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Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

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Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#11

Post by superchartisle »

Supernaut wrote: post #10
kennyadam wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NES was pretty popular in the UK, wasn’t it? In our solidly working-class home, we had a NES. I remember getting Super Mario Bros 3 for christmas one year and so did many of my friends at school, who all lived in semi-detached two-bedroom homes or masonettes. So, we weren’t in a wealthy bubble or anything. I’m sure it sold multiple millions of copies in the UK and TV shows like GamesMaster were popular and had NE…

Okay, that's interesting. I was in my early teens when it was released. Absolutely everyone I knew had either a Spectrum or a C64, aside from the one rich kid who owned a BBC Micro. I just had a look at Wikipedia, which says, "the NES performed less well in Europe, where it faced strong competition from the Master System and home computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum."

This is a interesting long read on the subject: https://fatnickindustries.com/Blog/2019/07/03/8-bit-showdown...

The NES did get past a million sales in the UK, but a lot of them seem to have been at a cheap price late in its life once the SNES and (more so) the Mega Drive had established a popular market for consoles in the UK.

An indicative fact on consoles vs computers that the article highlights: in 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive reached #11 in the UK charts on its release, and it was considered a remarkable and unusual achievement for a console game to do so well.

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#13

Post by Supernaut »

superchartisle wrote: post #11
Supernaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, that's interesting. I was in my early teens when it was released. Absolutely everyone I knew had either a Spectrum or a C64, aside from the one rich kid who owned a BBC Micro. I just had a look at Wikipedia, which says, "the NES performed less well in Europe, where it faced strong competition from the Master System and home computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum."

This is a interesting long read on the subject: https://fatnickindustries.com/Blog/2019/07/03/8-bit-showdown... The NES did get past a million sales in the UK, but a lot of them seem to have been at a cheap price late in its life once the SNES and (more so) the Mega Drive had established a popular market for consoles in the UK. An indicative fact on consoles vs computers that the article highlights: in 1991, Sonic th…

Just want to say, I hadn't encountered your website before, but it's an absolute treat.

I'll be working my way through your Timeline over the next while!

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#14

Post by superchartisle »

Supernaut wrote: post #13
superchartisle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a interesting long read on the subject: https://fatnickindustries.com/Blog/2019/07/03/8-bit-showdown... The NES did get past a million sales in the UK, but a lot of them seem to have been at a cheap price late in its life once the SNES and (more so) the Mega Drive had established a popular market for consoles in the UK. An indicative fact on consoles vs computers that the article highlights: in 1991, Sonic th…

Just want to say, I hadn't encountered your website before, but it's an absolute treat. I'll be working my way through your Timeline over the next while!

Thank you! I hope you enjoy

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#15

Post by pipes »

kennyadam wrote: post #8
Supernaut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> excruciatingly difficult As the author of the article notes, the NES was not popular in the UK or Europe as a whole, and indeed, I've still never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. But we did have arcades in the town I grew up in, and when Ghosts n' Goblins was current, I can remember discussing it with another kid in our schoolyard. He told me that someone he knew had made it all the way to the end of the game. T…

The NES was pretty popular in the UK, wasn’t it? In our solidly working-class home, we had a NES. I remember getting Super Mario Bros 3 for christmas one year and so did many of my friends at school, who all lived in semi-detached two-bedroom homes or masonettes. So, we weren’t in a wealthy bubble or anything. I’m sure it sold multiple millions of copies in the UK and TV shows like GamesMaster were popular and had NE…

I got one about 1992ish I think. I had a Gameboy before that. And a spectrum before that. To be honest the game boy was a revelation, smooth fun polished games. My spectrum crashed all the time (thanks Alan sugar and your cheaper manufacturering). Nintendo games had multi person dev teams instead of some poor guy looking at a video of an arcade machine and trying to recreate at on a spectrum.

Though everyone I knew got a snes and street fighter 2 for Xmas one year. I only knew one other nes owner

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#17

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

Supernaut wrote: post #7
vunderba wrote: post #3

Speaking of Ghosts n' Goblins - there was a discussion on HN not too long ago about platformer controls in old video games (air control vs. non–air control), and how being able to control your character in the air mostly won out. As someone who grew up playing the excruciatingly difficult NES version of Ghouls ’n Ghosts , can't say I'm sorry to see that mechanic go the way of the Atari Jaguar.

