YMMV / Ghosts 'n Goblins

• Adaption Displacement: Somehow, despite being a Porting Disaster, the NES version of the original game is more popular than the arcade original.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Since the series relies on Hard Levels, Easy Bosses, most of the games' final bosses are pushovers:
  • Astaroth in the original game. Even when you're stuck with the shield, he's still a cakewalk compared to the level you had to go through to reach him. Turned up to eleven in the NES port, where technical limitations make his sprite smaller than in the arcade version, thus making him even easier to hit.
  • Lucifer in Ghouls 'n Ghosts. He takes only a few hits to beat from the Psycho Cannon and he spends the entire fight sitting on his throne without even bothering to dodge. So much for being the Prince of Darkness.
  • Sardius in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is at least a bit tricky to hit since his head is high up and needs to be reached with flying platforms, but he has one attack launched at three possible speeds, so he's extremely easy to predict. The preceding fight with the back-to-back Astaroth and Nebiroth in the final level (where you potentially have to use a weapon with terrible range to progress to Sardius) is much tougher.
  • Hades in Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins has two phases and still falls into this due to the game not requiring you to face him with a specific weapon, making the fight very exploitable, especially if you decide to use the dagger, crossbow, or whip against him.
• Awesome Music: In the Amiga version, at least, courtesy of Tim Follin.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • The first boss of Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Shielder, is a memorable boss battle against a huge gargoyle who removes his head from his neck to better avoid your attacks and take you off guard with his fire breath. It is a good opening fight that is too not easy but also not too challenging.
  • The fight with Lucifer in Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection finally averts the final boss being an Anti-Climax Boss. It is a tough but satisfying fight where Lucifer begins the fight not taking you seriously, then growing enraged as you damage him and throwing in nastier new attacks. You also can’t just spam your weapons as Lucifer will block your attacks with his hands when possible, making timing all the more important. The true final fight with Hades is also a great boss, he is easier to exploit due to him not blocking your attacks, but Hades’ scarily fast bombardment of attacks will keep you on your toes and can end you quickly if you aren’t careful.
• Breather Level: Level 4 in the original game is a short level consisting of just a few floating platforms, followed by a bridge occupied by a couple of Red Arremers and a few Blue Killers. It's still a fairly tough level by any standards, but compared to the remainder of this game it's very merciful.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • The throwing knife is pretty much universally seen as the best way to finish the original game (well, until you're forced to grab the shield), since it has good range, damage, and fire rate, and travels predictably. Because of this, players have been known to deliberately die if they miss the knife or pick up something else. Even in the later games with better weapon balance, it's easy to fall back on. It's just as useful in Ghouls 'n Ghosts, plus its magic grants you an Attack Drone, letting you fill the screen with firepower.
  • For Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, there's the crossbow, which can fire two shots at once (albeit at a ~45 degree angle) and, once you get the first armor upgrade, it fires three shots that home in on enemies (albeit kinda erratically sometimes). It unfortunately has some of the worst magic in the game, with it revealing a treasure chest on use if one is hidden on the screen; great when you want the Goddess Bracelet, but considering its placement here, it's unlikely you'd want to get rid of it until you need to.
  • Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins has perhaps the most potent arsenal in the series with multiple kinds of crossbows, the homing Swallow Blade, and the Bomb which is a stronger more reliable version of the infamous Fire Bottle. The king though is the Whip, it can hit multiple enemies at once, it does a lot of damage, goes past walls and barriers due to not counting as a projectile, and it can even be used to grab items. It even has a stronger version in the electric whip, which does even MORE damage and can utterly destroy bosses. The only downsides of the whips is their slow firing speed and the fact they are a melee weapon giving them limited range, though given they are whips their reach is still good enough.
  • Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection allows Arthur to have up to three weapons at once, and the best complementary trio for much of the game is knife, crossbow, and shield. Together, they could handle anything from the platforming segments to the bosses (the last two of which must be fought in succession with no chance to change weapons). The knife is as good as it has always been for non-diagonal attacks. This iteration of the crossbow has slow cooldown and fires one of its two arrows almost straight into the ground, but makes up for that by being able to hit enemies that are down a slope, and for having an incredibly powerful golden armor upgrade with a whopping four arrow spray with decent speed, which reliably hits diagonal targets from afar and packs a punch up close. The shield hits like a slower and short-ranged knife, but passes through walls and blocks almost all projectiles.
