I used to have some trouble differentiating this and Ghouls n' Ghosts because last year I played them about two months apart, so this time around I decided on playing them back to back.

What I took away from it this time is that Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is a lot harder, and a lot slower. Not just due to SNES slowdown, the levels are generally just a lot slower paced, especially with the autoscrollers. It's easily noticeable even without playing the two games; if you look around for speedruns you'll notice Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is twice as long. I personally think the shorter, snappier levels of GnG fit the playstyle of the series a lot better.

Weapons also aren't too great this time around. GnG has a more well-rounded selection that will occasionally have better weapons for better situations, but in Super it's best to just stick to the knife whenever you can. Even with the upgraded armor and the upgraded weapons that come with it, the knife is far more useful than the others. A lot like Goblins in that regard except this game doesn't suck ass lmao.

The fucking princess' three sizes are listed during the curtain call before the credits for some reason. I don't know what that was all about but me and the friends I was calling were joking around about it when we eventually discovered it's the same measurements that Chun Li has. Wacky stuff.

Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts are both very solid, but I think the former sets a bar that Super doesn't quite reach when you compare the two. I'd probably recommend both, but if you wanted just one I'd probably never tell you to play Super first.

Me da igual si es o no un clásico. Enemigos mal posicionados e infinitamente espameables, horrible manejo de saltos, las armaduras parecen ser inútiles porque siempre tienes solo dos toques con cada vida por más que se vayan mejorando, prácticamente debes ser invicto en cada nivel y hay más trampas en los niveles para hacer perder. Para sacar el verdadero final hay que volver a pasar todo el juego y el arma final que te obligan a usar es una cosa horrible.
No está mal tener juegos con dificultad elevada y desafiante, pero una cosa es eso y otra sacar algo super frustrante que está hecho adrede para ser lo más injusto y despreciable posible, he probado títulos desafiantes como algunos primeros Castlevania o mega man y saben equilibrar mucho mejor su dificultad.

Vibed with it but not enough to do the 2nd loop, sorry gang

The double-jump is a vehicle to more platformer-focused design and I don't prefer it to the more action-y approach of Ghouls. Dying and retrying is the name of Arthur's game, but what makes retrying addicting in Ghouls is the higher priority on dense enemy waves with fluctuating behavioral patterns. Everything is the same each run but the way some things react becomes variable, making replays still feel fresh. Didn't get that same feeling here.

Super also has a decent lot of auto-ish sections, and while they weren't bad, they don't let you demonstrate what you learned from the 1st loop the same way you could in an action-focused excursion.

On the flipside, the platforming is well-integrated into Capcom's environmental direction. There's a ton of terraforming and shifting biomes that both demonstrate the SNES' background control capabilities and add a breathing pulse to the world. I ascertain Ghosts 'n' Goblins is a comedy of errors where you're a weakling at the wits of a sinister power, and that feeling is doubly reinforced when the environment is equally hostile as the enemies terrorizing you - a sordid stageplay you've been dragged to against your whims. Reminds me of the early Bimbo cartoons like 'Swing You Sinners'.

Good launch era shit and meaningfully-distinct from Ghouls, even if I didn't like it as much.

All three Ghost and Goblins games I've finished have tightly designed set pieces even though the difficulty is through the roof, which lends it a bit of personality and diversity which wouldn't be found in traditionally segmented levels. However they all suffer the same problem: you have to beat them twice to reach the ending. These old games and their need of unnecesary padding, my god.

Also give me back the multidirectional aiming of the previous entry instead of the double jump feature, thank you very much.

I don't have much experience with Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and there's an obvious reason for that. Because the series's whole point is as a masochist game. Entirely possible to master with weeks of practice, but that's assuming you have those weeks to spare and wouldn't rather save state your way through.

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, is in many ways like the NES game, but this time around, it doesn't feel like shit to play. The controls are still limited in the same ways, but at least they feel a lot smoother this time around, and wrapped around a pretty stellar presentation. The production value has seen an immense jump in quality, and is full of neat memorable setpieces to have each of the game's 8 levels stick out.

So the problem isn't the controls, or the graphics. It's everything else. At its core, it's still a very relentless and punishing game, where the brave knight Arthur with his full set of metal-plate armor feels about as fragile as my patience when I attempt this game fair and square. But perhaps wording this as a "problem" isn't quite right, it's obvious that there is a particular niche for this sort of game, and I fall heavily out of it. More than Ninja Gaiden, more than Contra, Ghouls 'n Ghosts is an extreme challenge designed for the extreme sorts.

