Analyzing a Pre-1990 game: Ghosts'n Goblins

Publisher: Capcom Platform: Arcade and NES (Nintendo Entertainment system) Release Date: 9/19/1985 (Arcade) 1986 (NES) Genre: Platform A lot of games from this era are before my time, but one is near and dear, with a little indigestion to my heart, Capcom’s Ghosts’n Goblins. I spent my young days after school dying, and dying, dying on my NES with a bit masochistic glee, and to my surprise I found out people also enjoyed being owned by a game, just on the first level (Crazy, I know). Well this weekend, I decided to indulge myself in that pain I used to know and love.

As I played the first level, I’ve chosen to examine the Ghost n Gobins on the virtual console on the Wii, one, because I no longer have the NES, and two, the virtual console is a good representation on the original arcade version. As common for arcade games in the 80’s the game composed of bleeps and bloops, also the same song was looped over and over again, until you changed levels then again at 3.0 MHz there wasn’t much you could do with technology at the time. The graphics like the sound was simple, I was met a graveyard level, full of black, with main character (Arthur) and pixelated members of the unholy.

The music was composed by Ayako Mori, who was also responsible for soundtracks in later Capcom games, Resident Evil 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3. The bleeps are Arthur throwing his lances, the bloops are enemies dying and Arthur collecting prizes. There are no sounds for jumping, and no sounds for mimicking voices, just blips and bloops. Despite it’s lack of sound, Ghost’n Goblins is one of the most beloved games of all time.