There's this disdain I have towards stagnant granchises that leech of nostalgia. Series that were once popular that are now just used as nostalgia bait every 10 or so years. Latest Contra was one such example, and the newest Ghosts and Goblins release is no different.

Granted, I've enjoyed this game a bit more than Contra. I've never had much attachment to the series, but unlike most other hyper popular IPs of the 80s and 90s it didn't create a ton of clones, so if you want to play Ghosts and Goblins, you're pretty much left with Ghosts and Goblins and some really niche stuff like Maldita Castilla. Due to that, I'm a bit more lenient to this game. Helps that it looks gorgeous! While animations are a little stiff, the backgrounds and enemies look great!

Still, do we have to have a cemetery, a hamlet, a city stage? It feels like every classic retro IP now has New Super Mario Bros design to it where you just have to get the references. Yes, I do remember this boss. Yes, it's cool that the city from the original game is all icy. Know what'd be cooler? A new idea. I don't mind that the game controls pretty much exactly how you'd expect - a very Castlevania-esque locked jump was a surprise to me, figured it'd be the first thing they'd get rid of, but I do wish it had more to it than being, what, effectively a fourth remake?

The game features a pretty thorough difficulty selection which goes from what other games would call "story mode" to basically just being a dick. There are a few split paths that allow you to choose a level, a counter for hidden treasures, and a skill tree. I get the idea that modern players might bounce off of just dying over and over so they might be more inclined to work for something to feel a little more powerful each time, but the skill tree is pretty barebones, mainly just featuring different spells for you to use. I'd prefer some weirder options and game modifiers, personally.

If you like Ghosts and Goblins, this is more Ghosts and Goblins: an unfortunately short game, brutal if you wish it to be, and it even has a second campaign much like the originals (granted, it changes a few more things, but come on!). Certainly would be cool if we weren't stuck making the same game again and again. Sometimes I feel Mega Man only escaped this cycle because they churned out 6 of them for NES, otherwise we'd be stuck with replaying Bomb Man's stage for all eternity.

The original clunkcore platformer rises again for what has to be its finest outing yet.. It’s a storybook with a tendency towards sadism and slapstick. It’s a vaguely Arthurian knight’s tale that’s more Monty Python than Mallory. The dirty tricks, hidden traps, fatal falls, and impossibly difficult creatures all seem intended to provoke laughter as much as rage. Endless swarms of zombies crawl from graves and surround you, giant ogres charge and trample, red devils fly and evade every attempt to hit them and then quickly skewer you. The endless waves of creatures with silly designs and that carnivalesque song playing in the background makes this whole quest feel like a medieval monster mash. For the masochist who happens to like this style of overencumbered platforming, it can be a graveyard smash.

Still, the designers have managed to make the experience more approachable in some respects. Legend difficulty feels like only some Arthurian hero could see it through. The monster population is higher than any other mode, but poor Arthur is also weaker. It only takes two hits to die on Legend and checkpoints are very sparse. The Knight difficulty still feels searingly difficulty, but has more checkpoints mixed in and generously allows you to take three hits before you expire. The Squire difficulty makes your armor better and cuts back on the number of enemies. Page difficulty makes the good knight invulnerable.

Bought it at launch because I am a huge fan of the second game in this series and, from what I saw, it looked to basically be "Sonic Mania but Ghosts n Goblins".

In some ways, it is that. I liked how the top and bottom paths on the map took you through different locations from the franchise's history. I also thought the new aesthetic wasn't half bad, although I would've preferred an 8 or 16 bit look.

The problem is that this game takes the weaker elements of the classics and amplifies them to make an experience that is, quite honestly, annoying and borders on meme territory at times. Arthur always moved slow, but here, it's just God awful in relation to everything that is being thrown at you. It never felt unmanageable in the classic games as hard as they were...it just felt like utter nonsense here for the sake of it.

The red devil's AI is also the most obnoxious it has ever been- almost like Capcom saw the jokes and said "let's make him even worse". It's not cute...it's just stupid. It's the same kind of idiocy that plagued Crash 4. (Which if I can be blunt was like the biggest disappointment I've has as an adult playing video games...sorry not sorry)

On top of it, there are now collectibles and a skill tree. I'm not sure why either are here and they just felt pointlessly tacked on tbh.

If you want a good modern spin on this formula, I highly recommend Cursed Castilla. It's cheaper, has an aesthetic and score damn near 1:1 with a late arcade or genesis game, and plays a billion times better. See also the arcade version of Super Battle Princess Madelyn if you're lucky enough to live by a barcade that has it as I am- I hope that gets ported some day.

Very fun game. Nice artstyle good music and awesome bosses. Happy that Capcom keeps supporting this franchise even though it isn't a big success. They should've marketed it more though. Still haven't gotten the true ending but I'll keep playing until I get it.










THAT'S ENOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

I'VE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOU CONTRARIAN IDIOTS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOUR HORRIFIC LITTLE ATTORNEY IS NOT GETTING ANOTHER GAME! YOU SO DESPERATELY CLING TO THE IDEA OF YOUR JOKE DESIGN OF A FIGHTING GAME CHARACTER GETTING INTO WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY THE VIDEO GAME HALL OF FAME, AND IT DISGUSTS ME! IT IS UTTERLY PUTRID! STOP! FUCKING STOP! GHOSTS N' GOBLINS RUNS FUCKING CIRCLES AROUND THE PHOENIX WRIGHT FRANCHISE, IT IS OBJECTIVELY MORE POPULAR AND MEMORABLE, AND 30+ YEARS FROM NOW GHOSTS N' GOBLINS WILL BE FONDLY REMEMBERED WHILE PHOENIX WILL BE ESSENTIALLY WIPED FROM EXISTENCE. HE'S NOT GETTING IN. HE'S NEVER FUCKING GETTING IN. STOP. POSTING. ABOUT. PHOENIX. AND BEFORE YOU BAFOONS LEAVE ANY BRAINDEAD COMMENTS, SHUT THE FUCK UP, I'VE HEARD EVERY SINGLE ONE IN THE BOOK. NONE OF YOU COME EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO BEING WITTY OR CHARMING. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN. ARTHUR IS IN.

