Gargoyle's Quest

Ghosts 'n Goblins

Released for the original Game Boy in 1990, Gargoyle's Quest is a side scrolling platformer that also contained game play elements taken from the RPG genre. The player controls Firebrand, a Gargoyle who is trying to save his home world from an army of hostile creatures. Developed by Capcom, this game is a part of the Ghosts 'n Goblins series of games which also contained games such as Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins, Gold Knights and more. Being a part of this series, Gargoyle's Quest is known for it's high difficulty and unforgiving level design. Considering the time it was released, the graphics and sound are fairly sophisticated, however dated they are now.

The Legendary Red Blaze

This game, as well as the Ghosts 'n Goblins series as a whole, took a lot of inspiration from mythology and folklore, and as such is quite sophisticated for a 1 Megabit Game Boy game. Firebrand the Gargoyle is asked to help save the Ghoul Realm, which has been taken over by the evil King Breager and his army of Destroyers. The legend of the land tells a tale of a mighty warrior known as the Red Blaze who once defeated King Breager and brought an age of peace to the Ghoul Realm, now that the land is under attack again, Firebrand must step in and help. Whilst progressing in the game, the story reveals that Firebrand is destined to become another incarnation of the Red Blaze so that he can defeat King Breager.

Whilst playing the game, the drawbacks of fitting a story this size as well as all of the game play into a cartridge with such a small amount of memory shows, as all the non-playable characters that Firebrand meets all look the same and speak only one or two sentences, some of which are not translated very well. The game starts at the beginning of the first side-scrolling level, as Firebrand traverses what appears to be a burning town. After defeating the boss of this level, the player is presented with a birds-eye-view of the land that Firebrand can explore. This is where the RPG elements come into play; As the player explores the land, he is subjected to random encounters where the play switches back to a side scrolling environment. After defeating all of the enemies, the play switches back to exploration and the Gargoyle can continue his journey.

Pure Nineties

Being a child of the nineties, this is one of the first games that I really enjoyed playing, even though it was extremely difficult. It is only after downloading this game on the 3DS' Virtual Console that I have been able to finish it, as I felt that the circle pad made controlling Firebrand easier than the D-Pad did. The main reason that I was only able to finish this recently, however, is that the 3DS allows the player to create a save or 'restore' point when playing Virtual Console games, so instead of having to start levels all over again after getting yet another 'game over', I could just load my restore point. This game did utilize a password system, but this would only resurrect Firebrand in the nearest town, which still made the platform levels difficult to finish. I feel that this highlights how spoiled we are as gamers now, as it is extremely rare to find a new game that is genuinely hard finish.

In my opinion, this game can feel a little dated now and as such can be a little hard to get into if starting it again, especially if you are playing it for the first time. Having played the original, however, I loved playing it again and loved wallowing in some nostalgia, but I did notice that the game only really starts to engross the player as the game progresses and Firebrand becomes more powerful, being able to jump higher, fly longer and attack stronger. It also becomes a lot more enjoyable and also easier as the player begins to master the controls, dodging enemies and obstacles whilst blasting enemies with relative efficiency.

Although I have only played one other game in this series - Super Ghouls and Ghosts, it is notable that whilst they can feel old and dated, they still contain a lot of personality and can be very fun to revisit, as long as you are prepared to take a mental trip back to a time where games would have you die a lot and regularly revisit the same places, getting just a little further each time, and you would think "Just one more try, I'll do it this time."