• Contested Sequel: Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection has been the subject of debate over whether it's too unfair compared to the previous games, with the most common complaints being about the aggressive enemy spam and Arthur's restricted mobility (both his running speed and the lack of a double jump). Some longtime fans have even accused the developers of not understanding classic Ghosts 'n Goblins gameplay or flanderizing Ghosts 'n Goblins from its reputation as a difficult series. The counterpoints are that the game was directed by series creator Tokuro Fujiwara (who made three entries, which are designed around single-jump only, though Ultimate also has flight), and that Arthur has full access to his obtained spells^note as opposed to having spells come and go with a special armor pickup, and having the spell depend on which weapon Arthur has to dispatch enemies and defend using the cast's invincibility window and the ability to keep multiple weapons, so the game is largely just balanced differently because the player is expected to be using those mechanics.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Pretty much everything in the games, but especially Red Arremers. They stay up in the air where you can't hit them until they swoop down at you and are absolute hell to avoid because they are much faster than you are. And, to make matters worse, there's no set pattern to their movement—they just fly around however the hell they feel like!
    • A little known fact about them is that if you somehow fight one for an extended period of time, it turns white and becomes even more aggressive and unpredictable.
  • Ghosts are another big worry, because they respawn in random locations, including right on top of you. Their obnoxious squeal, if nothing else, serves as a good warning to run for it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The maiden girl that sir Arthur transforms when he's cursed wearing a golden armor in Super Ghouls n’ Ghosts. She has become popular to the point of having numerous fanart on the red (mainly fanart of Sir Arthur becoming her) and a hackrom replacing the knight with her .
• Fan Nickname: Crossing with Alternate Character Interpretation.
  • It's often bandied about that Arthur is in fact King Arthur, with the Princess being Guinevere.
  • Rob Strangman of the West Mansion fan page used to run a similar site dedicated to the original trilogy, referring to St. Michael from the second game as "Merlin", as well as sticking with the Genesis name for its final boss "Loki" rather than the arcade's "Lucifer". Rob uses this to invoke the One-Steve Limit by referring to Astaroth as "Lucifer". Rob also refers to the Red Arremers as "Red Destroyers" Rob's inspiration Rene L. Gonzalez Berrios had a similar idea crossing over into fan fiction. Here he refers to the Satan enemies as "Red Guards" as they are Astaroth's closest conspirators against the power of God. Astaroth is given many nicknames as Satan, notably listing the names of "Mephisto" and "Lucifer". The Red Arremers are called "Sons of Satan" with each appearance being them at an older age. Much like Rob, Rene refers to Lucifer as "Loki" like in the Genesis version, also saying that he was once one of the Red Guard. Samael is also given his Dub Name Change on the page as Sardius, but his description on there states that he was one of the conspirators alongside Loki and Astaroth in the rebellion against God. Rene also refers to Michael as Merlin, giving him the title of "Sorcerer Supreme".
  • Several bosses have also had a few nicknames over the years. The Unicorn is often called "The Cyclops", the Shielder is often called "Dullahan".
• Goddamned Bats: Quite a lot of them.
  • The crows. Their wavy flying patterns makes them hard to hit and they move fast. Worse are the red crows who specifically target you.
  • The eyeball plants are stationary and only take one hit, but they are almost as infamous as the arremers thanks to their scary accuracy and being in often inconvenient places to block you off. Their cousins the eyeball clams are even worse as they can only be hurt when they are open.
  • The ice and fire imps, aka the blazers. They are absolutely tiny and move in erratic patterns at a breakneck speed. They also tend to blend in with the levels they appear in.
  • The one eyed goblins from the crucible’s dark towers in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts are this if you have just the wrong weapon. They leap out and quickly charge towards you upwards on steep inclines, if you have the bow or axe which both go up at an angle it becomes almost impossible to hit them, the former being especially rough given it is normally super useful.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The franchise overall is one of the most infamous examples of this.
