you know it, enemies are rarely intimidated by this, and will gladly tear him to shreds the millisecond he snaps back to normal.

The AI is deceptively sophisticated. Whereas a lot of games will shoot where your character is currently standing, in GNG Arthur's predictable jump paths make it easy to shoot where he will be in a second. So you get situations like this:

Being chased by an undead peon, you run to the edge of a platform, intending to hop to a small island in front of you. Just after you leave the ground, an enemy on the edge of the screen shoots at the island. So now you are in the middle of an Olympic vault with certain death at the end of the rainbow. If you do a double-jump forward, you meet nothing but water, while a double-jump back delivers you straight into the outstretched arms of the living dead.

There is a four-word phrase custom-made for situations like this, the first word of which you will scream time and time and time again as you play this game. (The fourth word is "luck," for you squeaky-clean types who need more of a hint.)

The levels are fairly long, with each divided in two. Lose a life anywhere in the first half of a stage, and you will be forced to go all the way back to the beginning. If you survive to the mid-level checkpoint, you continue from there. There's a spoiler coming, but I will forge ahead with it a) because it is common knowledge among anyone who's read about or had experience with the series, and b) because it is central to a discussion of the difficulty, which is in turn fundamental to any discussion of the game. It's not a major point at all, akin to telling you that there are eight worlds in Super Mario Bros.

Once you get to the end, it's time to do it all over again.

Picture this: over the course of dozens of bus rides and lunch breaks, after playing parts of some levels scores of times, you finally clamber up the steps to face what you hope is the final boss. You defeat him - maybe on your first try, but probably not - only to be told that there was a certain requirement you needed to meet to progress to the true final fight. Worse yet, it was a requirement you had in your hands earlier in the game, but let go. Worse still, you are sent back to the beginning of the game to meet the requirement. Yep, not just one extra battle, but all of them, all over again!

It happened in Ghosts 'N Goblins, but at least then it was attributed to Satan's guile. This time, you are made to think that if you had just made one choice differently, you could have avoided the Herculean task of repeating all the levels. Now, I don't know if there would have been another excuse to send me back had I met the requirement. Maybe the game would have thrown some other loophole at me. But, sometimes the worst part is not knowing. It's akin to knocking out the world champion, then being told, "Nice practice run, kid. See you next month in Vegas for the real match. Of course, if you had put him away with a left jab instead of a right cross, you would have been swimming in champagne with starlets tonight."

One more thing: the game is even more difficult on the second run-through. Yes. Feel that? That's the sweet burn of undirected hate. Not at the game, not at yourself, not at anything in particular.

What's new, Lucifer?

Besides the Super NES version, there is an alternative called "Arrange Mode." This starts out like the main game, albeit at a ramped-up difficulty. The difference is that each stage branches out in three directions, which become available depending on which armor Arthur is or is not wearing at the conclusion of the level. Of course, it is tricky enough beating some levels at all, let alone making it through with the golden plate. The reward is accessing stages from some of the other titles in the series, including the arcade and Genesis revisions.

The additional levels are a terrific treat, but after beating the main mode twice, or even once, it's a bit much to be asked to trash a testosterone-infused version of Level One all over again then play all subsequent levels like a god in order to see the only significant extras. This system seems pretty artificial as a method of adding to the game's lasting power.

Besides the Arrange levels, there is nothing new - that I've found - in this version, a fact which isn't bad in and of itself, since GNG is one of the great classics. If you want a title that will give you an epic fight before it bows to you, pick this up right away. The feelings of frustration will give ways to cries of triumph, and there are few thrills in video gaming as rewarding as dusting the real final boss in a Ghosts game. Struggle through the flames to glory or stick to an easy and undistinguished path - just as it was with Arthur, the choice is yours to make.