What Banjo-Kazooie was to Super Mario 64, Grabbed by the Ghoulies was trying to be for Luigi's Mansion: Rare's (specifically the Mayles team's) spin and progression of Nintendo's launch title, exploring what was possible on next-gen hardware through a simple treatise on basic beat-'em up mechanics wrapped up in a silly, spooky narrative. The problem Ghoulies ran into, and the reason it's not-so-well-remembered, is that it was delivered out of context. The Mayles team developed it as a low-stakes cool-down project following Banjo-Tooie. It probably would've done fine on GameCube, maybe reading as an also-ran around whatever Donkey Kong and Sabre Wulf projects Rare was developing concurrently. But Microsoft acquired Rare, and the Luigi's Mansion-analogue became Rare's Xbox debut, when all eyes on it expected a Super Mario Sunshine- or maybe even Wind Waker-analogue. No cool-down project should have that type of pressure on it.
Ghoulies is a pretty great time, honestly! "Twin-stick beat-'em up" sounds like an odd high-concept to wrap your head around, but it's actually quite straightforward: Cooper's moveset is extremely unimportant, with all the different animations largely existing for flavor more than anything. The focus is instead placed on crowd control - something always present in beat-'em ups but usually more as a consequence of level progression and managing enemy spawns more than anything. The game actually gets a good deal of mileage out of it even before the gameplay modifiers, as you fall into a pretty good rhythm weaving around enemies, trying to manage different enemy classes' attacks and patterns. For a somewhat more contemporary analogue, I'd compare it to something like One Finger Death Punch or Kung Fury: Street Rage, just in 3 dimensions.
But those gameplay modifiers are the heart and soul of the experience, and what keeps it from getting too repetitive over its one-hundred rooms. How they're paced out is great fun, too. The fluctuating hit point total makes for a great tone-setter for each room (though, if the mad Baron can just mess with Cooper's HP like that, why doesn't he just leave him at 1 the whole game? Ah well, we wouldn't have a game otherwise). Sometimes you have a special weapon, and managing its heat gauge becomes part of the challenge. On top of all this, most rooms have additional modifiers too, like "Only defeat X type of enemy", "Don't take damage", "Don't damage the environment", etc. Always interesting to see what challenge the game will offer next, and try to figure out how you're expected to see it through.
Or... you can always fail the challenge, since losing the challenge doesn't mean starting it over. It just means that the Reaper has entered the playing field. Touching the Reaper means instant death, but maybe you can avoid him while you wrap up what you have to do? I always always love the extra challenge a game gets out of having a playable fail state, where you can salvage a botched run despite the odds being stacked against you. Tying it into the Grim Reaper, in the same way Persona 3 would do a couple years later, makes it all the sweeter to me.
Also, is the Reaper here a repudiation of Gregg the Grim Reaper from Conker, or is Gregg the Grim Reaper Chris Seavor taking the piss on Gregg Mayles for wanting to have a reaper in his next game? You decide.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies isn't a favorite game of mine, but it's one where I feel it easily could be. The more I sit on it, the more fondly I find myself thinking about it, and the more fun and clever I find its design decisions. I think the game's undergone a bit of a critical re-examination following Rare Replay, which I think it was due; I'm certainly grateful Rare Replay gave me the chance to play it in the first place!
Ghoulies is a pretty great time, honestly! "Twin-stick beat-'em up" sounds like an odd high-concept to wrap your head around, but it's actually quite straightforward: Cooper's moveset is extremely unimportant, with all the different animations largely existing for flavor more than anything. The focus is instead placed on crowd control - something always present in beat-'em ups but usually more as a consequence of level progression and managing enemy spawns more than anything. The game actually gets a good deal of mileage out of it even before the gameplay modifiers, as you fall into a pretty good rhythm weaving around enemies, trying to manage different enemy classes' attacks and patterns. For a somewhat more contemporary analogue, I'd compare it to something like One Finger Death Punch or Kung Fury: Street Rage, just in 3 dimensions.
But those gameplay modifiers are the heart and soul of the experience, and what keeps it from getting too repetitive over its one-hundred rooms. How they're paced out is great fun, too. The fluctuating hit point total makes for a great tone-setter for each room (though, if the mad Baron can just mess with Cooper's HP like that, why doesn't he just leave him at 1 the whole game? Ah well, we wouldn't have a game otherwise). Sometimes you have a special weapon, and managing its heat gauge becomes part of the challenge. On top of all this, most rooms have additional modifiers too, like "Only defeat X type of enemy", "Don't take damage", "Don't damage the environment", etc. Always interesting to see what challenge the game will offer next, and try to figure out how you're expected to see it through.
Or... you can always fail the challenge, since losing the challenge doesn't mean starting it over. It just means that the Reaper has entered the playing field. Touching the Reaper means instant death, but maybe you can avoid him while you wrap up what you have to do? I always always love the extra challenge a game gets out of having a playable fail state, where you can salvage a botched run despite the odds being stacked against you. Tying it into the Grim Reaper, in the same way Persona 3 would do a couple years later, makes it all the sweeter to me.
Also, is the Reaper here a repudiation of Gregg the Grim Reaper from Conker, or is Gregg the Grim Reaper Chris Seavor taking the piss on Gregg Mayles for wanting to have a reaper in his next game? You decide.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies isn't a favorite game of mine, but it's one where I feel it easily could be. The more I sit on it, the more fondly I find myself thinking about it, and the more fun and clever I find its design decisions. I think the game's undergone a bit of a critical re-examination following Rare Replay, which I think it was due; I'm certainly grateful Rare Replay gave me the chance to play it in the first place!