Ghosts 'N Goblins (ARC) - high score #4

I basically took two weeks off from playing this game, having two different trips back to back keeping me out of town. I just started in on it again tonight and blew away my old high score, but more importantly, I got the the end of stage 6 two different credits in a row. Once I get some solid patterns down for the dual Satans at the end of 6, I should be good for the loop - which I am absolutely dying to pass.

I honestly cannot believe how much time I have devoted to this game, but I am psyched at getting as far as I have. It's an excellent game, one of Capcom's best. Hopefully, I will be reaching the end of the first loop soon!

Ghosts 'N Goblins (ARC) high score #3

The progress from here on out is slow - I can get to the end of stage 5 regularly on 1CC, but cannot defeat the stage boss with any regular occurrence. I still have to find a good pattern for him. I have got to the bosses at the end of stage 6, right at the end of the game, just before your first fight with the devil or whomever has captured your girl, but have not passed them with the shield. I had previously beat them with the knife, but when you do, the game sends you back to the beginning of stage 5 as no weapon but the shield can beat the end boss.

I'm playing this every night after work for about an hour each night and I am still working on the stage 5 and 6 patterns. Hoping to get something down soon to oass the end of the first loop! I'm really eager to start in on the second loop and work for the good ending.

Ghosts 'N Goblins (ARC) high score #2

A bit of progress, but progress I'm really happy about! I finally made it to stage 6 on one credit and died facing the dragon from stage 3 during the boss rush. He pretty much made a beeline for me and I kept retreating, but to no avail.

I did up my score quite a bit to 127,800 and I can feel the 1cc within reach. I still need a lot more practice on stage 5 and a good solid strategy for one bottle neck, before the end of the stage that I cannot seem to figure out a good pattern for. This time that I did pass it, was mostly due to luck and some quick shooting.

I'm not sure just how hard the stage 5 full boss rush is gonna be, but I have solid strats down for most of the bosses, so I hope not too tough. I know that completeing the first loop will feel like a great accomplishment, but it is a 2-loop game and that second loop will probably beckon...

Ghosts 'N Goblins (ARC) - high score #1

After I bought this cab, I realized it may be the heaviest arcade cab ever built and I happen to live on the second floor of a two floor walk-up. So, since I bought it, it has resided in my garage, waiting to see the light of day again.

And because I have an awesome job and work for a great company in SRAM, I was told to bring it in for our department and viola - now I can work on the game! Woohoo!


Manhandling the cab into my car and up to the thrid floor at work was pretty easy with an elevator involved at work, so I got it set up in a night, made a few adjustments to the dips and monitor, cracked open an ice cold Heineken and got right down to playing.

It only took a few credits to get rolling again and that first night, I was making it to the end of the third stage with regularity.

Last night, I started playing while everyone was hanging out after work on the porch and drinking beer and started getting to the fourth stage and then the fifth on a single credit. Wow. I actually impressed myself at how fast I was progressing! It does help that you can glitch the boss on stage 4 if, as soon as you hear the boss music, you turn right around and start walking backwards. It takes a few seconds of walking and then the end stage 'Take A Key For Coming In!' greeting pops up and you are done.

Stage 5 is still pretty tough, though I did make it to the boss a few times, but have only fought him 3-4 times and really am not sure about his patterns. I have watched a few superplays - one from Superplay.co.uk and another from the AEX archives which have certainly helped, but this game really requires you to know eqach of the attack patterns of each of the enemies to sucessfully defeat them. It's not a simple case of memorization, as the enemy AI can do - and often does - create new movements and patterns on the go. Red Devils seem to be the best at this.


I ended up my playing last night on stage 5, one stage from the end of the game. Stage 6 is pretty much a boss rush with a short stage in between bosses to get to the end battle and then - you get to do it all over again.