Also, listen, this may be a hot take, but making me play the game twice to get the true ending is a serious kiss-my-ass moment. I'm not doing that. Nobody should have to do that. The series making this a staple of the franchise, no. No, don't do that. You're already asking too much as is.

It's kinda crazy what designing a game for home consoles first does for overall game design, because Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is far and away the most well designed, consistently good game in the franchise thus far. Levels are longer, more varied, and Arthur's moveset's gotten tweaked once again to accomadate. He can't fire weapons vertically anymore, but he can double jump now, and the levels feel designed around that lack of vertical firing. The bow also exists, firing two projectiles diagonally upwards, filling the void somewhat.

Playing this reminded me a lot of beating Castlevania 1 without savestates for the first time, since the player movement actually feels like a deliberate design decision and not just to make the game harder. It was genuinely fun learning level layouts and just getting better at the game, for once in this franchise. The limited continues scared me initially, but it quickly becomes apparent how quickly continues rack up. You also die a lot, but with enemy positions and spawns being mostly fixed, it serves as a learning experience as opposed to uncontrollable RNG bs.

Also yeah, there's slowdown; admittedly a lot of it, in fact, but I don't think it's enough to really mess with the core experience. If anything, it probably made certain sections a lot easier. Still an extremely solid 16-bit platformer for anyone in search of a challenge.

(This is the 53rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Following 1990's 'Gargoyle's Quest', the next release in the 'Ghosts 'n Goblins' series is Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the third main entry after the 1985 and 1988 Arcade games. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, developed and published by Capcom, is the first among these three to not be released for the arcade at all, instead focusing all efforts on a SNES release on October 4th, 1991 in Japan initially.

As the challenge started in 1990, I didn't play the other two games in the series, but I didn't have to to have heard of 1985's 'Ghosts 'n Goblins', which is infamous for being one of the hardest games of all time. Just by looking at gameplay for that game, I can tell you that 'Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' for the SNES is a much easier game, though by no means easy.

Regarding the difficulty, there is a pretty noticeable difference in the NA and Europe versions. The European version is much simpler due to fewer enemies on screen, fewer of the harder enemies and, from what I can tell, less hits needed to take them out. Apart from the lower difficulty, this helps combat the slowdown effect that is more common in the USA version. A slowdown, for those who don't know, is literally that, the game slowing down. This happens when there are many sprites and/or special effects on-screen at the same time as, in this case for the SNES, it pushes the console to its limits. In the European version, I've experienced slowdown only once, and that was very brief. So if you want to play the game and are looking for an easier time, go with the European version.

Accessibility: I might lead off with this one from here on out for all games that have any sort of accessibility options, as those are still not common at all in 1991. For this game, as it is not originally designed for the Arcade I assume, there are some pretty nice options to make the experience even easier / more bearable for yourself. First, there are four difficulty levels, from beginner to professional. Higher difficulties increase enemy amount, boss health, how many money bags you need to collect to gain additional continues and a few other things I haven't noticed. In addition, you can choose the amount of lives you have from 1 to 9. Add to both of these that there is a checkpoint system and all this definitely makes the game much easier than the vanilla experience.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10

Once again, you are knight Arthur. The setting for this one is described in the manual only. It's titled 'A Knight's Quest'.

"All hail, dauntless knight Arthur! Years ago you quelled the terrifying phantoms of the Ghoul Realm [...] and rescued Princess Guinevere. But now the kingdom is shrouded under an eerie spell. Sardius, the Emperor of Evil, has snatched Princess Guinevere [...]"

It's your typical old-school platformer sequel storyline set-up. Same things happened again, you must save everyone again. It's fine, you didn't play a game like this for the story back then.

In-game, the opening has Arthur and Guinevere in arms in her castle, as someone approaches through the large window behind them. It's Sardius, who kidnaps Princess Guinevere and flies off. Now you must go through 8 levels to defeat Sardius and get the Princess back. But there is a catch. Like is typical for this series, you don't go through the levels just once to win. Once you go through them for the first time, the Princess tells you that she was wearing a powerful bracelet. That bracelet was the reason she was kidnapped and using it is the only way you defeat Sardius. Luckily, she dropped it whilst kidnapped, so you gotta go through all levels and find it. That's the only dialogue in the game, so you're really not playing it for the story, but the game gets a bonus point for having continuity with its main character and, albeit just a tiny bit, for adding to its lore.