  • The first game especially falls under this. There is a fine line between "Difficult" and "Unfair" and the game tends to skirt with its mean level design to hordes of enemies. The NES version though goes far, far beyond unfair due to its changes, making enemies spawn faster and changing the physics. Even the first level is an absolute nightmare, with zombies spawning right on top of you, and Red Arremers. You're more likely to beat Contra without the Konami Code than you are likely to even see the third level of this game, even with the infinite lives the game gives you.
  • The series overall is a combination of fair difficulty and Fake Difficulty, and it's unfortunately common for people to call the games bad for the unforgiving and unusual jump system rather than the actual design problems (see Scrappy Mechanic and Scrappy Weapon below).
• Memetic Mutation: Both endings for the original game have become memetic, with the assistance of classic 1980s spelling and grammar mistakes.
  • "THIS ROOM IS AN ILLUSION AND IS A TRAP DEVISED^note Arcade version/DEVISUT^note NES version BY SATAN. GO AHEAD DAUNTLESSLY! MAKE RAPID PROGRES!"
  • "CONGRATULATION^note Arcade version/CONGRATURATION^note NES version. THIS STORY IS HAPPY END. THANK YOU. BEING THE WISE AND COURAGEOUS^note Arcade version/COURAGEOUR^note NES version KNIGHT THAT YOU ARE, YOU FEEL STRONGTH WELLING IN YOUR BODY. RETURN TO STARTING POINT. CHALLENGE AGAIN!"
  • Get the knife ^Explanation Originating from the AVGN's episode on the NES version of Ghosts 'N Goblins, the Nerd notes how incredibly useful the throwing knife (officially named the dagger) is as a weapon (see Complacent Gaming Syndrome). It's common to see the phrase pop up in videos of gameplay, and the saying especially taking off after the relase of Resurrection.
  • The opening cutscene has attracted comments questioning WHAT exactly Arthur was doing with the princess, sitting down next to her... while she stares at his crotch... while he's wearing nothing but his underwear... in the middle of a graveyard... This has led to the interpretation that they're literal Nightmare Fetishists who need an appropriately sinister atmosphere to get "in the mood".
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Back to the start of the level if you lose a life (though earlier levels have midway save points too)
  • You're forced to collect the shield weapon before you finish the game, otherwise you get kicked back two levels. The shield itself makes it a lot harder to beat the pair of bosses immeadiately before the final boss, keeping your distance is the best strategy, but that's impossible with the shield! And if you somehow miss the shield, you still have to play through to the end of the last level so you can get get kicked back once again for another try.
  • Back to the start of the *game* when you "complete" the game, but with enemies moving faster.
  • Very hard gameplay throughout, and the ladder controls are fiddly.
• Polished Port:
  • The GBA port of Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts is widely consider excellent for being an almost perfect port of the original, complete with an extra Arrange Mode with additional levels that all have their own new bosses and even eliminates the need to play the game twice.
  • The GBC port of Ghosts 'N Goblins, which has a revised soundtrack, eliminates the slow framerate from the NES version, and has a much better translation. The only issue is that the screen is zoomed-in, for space reasons.
  • The Genesis version of Ghouls 'N Ghosts, programmed by Yuji Naka, is considered an excellent conversion for coming surprisingly close to replicating the original arcade version at a time when such a thing was basically unheard of.
• Popular with Furries: Red Arremer, the most infamous enemy from this series, is by far the most popular one in terms of furry appeal, especially since this species of demons have an established character in the form of Firebrand (which isn't even his name in his country of origin) from the Gargoyle's Quest trilogy.
• Porting Disaster:
  • While most of the ports of Ghosts 'n Goblins are acceptable enough for the time and the systems they were released on, the Commodore 16 port was a textbook case of a game being brought over to a platform that simply wasn't designed to handle it. The graphics are hideous, completely lacking any detail, and Arthur (who looks like a cloud of smoke with a face) and the enemies all have huge black boxes around them, which overwrite what little backgrounds are near the characters.
  • The NES version is mostly identical to the original game, but the slower frame rate and the new clunkier physics make an already Nintendo Hard game even harder. Japan had it even worse in difficulty though, the Famicom version of the game has even faster enemies and no continues!
