Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
Capcom does an old-school classic proud. But is it too old-school?
Published: September 8, 2006
The classic saying (best said with a big of twang and a hillbilly accent) goes "if it ain't broke, don't try and fix it." It's true. Messing with a good thing rarely turns out well, and the PS2 is littered with the remains of 8- and 16-bit classics that never really made the transition with their souls intact. Funny, then, that a game about ghosts and goblins would still retain that soul. Ultimate Ghouls 'n Ghosts firmly sticks to that broke/fix mantra, and, for better or worse, emerges as one of the most purely old-school action games the PSP has ever seen. It also means it's going to kick your ass. Repeatedly.
Even within Capcom's library, I seem to swing all over the place when it comes to difficulty in a game. For something like Devil May Cry 3, it was a struggle to play more than 10 minutes, and the idea of having to go back and farm upgrades just didn't sit well for me. But a game that's undeniably simple in approach like Alien Hominid I can't help but love? Sure, the art style on the latter helped, but something about a game that rocks the 2D angle and is what it is from beginning to end just endears it a little more to me, I suppose.
Which is why I loved UGnG. It's hard -- in fact, it's really hard. Playing the game on easy more or less feels like you're jumping into some of the hardest difficulty levels in other games, but enough changes are made that you actually can get a sense of progress; you can take more hits, you get more lives, there are fewer enemies, when those enemies hit you, you don't go flying nearly as far, bosses are easier to kill, and there are way more power-up drops in the game. The thing is, even with the odds stacked impossibly high at times, it still feels like you can get past if it only you practice the jumps or time things properly.
Part of this comes from the fact that the game does update things a little without breaking the formula. You're still stuck with only one weapon at a time, but you can now find and stock different ultra-powerful magic attacks. If you die now, however, the game will respawn you at pre-selected checkpoints rather than the beginning of the level (that's reserved for the masochists that play through the Ultimate difficulty). By default, Arthur will grab ledges and can climb up or down after he does instead of plummeting to his doom, and eventually you'll gain the ability to bust out a shield, hover and even warp back to earlier levels to use your newfound powers. And through it all, the series' classically unforgiving controls are there to make things more difficult.
It's not so much that things are uncontrollable, it's just that they're, well, antiquated. Most of the gameplay still fits with Arthur's inability to raise his arm to 45 degrees before firing (some would argue that's what the multi-shot crossbow is for), but after years of playing games that allow you to adjust trajectory in the air, it's jarring to think that you have to plant your feet before you actually make jumps -- and often while enemies are closing in from both sides. Nothing feels unresponsive, but it does take a while to remember to back up a little before making a jump lest you overshoot something.
The mix between light updates or second chances given to newcomers and the utterly unflinching approach to the controls is, in a way, part of the charm of UGnG. It's not really the story (demons kidnapped a princess so they can mix her blood with their unholy legions to take over the kingdom, oooooooh), though that's at least a nice approximation of the older games' "story". No, the appeal here is something more intrinsic, and I can't describe what it is that hooked me so much about the games, just that I was hooked.
It certainly could be the visuals. I'll happily admit I'm a graphics whore, and feel it absolutely adds to the overall enjoyment of the game, even improving what is otherwise a mediocre effort. The PSP-friendly visuals of UGnG, nor the gameplay are anything but mediocre, instead allowing classic levels to be reborn with more detail in the background and a fantastic sense of balance between inspired or themed bits from the previous games with what is obviously new stuff. There are times when the art can come off as a little too dingy for its own good, piling on thick coats of darker colors in an effort to seem quasi-spooky, but it's when the game embraces the series' roots in visual design that it resonates the strongest; those games were damned pretty for their time, and there's nothing wrong with biting the style a little.
There's also the odd issue with the framerate at times too. Though this is a 2.5D game (and you can tell the game is just dying to rock that depth, which it does on some choice occasions), it's meant to be a polygonal update to the classic series. The problem is, the art design here never really approaches the classics' sprites, and the monster designs can range from absolutely brilliant 3D updates to a weak imposter to a what-the-hell-is-that-supposed-to-be. Overall, things are solid indeed, but they aren't perfect.
Luckily the sound is. Without the need to update things with voice acting, the game can rest on updated sound effects, which are a wonderfully clean homage to the originals, and an updated soundtrack that remixes the classics just enough to give them more bombast and thickness without turning them into an over-the-top mess.