For those who don't know, at the end of all 6 stages, you fight Lucifer and if you defeat him, the game tells you that 'This Room Is a Trap Devised By Satan" and to go back to the beginning and challenge it again. So you have to beat it TWICE to get the real ending. The second loop is harder, with more and quicker projectiles. When you beat it the second time, it gives you the good ending and then allows you to keep playing through it if you'd like. I'm not sure if the subsequent levels are any harder than the second loop, but I can't imagine making it through three loops of this game.

New cab: Ghosts 'n Goblins - Capcom, 1985

Picked up a completely mint, totally restored Ghosts 'n Goblins today and I'm so stoked! Just like when I picked up a Tempest years back, I had to drive throughout the remnants of the big storm that ran through the midwest just a day ago, dropping 5-10 inches with 35-50 mile an hour winds and lot and lots of ice. Which certainly made the 5 miles on completely iced country roads off of 94 to my destination pretty hairy - especially on the return trip, having to do it in the dark! But it was well worth it and the game is in better shape than I could have ever imagined.


I found a posting on craigslist about a week and a half ago for it on the Madison, WI site for $200, which is pretty low for a machine that looked this nice. It's a game I have always wanted to add to my small arcade and one I have always wanted to 1cc. For the price, I expected a player - beat up, functional, but rough, much like my old Marble Madness cab. I offered $125 as the monitor had some screen burn (which actually is barely noticeable when playing it, the camera flash makes it look a lot worse than it really is) and the seller accepted. But when I arrived, I couldn't believe just how perfect the machine was. The CP was new, the actual panel beneath looked brand new - no rust at all -, the bezel had NO marks on the plexi and the marquee was just as clean.

Turns out, the guy who owned it before the current owner I bought it from totally restored it. The insides were so clean that you could have done heart surgery off them. The only oddity is that the previous owner covered the cab sides and kickplate with thick and strangely classy, certainly vintage wood grain. Think Frogger. It looks great with the edges of the thick panels beveled professionally. The original blue vinyl is under it, but I'm going to leave it as is. The stuff is super durable and actually looks fantastic. The cp graphics actually looks great with it with the tree branches on the cp bleeding into the wood grain very naturally.



The pictures here are the sellers as we disassembled it to move it up the seller's stairs and into the Element. It sits in my garage now, right next to the vs. cab, awaiting the apartment. Both will be installed upstairs before the meet in February and I cannot wait.

Makaimura/Ghosts 'n Goblins - arcade

Regular readers of the blog know that I tackled Castlevania 1cc'ing the vs. arcade and the NES console port as it was one of my most feared games of my past. Well, top of that list would be Ghosts and Goblins, a ridiculously hard and unforgiving arcade game by Capcom.

It was amazingly popular in Japan and it was ported to just about every system, including the NES/Famicom, Sharp X68000, Commodore 64 and Amiga, Gameboy Color, Playstation , Sega Saturn, Wonderswan, and the PSP.

It's a beautiful game, even today, with exceptionally well-drawn sprites and a very distinct soundtrack. The opening of the game, where your girl gets stolen away from you by a devil is still very cool and the music during the opening so distinct, that I can recall the piano-synth-organ sound at almost anytime.

Aside from being an excellently drawn and sounding game, it's brutally hard. Crazy, brutally hard. The kind of hard that breaks controllers and keeps you pissed for a while. It's nearly a total memorizer - sequences of events/enemies that need to be totally memorized in order to overcome them. I say almost because there is a fluidity to the gameplay, but one that requires perfect, split-second decisions.

I have just started playing this after loading mame on my Macbook as my Mame box is totally dead. It's a game I never could get far in as a kid, but one that I loved to play, just like Castlevania. And just like Castlevania, it's a game that I really want to 1cc.

I have been playing for a few days, about ten to fifteen credits a day, sometimes credit feeding to see just how far I can get and learn the more advanced patterns in the game. I can now get to the third stage without too much trouble, but the third stage absolutely kicks my butt every time.

I would love nothing more than to pour hours into this on the arcade and have a deal pending for one, which will hopefully be mine before the 2011 Chicagoland Winter Carnival coming up in February, the 18th through the 20th.