GHOULS 'N' GHOSTS

Sir Arthur has returned to the Master System, Julian Boardman dug out his steel codpiece and joined in the fun

Apparently Arthur has been caught napping again. Having banished the Dark Prince, Loki, from the land three years ago, the old sod has returned to put the fear of something very big into the people of Lexet. Not only that but he has also kidnapped Princess Tamara, the most beautiful (and, coincidentally, richest) woman in the land. She is also single, otherwise Arthur wouldn't be wasting his undoubted talents in rescuing her.

So, squeezing your unshapely body into a sweaty old suit of armour, you take the role of the infamous Arthur and set off to avenge the village and rescue the princess. Nothing out of the ordinary for this hardened adventurer.

To get to Loki's castle, you must obtain the keys to the locked gates. To do that you must first confront the huge Gatekeepers, defeat them, walk all over them and spit on their mothers' graves. All at the same time.

All this promise of exciting, horizontally scrolling gameplay made by the manual and previous versions on other formats is throne (geddit?) out of the window by this well-presented, yet unplayable, version of Capcorn's awesome coin-op. I was never a great fan, but I recognised the qualities that made the Mega Drive version a best-seller But none of those qualities are to be found here. It is simply too difficult to make even the most hardened gamesplayer (I do actually know some) give up very early. There is no such thing as a learning curve in the game logic - you immediately feel like you've hit a brick wall.

Don't rush out and buy it on the name alone; try to play it first.

MASTER SYSTEM

GRAPHICS 76%

✘ Blocky backgrounds and scenery.

✔ Sprites are true to the original.

SOUND 78%

✘ FeW spot effects.

✔ Wide range of spooky tunes.

PLAYABILITY 45%

✘ No increasing difficulty; far too hard.

✘ Too frustrating to de addictive.

SEGA 54%

£24.99 • OUT NOW

Rating

54

Reviewer

Raze magazine

Region

UK

Scans

Raze-Magazine-Issue10?gallerypage=47

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