Makaimura (Arcade, 1985)

 

The original arcade version of one of my favorite NES games: What became Ghosts n' Goblins. This is a vastly-better version of the game, both visually and control-wise, and probably the best way to revisit it at this point.

RIP Walter Koenig 1936-2026

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Playing this on Capcom Arcade Stadium. It's nice to discover a superior version of a game I've been playing for ages. Infinite lives/coins, but you still have to start the section of the level over every time you die.

We start with the iconic scene of our hero in the park with his woman-friend, and thanks to the higher-resolution of this version, we can finally see that she's giving him a spirited Old Fashioned. (Ask your grandparents...or don't)

Game looks REALLY nice for 1985, and you could tell me this was an early (1992ish) SNES game and I'd believe it. Seriously, arcade game graphics got better by leaps and bounds between 1980 (when Pac-Man brought arcades into prominence) and 1985 here. Every year was basically what we would now consider a console generation of a leap.

This has similar art design to the NES game I know, same music. The sprites are the main thing that stands out as being dramatically improved. Here's what the NES version looks like:

Yeah, not quite as awesome as we remember. Hilarious how I'm dying mid-screenshot

The Lance is the starting weapon, and still fires in a straight line like a laser. In the NES version, you want to get the Knife ASAP, as it fires faster and can have more shots onscreen at a time. However, in this playthrough, I didn't see a single Knife on my entire run through the game. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. That or weapon drops are much rarer in this than the later NES version.

I get the Torch, and it's surprisingly much better than the NES version. On there it was borderline useless, but here it does a lot of damage and I seem to be able to land hits consistently on Red Arremers with it, which is saying a lot.

WEAPON OVERVIEW

LANCE: Can fire two at a time in a straight line. Probably the second-best weapon in the game due to how direct it is.

KNIFE: Can fire three at a time in a straight line and it travels FAST. Best weapon in the game. NEVER DROPS.

TORCH: Does a lot of damage, flies in an arc, and leaves fire explosions on the ground for a few seconds. Much better than the NES version, but I think I'd stick with the Lance over this.

AXE: Some sort of joke, this flies slower than the Lance, does less damage than the Lance, and is basically a huge nerf to your character.

CROSS: The Shield from the NES version, this fires crosses at short range. They can block enemy projectiles and seem to do good damage, so it's a decent weapon, but lacks the range of the Lance or Knife. Only drops in the last couple levels.

The first boss is the Unicorn. That ain't no damn unicorn!

This guy seems like a bigger threat than on the NES due to his larger size and his much more frequent/aggressive leaps. Given that he's stronger here and the Red Arremer is much easier than on the NES, this guy is no longer completely upstaged as the boss of his own level.

That familiar map screen plays between levels (and when you lose a life), with the catchy jingle. As the game progresses, you travel further into the underground and eventually reach the castle of SATAN.

Level 2, the towers, is infamous for having lots of these little blue imps swarming up while you have to make leaps that are often bordering on leaps of faith. I always found this level easier than level 1, though.

Escape the towers and there's some sort of village here, as the imps continue to swarm about, biting and thrashing like rabid gnomes.

The threat posed by those things pales compared to the threat posed by picking up the wrong weapon. Tragedy now strikes as I pick up the Axe and find out how awful it is. It flies slow and it hardly does any damage. You'd think it'd hit hard at least, since it's an AXE.

You know things are bad when I see the Torch as a huge upgrade. It can be rapid-fired at close range.

At the end of the level is every college guy's dream, two unicorns. ...Ask your kids, or don't.

This fight can be a real problem if done as intended, and the key here is to move to the right slow enough that you only aggro one of them at a time.

Red Arremers start showing up more in level 3. They're still easier to deal with than the NES version, due to their large size. However, the Torch isn't recommended.

The Lance is much better for this, and you can lure them down into your shots.

Next actual boss is the flying dragon, which is a quick fight because with a ranged weapon you can rapidly knock pieces of it off until it's just a head flying around. Just watch out for the erratic flying patterns.

Next up: More caves! ...is that a woman's shoe? The "point" items - which are all over this version since it's an Arcade game from 1985 - are weird.

We get a menacing lava bridge, but all in all I pretty much flew through these levels. The NES version seemed much harder than this version, probably due to the lower screen resolution (so your screen area isn't as big) and enemies being harder to keep track of with the worse framerate. There was also a lot of flicker and disappearing sprites on the NES. Here, none of that is going on.

They reuse the dragon boss for level 4. Back in this era, bosses generally got reused a lot in games, even games with very limited amounts of bosses to begin with, due to memory constraints. Bowser appears eight times in Super Mario Bros, for example.

Level 5 (of 6) is where the game goes into full "kick your ass" mode, with vertical sections, lots of ladders, and Red Arremers everywhere.

The Cross starts dropping here (Shield in the NES version) and while it has a short range, I like it. Can spam it on close-range foes. The main difficulty here is just making sure these bald nude guys don't block the ladders and run out the timer. Which has to be the single most annoying thing this game ever pulls.

At the top is Satan, who is basically just a Super Firebrand that can spit fire (and moves considerably slower). Apparently in North American versions this guy was called "The Mothman"

Die to the boss, and you get to make the climb again, only now armed with the Cross as your only weapon. It's tough, but doable, and the Cross is less of a nerf than on the NES due to the lack of Knife. Also, the Cyclops here can actually be slain by it.

Level 6 is more of level 5, basically, only now you get to contend with reduxes of boss fights. Always liked when games whip out bosses as regular enemies towards the end.

Being careful not to aggro Firebrands (and other enemies) during this climb is crucial to succeeding.

At the top is... another Satan! Again, the crucial thing is to keep the fight over on this side of the room, to avoid aggroing...

...the OTHER Satan on the other side of the room! That's right, this game has THREE SATANS.

After all of that, the final boss itself is his own stage (so you get unlimited tries at this fight with no run-back). The game shifts into "fighting game mode" for this battle, with your hero always facing to the right.

Moving in and out of his range to avoid his fire breath is crucial. At first I thought his head was the weak point, but nope, the stomach-face is the actual weak point. It's much harder to land precise hits on. Well, this final boss was MUCH easier than the rest of the game. No runback and infinite tries made it no problem whatsoever, and the boss itself was predictable enough.

We get the infamous "this room is a trap devised by Satan" screen before being sent back to the beginning to play the game all over again.

Yeah, no thanks, I'm good. It's the same the second time through, except the enemies are all a little faster/tougher. They were basically just doubling the game length to pad it out here, and there's no new content in the second run.

Super Ghouls n' Ghosts on the SNES had the right idea, making the second run the one with the Cross (Bracelet) and giving it an entirely new final boss to make it worth doing.

And that's it for this one. Surprising how short this game actually is. This version is easier than the NES version, and it's pretty doable to burn through the game in like 30 minutes once you're good at it.

Great game, and this is the best way to play it at this point. On PS5, with QOL options, via Capcom Arcade Stadium. It's hard to believe something this good-looking was in arcades as early as 1985.