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • You need to be using the shield/cross to progress to Astaroth in Level 6 of the first game; otherwise, you're sent back to Level 5 after beating the twin Satans. Nothing in the game hints at this until you get sent back, and the shield isn't ideal for the final levels since it has poor range and a limit of two projectiles, and you need to wait for it to drop in the arcade version (the Famicom/NES version has an obvious shield spawn in Stage 6 to remedy this). For later games, the required true ending weapon becomes the Psycho Cannon/Goddess' Bracelet, which work like the shield but are much stronger, albeit harder to obtain.
  • The Famicom/NES version of the original gives each boss enemy an immunity to one of the game's weapons, forcing you to take a different one to them. This gets irritating in Stage 6, where every time you die to have to swap from the shield to the lance to kill the Unicorn (immune to the shield), and then back to the shield to kill the Dragon (immune to the lance). There are unmissable spawns for each weapon at appropriate points, but it still feels annoying. Thankfully this doesn't have a big effect on the rest of the game, as none of the bosses are immune to the dagger.
  • The game's items avert Everything Fades; once they're on the screen, they're not going away until you pick them up, even if you leave the screen and come back. This sounds like a good thing, and it would be if most of the weapons weren't outclassed. Worse, some of the games take advantage of this by dropping poor weapons at the top of ladders or otherwise right in your path. Some of them need to be dodged by taking specific paths, as otherwise you'll have to die to keep your favored weapon.
  • In entries that allow Arthur to aim vertically, standing in front of a ladder is often dangerous because if you try to aim up, Arthur would instead climb the ladder, meaning he can't defend himself from enemies attacking from above.
  • The fixed-arc jumping, for some people who aren't fans of the series. Reviewers occasionally regard it as an archaic design decision that's a flaw of the series, while the fans appreciate it for demanding the player to jump wisely, in a way that's very rare among platformers.
  • In Resurrection, the first few upgrades are attacks that are almost never worth using over regular weapon attacks because they have a long startup and don't hit any better; they are obsolete by the first levels^note Resurrection starts with a branching path, so there's two first levels.. Since the upgrades are in a tree system, you have to buy those upgrades in order to get to the good upgrades (such as additional weapon slots and attacks that have actual utility). Collecting enough Umbral Bees to buy those upgrades requires you to go through several levels, so the initial upgrades are basically padding.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The torch in the original game. It flies in an arc that can go over the heads of enemies, and if two torches hit the ground at once, you have to wait for the fire to die down before you can attack again. Its only major boon is that, like the dagger, none of the bosses are immune to it. It's better in later games since it creates ground-running fire, but other weapons are still preferred.
  • The axe flies in the same arc as the torch, but it also passes through enemies and walls. While this may make it useful in dealing with groups of smaller enemies, it is a death sentence against enemies that take multiple hits to kill such as ogres, since the axe stays active as long as they're on the screen and you can only throw two at a time. At least with the torch you can rapidly fire them at close range. The only reason it isn't more infamous than the torch is that it's much rarer to find. To add insult to injury, the Famicom/NES port made Satan immune to axes, so it's an outright Poison Mushroom in the last two stages. It's not much better in later games, as it start flying at odd trajectories even when upgraded with magic armor, though it being able to take out multiple enemies without stopping does upgrade it to situational rather than useless.
  • Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts has the Tri-Blade, which is fairly poor due to the fact that it flies upward when thrown in an unusual "L" path and has next to no range otherwise, nor is it particularly powerful either since it starts showing up around Stage 5 where you need strong, easy-to-use weapons to deal with the stronger enemies. Its magic, Nuclear Magic, causes an explosion above Arthur that goes to either side of the screen, but isn't all that useful either. It would be replaced with the much more useful Swallow Blade in Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins which looks and works similarly, but instead of moving in an awkward “L” path it instead homes in on the nearest enemy.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop:
  • Ghouls 'n Ghosts is considerably easier than Ghosts 'n Goblins (though still Nintendo Hard), thanks largely to Arthur gaining the ability to throw weapons vertically and (with the Gold Armor) use magic.
  • Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins is definitely no cakewalk, but it is likely the easiest game in the series. It gives Arthur multiple kinds of armor that almost all have more than 2 hits of health, magic spells he can cast that aren’t tied to his armor, and various pieces of equipment he can switch to on the fly including the very exploitable flying shield.
