Diehard GameFan 'Graveyard" segment on Ghouls 'n Ghosts

[SGX Engine]

Edit:  May this never get 'lost' again. It was a real b*tch trying to find it, with almost no good clues online as to what issue it was in.

Edit: And just to have it all in one place, the rest of GameFan's SuperGrafx - Graveyard articles.

[Punch]

Guy predicted the swarm of "remastered" games and sequels we're getting nowadays.

[xelement5x]

Guy predicted the swarm of "remastered" games and sequels we're getting nowadays.

Man, you're right.  That last line is pretty prescient considering how many game have been re-mastered/re-designed/re-released at this point.

[Black Tiger]

Guy predicted the swarm of "remastered" games and sequels we're getting nowadays.

Gamefan did a multi-page spread on an unofficial "remastered" Ghosts 'n Goblins that the developer hoped to sell to Capcom. That got them threats of legal action much sooner than they inevitably would have anyway. One of the many ways Gamefan pissed off major publishers.

[Punch]

One of the many ways Gamefan pissed off major publishers.

College Football 96, never forget. Also wasn't the RE2 beta that famously got bootleg HK pressings a leak by someone at GameFan too? I don't remember the story exactly but I do know that they never got preview copies from Capcom ever again.

[Black Tiger]

Dave Halverson also loved to whine in every Working Designs review how they don't get review copies anymore since they "only gave Lunar EB a score of 94" or something. Vic has said that he was pissed because they reviewed the game without actually playing through it.

I didn't have regular access to Gamefan until the launch of the 32-bit generation, but I've since picked up a lot of 16-bit era issues. Tge reviews back then were hilariously bad and read like modern forums like nintendoage or NeoGAF.

They bragged about how hardcore they were for importing PC Engine games, but were extremely biased against them and their misunderstanding of how games and hardware worked or what they were actually experiencing was that much worse than during later generations.

[SGX Engine]

Guy predicted the swarm of "remastered" games and sequels we're getting nowadays.

Gamefan did a multi-page spread on an unofficial "remastered" Ghosts 'n Goblins that the developer hoped to sell to Capcom. That got them threats of legal action much sooner than they inevitably would have anyway. One of the many ways Gamefan pissed off major publishers.

Any idea what issue that might been from?  I think I do remember that unofficial 'remastered" Ghosts 'n Goblins game -- it was by Retro FX Studios.

Edit: I found the GameFan spread.

From Volume 08 issue 01 - January 2000.







Then, there is this fan game, Ghosts 'n Demons, which is obviously much more recent.


Pretty neat. I want to play it.

There's also Maldita Castilla on PC and Xbox.


I dunno, I think I prefer the look of Ghosts 'n Demons a lot more.

Have you noticed that virtually all of these remakes, fan/indie games (released or not) have tried to re-imagine Ghosts 'n Goblins, but never its sequel Daimakaimura - Ghouls 'n Ghosts?  Even the official Capcom PSP game, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins from years back, felt more like the first game than the sequel.  The only game that even attempted to put in some stuff from Daimakaimura was Capcom's arranged version of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the Game Boy Advance (Chohmakaimura R).

What I would like to see is a proper remake of the arcade Daimakaimura in high quality 2D artwork, on the level of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap.

[Black Tiger]

Daimakaimura looked very un-Makaimura-like and felt like some random outsourced team made it. Although I've been lucky to live in hardcore gaming areas all my life, I've yet to see a Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade in person. So when it came out for Genesis, I was disappointed thinking that Sega licensed out the brand and slapped together a GnG follow up that was so far off the mark.

It's close to being a special game, but needs tweaks to some of the randomness and misc stage design and a complete aesthetic overhaul. I'd love to play a polished reimagining with good versions of the better elements mixed in with authentic feeling GnG visuals, faster balanced gameplay and proper GnG music.

The Mega Drive version of Daimakaimura is my favorite, as it fixes much of the gameplay issues and is the most fun to play.

