IT’S 40 YEARS SINCE CAPCOM INTRODUCED THE WORLD TO THE BRAVE KNIGHT ARTHUR AND HIS FIRST DESCENT INTO THE DEMON REALM. JOIN US AS WE SUIT UP AND FLING LANCES AT ANYTHING THAT MOVES TO CELEBRATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNCOMPROMISING CLASSIC, GHOSTS ’N GOBLINS

WORDS BY MARTYN CARROLL

RED ARREMER

GOBLIN

WOODY PIG

PETITE DEVIL

ZOMBIE

» [Arcade] You can’t even chill in graveyards anymore, without some winged demon turning up, stealing your woman.

» [Arcade] If you shoot the gravestones in stage one or the rocks in stage three multiple times, the Magician appears and turns you into a frog. Random.

G hosts ’N Goblins is easy. Retro Gamer came to this surprise revelation recently, when rediscovering the original coin-op at the Arcade Archive in Stroud. After failing to make much headway in the second stage, an onlooker casually stepped up and proceeded to breeze through the game, providing a running commentary on how to approach the tricky bits, the chokepoints, the boss battles.

It was an education. Yes, the game is no cakewalk, but he made it look easy. Some of it was learned – the hidden locations of new armour to protect Arthur’s modesty, the glitches you could exploit to avoid some bosses entirely – but a lot more was down to quick reactions. Even when surrounded by enemies, he was jumping and ducking and firing. Surviving, gracefully. The game was unforgiving but fair, he said. By the time he reached the final boss battle – at which point the player is instructed to do it all over again to see the ‘true’ ending – a few more onlookers had gathered to witness this masterclass. It seems like we weren’t the only ones transported back to 1985, when the game first appeared in arcades and its fearsome reputation was established.

It’s hard to appreciate the impact of the game back then, mainly because the sequels that followed refined the formula so well. But Tokuro Fujiwara’s ‘Demon World’ template was pretty well-honed in Ghosts ’N Goblins. As our friend at the Arcade Archive proved, Arthur is very versatile and the controls are super responsive. You can hammer out shots at a rate of knots, and crucially, you can even do this while jumping away from enemies, flinging shots behind you. This impression of another Arthur, the King from Monty Python And The Holy Grail, lets you, “Run away! Run away!” from impending death. You can also pick up a range of different weapons, including the Torch and Axe, which arc downwards, useful for taking out enemies down below. Sadly, you’re vulnerable from above as you can’t shoot upwards (that vital feature would appear in the follow-up, 1988’s Ghouls ’N Ghosts). This makes the fifth and sixth stages, where you ascend the demon lord Astaroth’s castle, particularly challenging. Doubly so when you throw in that enemy of many an action platformer – LADDERS! – on which you always seem to get stuck on the rungs, completely exposed and unable to fire.

“ TOKURO FUJIWARA’S ‘DEMON WORLD’ TEMPLATE WAS PRET TY WELL-HONED IN GHOSTS ’N GOBLINS”