GAMEPLAY | 12/20

Let's compare some of this to 1985's 'Ghosts n' Goblins' here to show you where this game changed and, usually, improved.

You control knight Arthur in a 2D platformer where you kill enemies with some sort of a projectile whilst jumping from platform to platform to avoid falling to your demise. There are 8 total levels and a boss at the end of each level. Apart from throwing your projectiles (lance, dagger, crossbow, scythe, torch, axe, tri-blade - yes, these all act as projectiles here), you can double jump and crouch, which I don't think you could do in the NES title.

You have two hit points, which is unchanged from the original, so get hit twice and you die. You either are sent back to the start or, if you've made it far enough, start at a check-point. Each level has a 5 minute time limit, something I never had an issue with. You either die or make it in time.

Many enemies are the same from the NES title, and act the same. Most infamously, there is the "Red Arremer Ace", the red devil-like creature that constantly avoids your hits and swoops down on you out of nowhere. This thing is just as annoying here as in the NES game, because the worst part is, if you don't kill it, it will follow you until you do. Plus, depending on the weapon you got - and plenty of them suck - it will take multiple hits to die, but you're likely going to get hit at least once before you get it down, and often enough twice, which, again, means you die. Horrible little creature.

Gameplay on the easier difficulty levels is mostly controlling well, but there are some issues you will have to live with no matter how many enemies are on screen. For example, jumps can be very hard to control sometimes, a frustration that is exacerbated by the fact that platforms you need to jump on are very small sometimes. Plus, you need to choose the direction you want to jump in while you press jump. No changing direction mid-air, so you can imagine how frustrating that is. On top of that, there are ladders you can climb here. For some reason, you need to hold 'Up' while climbing for much longer than the ladder appears to be long, as your character is stuck in an animation at the top of the ladder for a good second before he stands upright. This second is usually vital as some sort of enemy or obstacle is often placed near the top of ladders. And if you are on top of a ladder and just want to crouch, to for example break open a chest next to it, too bad, your character will start climbing down the ladder instead.

Boss fights in this one, for the most part, are surprisingly easy. Especially if you get the right weapons into the boss fight, you can make a lot of damage quickly.

There are some unique environmental challenges to each level, which I enjoyed. In the first, you need to stand on top of the right platforms while a wave forms, otherwise it will take you out. In another, an avalanche approaches and can throw you to the start of the area, so you need to climb ladders or stand on a platform above that the avalanche can't reach to avoid that. There are some other things like that, which adds to the variety in gameplay, which otherwise isn't all too varied but mostly enjoyable.

The end game condition being that you have to find a bracelet does tank the overall fun factor however, because to get it, you need to open chest after chest without getting hit once until you can upgrade to the golden armor, at which point one of the next chests will reveal the bracelet. Get hit once and you lose your armor and need to keep opening chest after chest once again, because chest #1 gives you iron armor, then a random number of chests later you'll find emerald armor and after another random number of chests later you'll find the gold armor, so this takes a while.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10

No voice acting. The sound design is fairly average, though with a few sound effects that are odd picks. For example, destroying stone statues gives off the sound of glass breaking. The soundtrack overall is quite fitting with the overall atmosphere that is present here, with some spooky tracks to enhance the immersion. Wouldn't place the OST among the greats, but fits the game well.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

Compared to the NES game, this is a great jump in graphical quality in pretty much every aspect. Not a surprise given the jump to the SNES, but this definitely gives off sequel vibes just based on that. The devs did a great job in the enemy design and put plenty of effort in animations to make the game feel much more lively. A nice touch is that your health is indicated by what you're wearing. Wearing armor means you can get hit once without dying.

The first 5 levels have a pretty unique design and weather conditions. Stage 6 to 8 all play in Sardius castle and look similar.

ATMOSPHERE | 7/10

A spooky atmosphere is present throughout. Though the fact that you walk around in your underwear when one hit away from death is kind of an odd pick as it works contra to the atmosphere the game is going for otherwise.