Chomakaimura had more of an arcade-Capcom and Makaimura look to it and the base gameplay taken out of context feels much more true to the original. But it's also a mixed bag and the tedius parts totally break the GnG flow.

Makaimura is fast and steady and fluid. It has beats and is paced well like Wonderboy. Each small section of each stage feels like its own place and you memorize the feel of them without trying. Each little stretch is satisfying to pass and the music matches the pace and drives you along.

Wardner is the closest any game has come to matching the more satisfying core elements and feel of Ghosts 'n Goblins, while actually being much slower and methodical and a signature feel of its own. Each tiny stretch is memorable and satisfying, the music is absolutely perfect and matches the game and a handful of stages also feels more substantial and a world of its own compared to most games.

The one thing I don't like about both Ghosts 'n Goblins and Wardner is that you get punished at the end of the game if you don't end up with the right weapon along the way.

[SGX Engine]

Daimakaimura looked very un-Makaimura-like and felt like some random outsourced team made it. Although I've been lucky to live in hardcore gaming areas all my life, I've yet to see a Ghouls 'n Ghosts arcade in person. So when it came out for Genesis, I was disappointed thinking that Sega licensed out the brand and slapped together a GnG follow up that was so far off the mark.

It's close to being a special game, but needs tweaks to some of the randomness and misc stage design and a complete aesthetic overhaul. I'd love to play a polished reimagining with good versions of the better elements mixed in with authentic feeling GnG visuals, faster balanced gameplay and proper GnG music.

The Mega Drive version of Daimakaimura is my favorite, as it fixes much of the gameplay issues and is the most fun to play.

Chomakaimura had more of an arcade-Capcom and Makaimura look to it and the base gameplay taken out of context feels much more true to the original. But it's also a mixed bag and the tedius parts totally break the GnG flow.

Makaimura is fast and steady and fluid. It has beats and is paced well like Wonderboy. Each small section of each stage feels like its own place and you memorize the feel of them without trying. Each little stretch is satisfying to pass and the music matches the pace and drives you along.

Wardner is the closest any game has come to matching the more satisfying core elements and feel of Ghosts 'n Goblins, while actually being much slower and methodical and a signature feel of its own. Each tiny stretch is memorable and satisfying, the music is absolutely perfect and matches the game and a handful of stages also feels more substantial and a world of its own compared to most games.

The one thing I don't like about both Ghosts 'n Goblins and Wardner is that you get punished at the end of the game if you don't end up with the right weapon along the way.

Black Tiger, I have a somewhat different take -- Maybe only because Daimakaimura (Ghouls 'n Ghosts) was the first game in the series I played.  I experienced the Genesis version first, in early 1990.  Then towards the end of that summer, I saw and played the arcade version at a Six Flags, which had multiple small arcades all over the theme park. I was pretty astonished had how much better it looked. Around the same time I saw EGM's coverage of the SuperGrafx port. 









But the main point I wanted to make was, Daimakaimura / Ghouls 'n Ghosts was made as a direct sequel by Capcom Hapan in 1988. The second game for their CPS-1 hardware (the first being Forgotten Worlds). Most people felt it was a very worthy successor to Ghosts 'n Goblins, featuring fastastic 16-bit arcade graphics and faster gameplay.  I do understand how it's somewhat different in play style than Makaimura / Ghosts 'n Goblins, a game I didn't play until many years later via MAME (and the NES version).

Chomakaimura / Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the SFC/SNES to me seemed more like a direct-to-home console sequel. I remember EGM first revealed it as Ghouls n' Ghosts 3 in late 1990. It was a prototype and had many graphical differences from the final game.







Anyway, your feeling about Daimakaimura vs Makaimura are all valid. I think it really comes down to what game one played first in earlier years of life.

Finally, 1CC play through of both Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts at the Galloping Ghost Arcade near Chicago.