EDIT: I got the true ending. Sir Arthur is such a great and respectable hero.

absolutely fantastic, and everything i wanted out of a modern ghosts n goblins.
unfortunately capcom fucked up on the advertising on this game so horrendously that I cant find a single competent guide to help me with this. this game is fucking brutal and i am all about that. unfortunately, im even more about that when someone else tells me how to do shit and strategies.
i dont blame the smart people either, i straight up thought this was a remake of gng1 until like 5 months after release.
shelving, cause i definitely want to beat it, i just cant get myself to spend the 50 hours itll take. GnG GhnG and SGhnG were so much easier compared to this game idk how they did it.

It's not a party without Arty, and Professor F is back to make sure you know it. While plenty of casuals may not know this series, gaming itself has been shaped by this series as far back as 1985. Even now, we still see games influenced by it: some are pretty good, some not so much. And yet, Arthur is still king.

Over 30 years of tearing apart Ghouls, Ghosts, Goblins, and everything in between show that he's no slouch, and Resurrection is further proof of that. The magic system has been reworked for the better, and there's plenty of passive skills to make the journey easier. Ironically, you don't need any of that to even beat the game.

No amount of level-ups or power-ups can replace your skill and the power of your two thumbs. That's gaming at its core. It's what distinguishes it from books, music, TV, and movies. Even if you watch someone else succeed in a game, it won't ever match the high you get when you do it yourself. It's an inherently masochistic medium that makes you work for your enjoyment. It's not the princess that keeps you going, not world peace, not even a high score. It's the thrill of conquering. It's what separates the casuals from the hardcore. No matter how many times you lose, you keep going until (YOU) win. And in this game, you will lose. A lot.

It is a homage to the Capcom classic: a revisitation that refuses modernization, mixes elements from the two original episodes and ties it all together using difficulty as the glue. It is in fact a real challenge that the game offers, made up of countless unsuccessful attempts and inevitable episodes of burning frustration, but at the same time capable of returning great satisfaction the moment one manages to overcome a very hostile point in the campaign or defeat a seemingly invincible boss. Just like in those old arcades of the late 1980s.

Did you know the same director of the original Ghost 'n Goblins returned to direct this game? Did you also know he founded Whoopee Camp, the same company responsible for the Tomba duology? Crazy, right?

Absolutely brutal, but it does its best not to be discouraging. The easier difficulties don't berate you for picking them, and the occasional boss hints will inform you on how close you were to beating them with some nice blurbs added like "I know you can succeed". Doesn't change the fact that this game will nail your feet to the floor and ask you to run a marathon before your bomb collar blows up. The higher the difficulty, the less hits you can take and the highest one removes these extra checkpoints; so as the game puts it "pick your poison".
A huge factor to this games difficulty, and partially its enjoyment, is the use of RNG. Enemies will not always spawn the same way everytime, thus every run is different enough that you have to be on your toes at all times. And this game absolutely swarms you with enemies; but for the most part they will be in a non-harmful state when they initially spawn thus you have a brief moment to adjust to the new obstacle. And it's not like every section is completely random, but you have to be prepared for some on-the-fly decision making.
Another neat feature is that exiting out of a level will allow you to enter it later from your last checkpoint, that way you can take a break if the going gets too tough. You also keep any Umbral Bees, which are used for the... skill tree. The skill tree contains spells ranging from creating a doppelganger to copy your movements, drastically speeding you up, turning all enemies into frogs or stone, turning into a boulder that kills on contact and provides defense, and finding hidden treasure chests. It also provides the ability to store an extra weapon or two, which is a godsend, or a random chance to immediately return to life which I'm honestly pretty iffy about. In fact, I've seen people being iffy about the skill tree in general. I could be mistaken, but these might be people expecting a strictly arcade experience only. Which is fair, but from what I've seen these upgrades are never mandatory. If anything, you can treat them as an additional difficulty setting. You can disable each individual ability, so perhaps you don't want any spells but still want to carry more then one weapon. I personally made very liberal use of this skill tree, but I'm well aware that people have, frankly, gotten sick of this trend.
I wouldn't say this game is 100% fair either. While I personally think games don't always need to perfectly fair on a first playthrough if it means the replay is way more thrilling, if your game is as hard as this one then the "Think fast" moments can really deflate your motivation to try again. Respawning is at least quick and there isn't a live system, in addition to not needing to recollect any umbral bees, so it at least isn't the worst it could be.
Aside from the bosses being a mixed bag, this is otherwise a solid recommendation for those who enjoy pain.

A good revival of the series with some interesting changes. The artstyle might apeal to some people, but not for me as it looks kinda ugly. I would appreciate some new assets as most of this game is recycled aspects from the rest of the series. Well that may seem obvious since its called resurection, but the villains and bosses especially from the first game were basic and lame. Multiple paths and multiple difficulty levels keeps the replayable factor pretty high, but it is step down from Super Ghouls'n Ghosts.