Ghouls ‘n Ghosts: Terrifyingly difficult?

In a nutshell… yes, it’s very hard. Too hard.

When discussing games apt for Halloween we jumped on Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Surely this was one of the best Sega Megadrive games from our youth. An arcade port that would survive the test of time we thought.

At the time it was the best game for the Mega Drive, far better than contemporaries such as Altered Beast (less said of that the better). It was full of big, fast, colourful sprites, epic music, and fun power ups. Take control of Arthur as you run and jump your way to rescuing the princess. Throw an infinite number of lances to destroy enemies before they destroy you.

It must have been fun back then. But now… let’s just say I found playing it today extremely frustrating and very, very hard.

I can’t play it without thinking – why didn’t they make it easier to play? Yes, I know it was an arcade game port, and that’s how arcade games made their money, killing your character off so you need to pay more to continue. However, I can’t help but feel they could have made it that little bit easier, and that could have made them even more money. Now I’m left wondering how the developers and publishers monitored how each arcade game did financially and how that helped evolve game difficulty for both home consoles and arcade games.

Listen to Phil and I struggle to remember the game before playing it anew and then lament that we did.