Ghosts 'n Goblins Review

Its influence is not in question. The graveyard opening, the armour that shatters into boxer shorts, the zombies rising out of the ground behind you as you walk, all of it entered the vocabulary immediately and stayed there. It is also a coin operated machine and behaves like one. Arthur's jump is committed the moment it leaves the ground with no steering, which turns every gap into a prediction rather than a reaction, and enemies spawn behind you specifically to punish forward movement.

Getting hit twice is death, the weapon pickups are frequently downgrades you cannot refuse, and the torch is a trap. Then, having survived to the end, you are told the encounter was an illusion and sent back to stage one at a higher difficulty to earn the ending. That is not design so much as revenue policy. Play it for the history and for the strange dignity of the sprite work, not for a fair fight.