> excruciatingly difficult As the author of the article notes, the NES was not popular in the UK or Europe as a whole, and indeed, I've still never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. But we did have arcades in the town I grew up in, and when Ghosts n' Goblins was current, I can remember discussing it with another kid in our schoolyard. He told me that someone he knew had made it all the way to the end of the game. T…

I was on the other side of this, playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night in elementary school. One day I discover something that my friend never found, even though I looked up him, since he completed the whole game.

Well what I discovered was the reverse castle and another 50% of the game he never played. I called him on the landline and started telling him about it and he was saying "what are you even talking about", he thought I was lying until he followed my instructions.

That thing settled exploration as one if my favorite thing in videogames, the discovery was amazing

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#18

Post by mrighele »

Some random thoughts...

(I was a kid in the 80s and I played in arcades a lot. I think I could still tell in which arcade I played each game).

> There was an economic motivation for this difficulty, in getting more coins from players quicker, but Fujiwara would later insist that wasn’t the primary motivation and that they were meeting a demand from strong players for challenge.

Thats' not completely true. If it was that way, players would quickly grew fed up and stop playing. You need a balance between getting money out of people and people keep playing because they have fun.

I think one of the most efficient way to do that is having MOST of your players being suckers that keep pouring money, but allow a few to get very good at it, and play an inordinate amount of time with a single coin. That way the suckers will keep playing hoping to do the same. Most people would last 5 level in Bubble Bobble, but you had the occasional "genius" that would finish it.

Very difficult games like GnG were well regarded but not as played as others, as much as I can remember.

> Fujiwara later responded to a question about SNK’s Ikari and its resemblance to Commando by saying that was just how things were, although he was disappointed that they had got to release more sequels than him.

In the 80's there were not many game mechanics available []. I dare say that 90% of the games were either

vertical shoot 'em ups (think Galaxian) * horizontal shoot 'em ups (think Gradius) * beat 'em ups (think Double Dragon) * platform (think Mario) * to a lesser extent, racing games (think Outrun)

I think mostly due to HW limitations.

So if you are going to have a soldier going around killing people, of course it is going to resemble Command in some way. Doesn't mean they are the same, in the same way that Poker and Bridge are not the same despite using the same set of cards.

[*] There were some outliers, and some of them were great (Tron, Star Wars) but they more the exception that the rule.

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#19

Post by InsideOutSanta »

Supernaut wrote: post #7
vunderba wrote: post #3

Speaking of Ghosts n' Goblins - there was a discussion on HN not too long ago about platformer controls in old video games (air control vs. non–air control), and how being able to control your character in the air mostly won out. As someone who grew up playing the excruciatingly difficult NES version of Ghouls ’n Ghosts , can't say I'm sorry to see that mechanic go the way of the Atari Jaguar.

> excruciatingly difficult As the author of the article notes, the NES was not popular in the UK or Europe as a whole, and indeed, I've still never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. But we did have arcades in the town I grew up in, and when Ghosts n' Goblins was current, I can remember discussing it with another kid in our schoolyard. He told me that someone he knew had made it all the way to the end of the game. T…

The NES is historically amongst the most popular consoles sold in Europe, but with huge differences between countries. In some countries, every kid either had or wanted one, while in others, micros and/or Sega were dominant.

Re: Ghosts'n Goblins – “Worse danger is ahead”

#20

Post by mrighele »

Supernaut wrote: post #7
vunderba wrote: post #3

Speaking of Ghosts n' Goblins - there was a discussion on HN not too long ago about platformer controls in old video games (air control vs. non–air control), and how being able to control your character in the air mostly won out. As someone who grew up playing the excruciatingly difficult NES version of Ghouls ’n Ghosts , can't say I'm sorry to see that mechanic go the way of the Atari Jaguar.

> excruciatingly difficult As the author of the article notes, the NES was not popular in the UK or Europe as a whole, and indeed, I've still never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. But we did have arcades in the town I grew up in, and when Ghosts n' Goblins was current, I can remember discussing it with another kid in our schoolyard. He told me that someone he knew had made it all the way to the end of the game. T…

To be fair, we are talking about arcade games. You were not supposed to finish them, but to finish your money before that :-) [].

You are paying for a game, so you have the right to continue playing until you die. In that context, restarting the game (hopefully with an higher difficulty level) is the proper course of actoin

[] The authors of Pacman probably didn't even think you would be able to reach level 256 and overflow the variable. That's how you get to a kill screen that corrupts memory.

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