CONTENT | 6/10

The game is not overly long, and most of the duration comes from the trial and error due to the difficulty. Apart from that, there is a slightly average amount of content here for a platformer, with more weapons than usual, more enemy variety than usual and different types of environmental challenges.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10

Of the eight levels in this game, the final level is just the boss fight with Sardius, the two preceding ones are relatively similar (and one is very short) and then you have five that are unique in design. The mission design for these is pretty basic. Go through a level, defeat the boss at the end to move forward. The time limit present is not that relevant and I never had any issues with it. Having to go through the same levels with a slight increase in difficulty again after going through them once already is something I personally didn't necessarily enjoy, but your experience might vary there.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10

It's pretty much the same game compared to the other ones. The most innovative part about this game is the fact that it was made much more accessible to players of lower skill.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5

Apart from trying to beat your high score and trying to win with higher lives selected, you can also try to win the game on higher difficulty levels.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

The game worked well at all times. You'll experience a bit of slowdown, if you play the US version, so I'd recommend the European one.

OVERALL | 59/100

A very skippable game. It doesn't take advantage of the SNES at all from a graphical and technical standpoint, it's a much worse version than the one for the Arcades, it's in general a rather basic platformer, very repetitive and lacks features. Not the worst game of the year, but a Top 5 contender.

Um jogo de plataforma EXCELENTE mas com uma dificuldade SUPER DESBALANCEADA.

O jogo é uma aula de como fazer um game de plataforma viciante e bem feito mas POR QUE TÃO DIFICIL?????

A física do jogo em si já é um desafio a parte, já que com exceção do pulo duplo (O único que permite a troca de direção) não é possível mover o personagem no meio do ar. Pode até parecer que esse aspecto da jogabilidade não altere a dificuldade, mas acaba se tornando um dos principais desafios.

Super Ghouls N Ghosts é desafiador, criativo (principalmente na mecânica de upar as armas e armaduras), lindo e com uma ÓTIMA trilha sonora.
As poucas fases do jogo foram MUITO BEM TRABALHADAS pelos criadores, adicionando sempre novos inimigos a tela e alguns modificadores que dificultam mais um pouquinho a experiência (Eu estou falando das paredes móveis no estômago da besta ou da fase na água por exemplo).
A cereja do bolo em questão de "DIFICULDADE" é que o jogador deverá zerar o jogo DUAS VEZES para então atingir o final real da aventura e salvar a donzela (E a dificuldade é bem mais difícil durante a 2° play).

É compreensível entender o motivo de "Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts" ter sido um clássico de sua época, mas para quem é impaciente talvez seja muito frustrante avançar sem o uso dos Save States (Mesmo assim vale a pena passar raiva pois é um belo jogo).

Primeiramente, eu entendo que este jogo foi um clássico em sua época e muito jogado, porém, não muda o fato que a dificuldade desse jogo é feita de forma muito exagerada e até mesmo de forma tendenciosa.
O jogo tem um level design feito exclusivamente para matar o jogador, com inimigos mal posicionados e diversas partes com inimigos quase impossíveis de matar, o jogo não é nenhum pouco compensador, afinal, ao passar pelo inferno que são os níveis, você tem que repetir tudo, ainda na ultima fase onde é preciso terminar com a ultima arma, uma das mais difíceis de usar aliás.
Inimigos mal posicionados, level design ruim de propósito, ter que repetir o jogo todo novamente, ser obrigado á usar uma das piores armas no final, tudo configurado para ser uma dificuldade realmente injusta, se tornando uma péssima experiência.
Não me entendam errado, eu gosto de jogos difíceis, Hollow Knight é um dos meus jogos favoritos de todos, Cuphead é extremamente divertido, sem falar que zerei a maioria dos Castlevania clássicos, e outros que não vale á pena ficar citando.
Esse jogo é dificil apenas para os jogadores não conseguirem chegar ao final tão cedo, da forma mais preguiçosa e injusta possível, por conta dos jogos serem mais curtos no passado.
O problema não é ser desafiador, afinal, amo me desafiar e me sentir bem depois de completar obstáculos que exigem tudo do jogador de forma justa, o problema deste game é a forma que ele faz tudo isso, sendo uma das piores formas que já vi.
Obs: joguei ano passado, porém não pretendo jogar novamente apenas para a comentar o que achei, é uma experiência torturante e pessoalmente.. não vale á pena meu tempo.