Well well, it’s October and with perfect timing the next AVGN episode on the review list is the Halloween episode for 2012 – Ghosts n’ Goblins! That’s right, in this episode James takes on not just one of the more difficult games in the NES library, but a game that has haunted him since his childhood.
This was one of the games he got back in 1988 alongside his Nintendo Entertainment System and apparently when the system was hooked up it was the game 8 year old James decided to play, making Ghosts n’ Goblins the first game on the Nintendo Entertainment System that James Rolfe played. What a hell of a game to start out with.
After telling this back story (along with clips of the actual event from his families home videos) we get right to the game and it’s very interesting opening. James honestly wastes no time getting down to business with just what this game is like and how to best play it. This episode really isn’t about the flaws of the game, as while it can be clunky at times it’s actually pretty good on a whole. No no, this episode is a focus on the sheer difficulty of the game, with the main source of this challenge being the fact you can only get hit twice. While the game has unlimited continues and puts you back at the last checkpoint, the fact is you need to make reasonable progress for this to even matter!
We get a level by level look at the game, the enemies, bosses, oddities and advice for difficult sections, culminating at Level 6. Oh, level 6 of Ghosts n’ Goblins, where bosses are now normal enemies. Two main focuses are a Shield weapon you can get (more on that later) and one pair of “rock and hard place” situations to deal with.
After clearing the level of enemies, James goes back to get the shield since it’s required to beat the game. He fails at beating Satan at the end, and has to try to get the knife, the best weapon in the game, again, then finally goes through everything again, and again, and again, before finally being able to defeat Satan and move on to the final boss, the Devil. Yeah, the enemy naming is a bit odd.
This is when he discovers the fact that the game doesn’t end here. You have to play through the whole thing again! This happens in the form of a rage filled Nerd rant montage, all for the reward of a terribly translated ending that the Nerd can only react to in an RPG-esq sequence where he battles the cartridge. It’s a weird one, but funny.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
I’ve said before that my favorite Nerd episodes are the ones inspired by his actual life, especially his childhood gaming, and this one is no exception to that trend. He takes a game he’s been playing for 25 years at that time and still not completed and gets it done. Yes, the story goes he actually played the game to completion for the first time in his life while filming this episode! That’s pretty awesome, and his enjoyment of the process seems to show in this. It’s a pretty solid gaming video on many points, not just as a Nerd episode.