It's UGnG's careful balance of rocking the boat enough to add in enough upgrades and newbie-friendly additions without abandoning the core chuck-your-PSP-through-the-wall difficulty that defines the games that makes it such an instant classic. The unlockable and hidden things to collect, the difficulty that will never, ever cease to meet you with further challenges no matter how good you get, and the numerous throwbacks to the games that came before add up to the kind of game we rarely see these days.
It's certainly not perfect, but then it wasn't terribly broken to begin with, and Capcom wisely didn't try to fix it.
Even within Capcom's library, I seem to swing all over the place when it comes to difficulty in a game. For something like Devil May Cry 3, it was a struggle to play more than 10 minutes, and the idea of having to go back and farm upgrades just didn't sit well for me. But a game that's undeniably simple in approach like Alien Hominid I can't help but love? Sure, the art style on the latter helped, but something about a game that rocks the 2D angle and is what it is from beginning to end just endears it a little more to me, I suppose.
Which is why I loved UGnG. It's hard -- in fact, it's really hard. Playing the game on easy more or less feels like you're jumping into some of the hardest difficulty levels in other games, but enough changes are made that you actually can get a sense of progress; you can take more hits, you get more lives, there are fewer enemies, when those enemies hit you, you don't go flying nearly as far, bosses are easier to kill, and there are way more power-up drops in the game. The thing is, even with the odds stacked impossibly high at times, it still feels like you can get past if it only you practice the jumps or time things properly.
Part of this comes from the fact that the game does update things a little without breaking the formula. You're still stuck with only one weapon at a time, but you can now find and stock different ultra-powerful magic attacks. If you die now, however, the game will respawn you at pre-selected checkpoints rather than the beginning of the level (that's reserved for the masochists that play through the Ultimate difficulty). By default, Arthur will grab ledges and can climb up or down after he does instead of plummeting to his doom, and eventually you'll gain the ability to bust out a shield, hover and even warp back to earlier levels to use your newfound powers. And through it all, the series' classically unforgiving controls are there to make things more difficult.
It's not so much that things are uncontrollable, it's just that they're, well, antiquated. Most of the gameplay still fits with Arthur's inability to raise his arm to 45 degrees before firing (some would argue that's what the multi-shot crossbow is for), but after years of playing games that allow you to adjust trajectory in the air, it's jarring to think that you have to plant your feet before you actually make jumps -- and often while enemies are closing in from both sides. Nothing feels unresponsive, but it does take a while to remember to back up a little before making a jump lest you overshoot something.
The mix between light updates or second chances given to newcomers and the utterly unflinching approach to the controls is, in a way, part of the charm of UGnG. It's not really the story (demons kidnapped a princess so they can mix her blood with their unholy legions to take over the kingdom, oooooooh), though that's at least a nice approximation of the older games' "story". No, the appeal here is something more intrinsic, and I can't describe what it is that hooked me so much about the games, just that I was hooked.
It certainly could be the visuals. I'll happily admit I'm a graphics whore, and feel it absolutely adds to the overall enjoyment of the game, even improving what is otherwise a mediocre effort. The PSP-friendly visuals of UGnG, nor the gameplay are anything but mediocre, instead allowing classic levels to be reborn with more detail in the background and a fantastic sense of balance between inspired or themed bits from the previous games with what is obviously new stuff. There are times when the art can come off as a little too dingy for its own good, piling on thick coats of darker colors in an effort to seem quasi-spooky, but it's when the game embraces the series' roots in visual design that it resonates the strongest; those games were damned pretty for their time, and there's nothing wrong with biting the style a little.
There's also the odd issue with the framerate at times too. Though this is a 2.5D game (and you can tell the game is just dying to rock that depth, which it does on some choice occasions), it's meant to be a polygonal update to the classic series. The problem is, the art design here never really approaches the classics' sprites, and the monster designs can range from absolutely brilliant 3D updates to a weak imposter to a what-the-hell-is-that-supposed-to-be. Overall, things are solid indeed, but they aren't perfect.
Luckily the sound is. Without the need to update things with voice acting, the game can rest on updated sound effects, which are a wonderfully clean homage to the originals, and an updated soundtrack that remixes the classics just enough to give them more bombast and thickness without turning them into an over-the-top mess.
It's UGnG's careful balance of rocking the boat enough to add in enough upgrades and newbie-friendly additions without abandoning the core chuck-your-PSP-through-the-wall difficulty that defines the games that makes it such an instant classic. The unlockable and hidden things to collect, the difficulty that will never, ever cease to meet you with further challenges no matter how good you get, and the numerous throwbacks to the games that came before add up to the kind of game we rarely see these days.
It's certainly not perfect, but then it wasn't terribly broken to begin with, and Capcom wisely didn't try to fix it.
