The charismatic Sir Arthur puts the armor back on after years in oblivion with one of his best and most challenging adventures.
It is not every day that we are lucky enough to be able to celebrate the launch of a new Ghosts’ n Goblins , one of Capcom’s most veteran and iconic sagas . So much so that 15 years have already passed since its last installment, the excellent Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins for PSP (let us omit the existence of the two Ghosts’ n Goblins Gold Knights for mobile), so we could hardly be more happy when The company announced the imminent premiere of Ghosts’ n Goblins Resurrection during The Game Awards 2020 gala , a game that we finally have in our hands and that is a lesson in how to resurrect a great classic .
Pure Ghosts’ n Goblins in the best possible sense
So, the first thing you have to know is that this is a completely new game that closely follows the formula and the usual narrative of the series. In other words, it is a 2D action and platform adventure in which we will have to accompany the brave knight Sir Arthur through a series of linear levels with the aim of defeating the king of demons and saving our beloved.
Having to rescue our beloved is all the excuse we need to get back to work in our fight against demons.
To do this, we will have to jump, avoid countless traps and face a huge number of enemies while trying to dodge their attacks , something that at the controls translates into a very accessible gameplay that only requires two buttons, one jump and the other to attack, as well as having the possibility to crouch down and fire our weapons up or down.
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Everything is incredibly faithful to the purest essence of the saga and not even five seconds will pass without a chill of pure nostalgia going through us when we start to play, some fantastic initial impressions that we assure you are confirmed as we progress and pass the hours. This is probably one of its greatest merits, since it is an old school game that clings to its roots to offer us in the middle of 2021 the kind of arcade experience that any fan of the saga could expect from a Ghosts’ n Goblins, something that seems very important to us and that ironically represents a breath of fresh air in a world that has changed its design philosophy and its way of understanding video games since that distant 1985 when the series debuted in arcades for the first time time.
The fearsome bosses
Obviously, at the end of each level a powerful boss awaits us ready to tear us apart. Almost all of them are old acquaintances, although the battles have been completely redesigned to make them much more spectacular and exciting now, with numerous phases and patterns that we will have to learn. Most of these fights have enchanted us, although there are a few that lower the bar a bit and have been a very slight disappointment. Fortunately, the latter are the least.
However, you can’t live on nostalgia alone, and Resurrection is much more than simply evoking the classics, as it also sets out to surpass them in every way imaginable . It is noted that Tokuro Fujiwara , the creator of the series, has played an important role in its development and knows his own creation better than anyone, so he has been able to identify all its strengths to empower them to the nth degree.
Perhaps one of the things that surprised us most at first was its exquisite controls, very polished and precise to the point of saying enough , something very important in a game like this in which reflexes and timing are everything. Yes, we still cannot correct the trajectory of our jumps once we have taken off from the ground, but that is already one of the hallmarks of the series that we have to get used to. Also noteworthy is how perfectly programmed the collision boxes are: there is not a single impact that is not clearly seen that has occurred, so you will always be able to discern what exactly has killed you, dodge projectiles by a millimeter and even hit enemies aiming at the edges of its contours.
In the variety is the spice
But if there is something that has conquered us in this new installment, it is its level design, simply and simply spectacular . Most of them are inspired by phases that we already knew in both Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Ghouls’ n Ghosts , so you will see many sections that will be very familiar to you, although the approach of all of them has been completely changed to create new challenges and challenges that we will have to overcome. There are many surprises awaiting you and we assure you that you will be caught off guard on many occasions.
Challenges of all kinds await us. A tip for this phase: do not attack the eyes of the walls.
One of the things that we liked the most is how handcrafted they are in their design : each inch of the stage is something completely unique and different from the rest with meticulously placed enemies and traps that have a meaning and a reason to be placed that way. This translates into an incredibly varied and intense development that does not stop throwing new ideas, challenges and obstacles in our faces that we must adapt to if we want to overcome them, preventing us from getting comfortable or relaxing for a single second. As soon as we will be “platform” in the dark than the next moment riding on dragons or surviving in an elevator while enemies besiege us from all directions, and all this in just a minute and a half of play. A single phase has so many different sections and its own mechanics that they are never repeated again that it is difficult to count them with the fingers of the hands, which will allow you to get an idea of the “great work” that has been carried out.
Another detail that we really liked is how tremendously replayable each and every one of them are thanks to the inclusion of a multitude of secrets and collectibles in the form of chests, hidden rooms and fairies that will allow us to unlock passive spells and improvements in a tree of skills, thus inviting us to explore them well and comb all their corners thoroughly.
During the first bars we will have several routes to choose from. The upper levels are inspired by ‘Ghosts’ n Goblins ‘and the lower levels by’ Ghouls ‘n Ghosts’.
Perhaps the fact that we have mentioned a skill tree has made you raise your eyebrow, but it is a very light progression system that works wonderfully and with which we can obtain more tools to defend ourselves, something that the level design itself has take into account when posing their challenges , so surviving their challenges without the help of certain magic is incredibly difficult. To cast a spell, all we have to do is hold down the attack button to load it, while if we want to use a spell again we will have to wait a while for our powers to recharge.. As you can see, a very simple and accessible mechanic that gives an extra depth and strategy to the formula. A very interesting detail is that we can redistribute our skill points whenever we want, thus giving us a lot of flexibility when it comes to experimenting and designing specific strategies to overcome each level.