• Spiritual Successor: Maximo: Ghosts To Glory is the official spiritual successor, having many of the same hallmarks (medieval setting with demons, knight protagonist, power-ups that are easy to lose, and overall punishing difficulty), but in a 3D platformer.
• That One Boss: Nebiroth, the penultimate boss of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, comes out right after you fight Astaroth and has some very hard to dodge attacks, in particular a huge laser he can fire quickly that takes up most of the screen and can only be dodged by quickly running into a nearby lowered area. He is made even harder if you are down to your undies with the Goddess Bracelet, the weapon’s shortened range will force you closer to Nebiroth which is very risky given the aforementioned laser. Fortunately, ducking can save you from the laser, but not the flamethrower, and you can't damage him while ducking. Nebiroth is legit much harder than the actual final boss.
• That One Level:
  • Stage 2 in Ghosts 'n Goblins. Specifically the Big Man house. The titular Big Men, the ogres, will drop spike balls from above you, and charge if they're at the same level. They take ten hits to kill, which is more than most bosses. Crows will spawn periodically from either direction, and if they come from behind you while you're hitting a Big Man, you're almost guaranteed to get hit. Plus, you can't afford to take too long, as you barely have enough time to make it through the stage, unless you know where the hidden Yashichi is.
  • Stage 6, the first castle level, in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. It's an extremely tiny stage overall, compared to the others, but you fight no less than three Red Arremer Aces over the course of the stage. Better have a good weapon, good reflexes, and magic to use (if not all three), or else you'll see that Game Over screen real soon.
  • Caverns of the Occult in Resurrection, both the regular version and the shadow version.
    • The regular version has a difficult Guide Dang It! section with two Red Arremer: The first Red Arremer appears only if a certain candle goes out; while it's fairly doable for Arthur to avoid hitting the candle, it may be hard to figure out on your own that there is a Magician who also causes the candle to go out, and that the Transmogrifrog spell is needed to stop the Magician. The second Red Arremer is spawned at random at one of two locations, at the top of a forked path; in one location, it's completely avoidable. In the other location, it's unavoidable and in a spot that gets flooded with other enemies. On the plus side, the first spawn point is in view from below, so you can check where the Red Arremer is going to be and choose which path to take according.
    • The shadow version has a modified version of the auto-scrolling dragon riding segment with far more obstacles, heavily demanding that the player has the best weapons and uses spells with precise timing. At one point, a hidden chest is the most viable platform to stay out of danger. The last part of the dragon segment makes you do the same awkwardly telegraphed jumps from dragon to dragon, but now while also avoiding jellyfish that shoot projectiles, which can travel alongside the dragons, which means that a projectile could just be exactly where you have to jump. Only a select few weapons are able to get rid of the jellyfish due to their locations and how the physics for this segment work; the shield isn't viable for getting rid of the projectiles because its trajectory doesn't work here. The dagger has a frequency issue in that can't correctly despawn by going off-screen to the right because the level's scrolling is in the same direction and at the same speed. The most reliable way to do the platforming while also defending against the jellyfish is with the Emboulden II spell, but the startup and cooldown are too long to be in boulder form the whole time (even with Quick Cast), and Arthur falls straight down during the start of the transformation, which means the dragon could slip under him and let him fall to his death, so you have to retain enough space to be caught after the cast. After all that, a single enemy plant waits at the end of the path for the final jump.
  • Numerous Hell Holes (challenge rooms required for 100% completion and accessing the true final boss) in Resurrection are this. Some are virtually unplayable without the best weapons, the golden armor, and/or upgrades that require many Umbral Bees to unlock, to the point that you'd have to be far into the second loop and have a good supply of Umbral Bees in order to handle those segments reasonably well.
• Unexpected Character: In Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection, a game that mostly pays homage to the first two games in the franchise, almost no one was expecting Hades, the Big Bad from the newer and more obscure Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins, to return as the true villain and final boss.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As elaborated in Contested Sequel, Resurrection shifts Arthur's intended playstyle from arms user with a bit of spellcasting to a full-on hybrid arms user and spellcaster (and brings the challenges to incentivize that), which some fans don't prefer.
• Woolseyism: The cross in the Japanese versions of the original game is changed to a shield in the Western releases, though the shield still has an image of a cross on it.

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