A legendary difficulty
Of course, this would not be a Ghosts’ n Goblins without a challenge capable of breaking the will of even the most patient and skilled players, something that we assure you will not miss the appointment. In fact, we now have four different difficulty levels and the game welcomes us with the highest preselected by default , a statement of intent that makes it clear that most of us come here to push ourselves to the limit and show that, by far that we die, in the end we will be able to move forward and overcome any challenge that we face.
We are not exaggerating if we say that we have been on the verge of insanity playing in Legend, but it has been an enormously rewarding experience that has forced us to play perfectly.
This difficulty, named Legend, is the purest and true to the Ghost ‘n Goblins original , so you can expect an abusive amount of enemies on screen and placing traps and obstacles with a lot of bad blood. In addition, the armor will only last us one hit before we get into our underpants and there are hardly any control points throughout the phases (one in the middle and one before the shift boss). We have played this way and in the process of reaching the end we assure you that we have lost several years of life with deaths that number in the hundreds, but the game is so incredibly well designed that, practically without realizing it, it managed to keep us hooked wanting try again and again.
The feeling of satisfaction that comes from seeing how you go further and further, attempt after attempt, until you finally reach your goal, reach the next checkpoint and defeat that boss who has given you so many headaches is indescribable. It is a game that will make you suffer a lot if you accept its ultimate challenge, but we assure you that it is something enormously rewarding that is well worth the effort , as few games achieve it in the way that a good Ghosts’ n Goblins does .
A lightweight, well-integrated progression system
The skill tree offers us improvements of all kinds, such as being able to keep more than one weapon and switch between them, cast a spell that petrifies the enemies on the screen and even have the possibility of resurrecting if they kill us. Of course, reaching the best magic and passives is something that we will not achieve until practically the second round and that is counting on us to explore each level well.
As for the other difficulties, probably the most balanced and the most recommended for the vast majority of players is the third one, Knight , since it will allow you to access all the contents of the game (the lowest two only allow us to see a small part of them) and knows how to test us at all times, although he makes more concessions so as not to punish our mistakes so much and give us a minimum margin of error that is a world of difference with respect to Legend, such as the fact that the armor lasts us two hits or we have quite a few more control points. For the rest, the more you lower the difficulty, the more your armor will resist, the fewer enemies there will be and the more helps of different types you will have .
In the end, they are options for each player to find the type of experience they want and that best suits their tastes and needs , although we believe that everything that goes down from Legend makes the essence of the saga dissolve, losing itself by the I walk part of what makes it so special and that has endured to this day in the memory of so many players.
Fighting in cooperative
There is a strange cooperative mode in which a second player can alternate between three different spirits to build platforms, protect us or even take us flying. It’s not much fun and it makes things a lot easier. Obviously, this option will only be available locally.
Therefore, it is practically impossible for us to calculate the duration of the game . Overcoming a level at once and without dying is something that should hardly take us about 7 minutes, but this is practically utopian in our first game and depending on the chosen difficulty and the skill of each player, the duration of each phase varies a lot. What we can confirm is that it has a lot of content.
The number of levels is not that it is overwhelmingly extensive, although as in all Ghosts’ n Goblins , if we want to see the true ending we will have to overcome a second round much more difficult than the first by completing the dark versions of each screen, where we will find new mechanics and enemies that make their development completely different . Add to it how replayable they are if we want to find all its secrets and some alternative modes to increase the speed of the game, and you will have a very complete title that will last you many hours if you want to get the most out of it. Plus, it has a built-in achievement system .
A nice illustrated story
At the graphic level, it is not far behind, presenting us with a beautiful world that has been recreated as if it were a moving illustration of a fairy tale , something that gives it a very strong visual personality and that works wonderfully both with the type of game that it’s like the tone of your universe. Don’t expect great technical flourishes, but it does so well artistically and is capable of moving so many elements on the screen without the slightest hesitation that we could not have been more satisfied with the final result. Plus, it looks and moves great on both laptop and desktop, with very clean and sharp image quality .
Visually, it seems like a beautiful game.
The soundtrack also leaves us with a selection of songs that is a real gift for fans , combining new remixes of the melodies that we all know with new compositions that perfectly capture what the music of the saga should be. The same can be said of the effects, although you do not expect dubbing of any kind.
Conclusions
Ghosts’ n Goblins Resurrection is, without a doubt, the best installment that the saga has left us in its more than 35 years of life . An ode to the veteran Capcom series that embraces its classic formula to leave us with a brutally challenging, intense, highly varied, replayable, very complete adventure with an exemplary level design and exquisite gameplay. It is a title that is no longer made and that understands this hobby in its purest and most honest conception , something that we missed a lot and that has suddenly returned us to a time when with only two buttons, a good playable base, a great challenge and a charismatic gentleman in his underpants was enough for us to be happy with a video game.
