Gargoyle's Quest (1990)

(This is the 12th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Today I've played and beaten Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts 'n Goblins, which is a spinoff to the arcade hit Ghosts 'n Goblins from 1985. Gargoyle's Quest itself released on May 2, 1990 in Japan for the Game Boy. This game focuses on the character Firebrand, a gargoyle known from the arcade game for being the most annoying enemy of all.

This game is mostly a platformer but can also be put into the Action Adventure category. It's even called an RPG, though if it classifies as that is questionable. There are two gameplay elements in this game. The first is a top down view of Firebrand as he moves around the overworld, a la Final Fantasy, Crystalis and all the other JRPGs of the time. Similarly to those, there are towns and dungeons you can enter, where you can talk to a few people and buy items, and you can even be put into random battles whilst traveling the overworld.

The other element is the platforming / random battles. Platforming is pretty simple and the amount of different obstacles aren't that many. You can jump, levitate/fly for a few seconds, hang on to walls and shoot projectiles. There are wasps, flying spiders and several ground enemies to fight whilst platforming past obstacles like spikes that try to spike you, water that tries to drag you down, fire bursting from the ground vertically and more.

Whilst random battles usually take a very short amount of time, dungeons have pretty long platforming sections and a boss at the end of them.

The game took me 5 hours to beat using save states but would take more than twice that without any I would assume due to the lack of health that is available and the game throwing you back pretty far whenever you get a GAME OVER screen. It's a solid platformer. I wouldn't say it was very hard, I mean I beat it (!), but that's because I used save states. I used save states in the other games I've played as well but those still were too tough to beat. The issue here isn't the platforming that makes this very hard to beat, but rather that you don't have much health and therefore have to do a whole lot of travelling and random-battling before you can attempt a dungeon again.

STORYTELLING

The game starts by telling us that the "Great Realm" was attacked by Destroyers several hundred years ago and won, however at the start of this game, a threat looms once again. This time, it's Firebrand who has to save the day against the Destroyers' king, who is called "Breager".

On your journey, Firebrand has to get stronger and stronger to face him. Many allies aid him in that regard and there are many powerful members of the Destroyers that he has to face before he can get his hands on King Breager.

That's pretty much it. You can talk to a bunch of NPCs, mostly in towns, and you have to talk to a lot of barons of a lot of towns you visit, who tell you to go to Point A to get Item B. To get Item B, you need Item A, which the barons give you. You get Item B, return it to the baron, get Item C and move on. Slowly but surely, you learn a bit more about the world and your identity and ultimately try to save the Realm by defeating King Breager.

You can say "Yes" or "No" a bunch of times when you talk to Barons and others who give you tasks. King Breager even asks you to join him, to which I said "No". I always said the one you are expected to say to make progress, but unfortunately didn't try to say "Yes" to Breager or "No" to the others to see what happens. I can't imagine that much does happen since it would make you unable to progress. If that's true, there are no decisions you can make in this game. There really isn't anything that would make me call it an RPG.

Overall, the story is there and it's OK, it fleshes out the Ghosts 'n Goblins lore a tiny bit.

GAMEPLAY

The overworld gameplay is OK but not where the fun in this game is in my opinion. When you make your way to a town to receive your quest, you are thrown into random battles after every few steps. These take place in very small areas and are not all too varied. There are 6-10 different one's I encountered over 50+ random battles. In one you have to kill 3 enemies, jump to the next platform and somehow find a way to land on the platform below to kill the final 2 enemies, since it's a tight platform and they walk around constantly. You do that until you realize that you have individual health for each battle, so you just say screw it and let them hit you once to be able to kill them quickly and win the battle.

Each battle gives you 1-4 vials, which is currency in this game and is used exclusively to purchase "Talismans of the Cyclone", which are extra continues.

You can collect vials and talismans from vases as well, plus some items are hidden in the game world, which you can figure out by talking to the correct townspeople. One for example tells you that "wings" that let you hover above ground for a longer duration are hidden in a tree near the palace. Go there and you'll find them.

Apart from that, you receive pretty much all other items from quest-givers before and/or after you complete their quests. They give you new weapons (there are 4 total and some bosses are resistant to a few), they boost your wing ability and that's pretty much about it.

In the second gameplay section, the dungeon/platforming section, you do what you do in a lot of other platformers. There are rarely points where you are overwhelmed by too many enemies or environmental obstacles, but sometimes the controls don't feel tight enough, especially when you have to try to stick to a wall that is between two water sprites, both of which hurt you if you touch them and give you 2 damage. At the start of the game, that is enough for an insta-kill. Plus, sometimes you have to stick to walls and jump up to try and destroy a wall that blocks your path. If the ceiling is right there as well, you can be stuck in this weird loop of trying to shoot your projectiles in the split-second you got to aim at the wall before you drop down again.

Controls are still tighter than in most games I've played from this year up to this point, so those are mostly minor annoyances.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE

No voice acting. The sound design was mostly average, but sometimes a bit too in your face, especially when opening up the combat menu to change weapons. The music in this game was mostly average but there were some good tracks in here, however unlikely that I'll remember it as much as I will with other games I've played of this year so far.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN

Looks better than a lot of other Game Boy titles out there, but it's still a Game Boy game. There are no colors, which is OK, but worst of all assets are just reused all the time and the overworld / towns look almost identical throughout. I appreciate that the game has tried to mix some genres together during a time where releasing unfairly difficult, grab-the-players-coin arcade game type platformers seems to have been the norm, but it doesn't enhance the experience, rather the opposite I'd almost have to say.

ATMOSPHERE

Overall, the lore and world building, the soundtrack and the locations differing based on appearance and simply their placement in this world (Floating Continent, Flooded World etc.) made for a pretty atmospheric game.

CONTENT

Without save states, it'll take you closer to ten hours to finish this, but it can get annoying pretty fast. For a playthrough where you use save states, you are looking at closer to 4-5 and overall, I did appreciate the lack of filler in this game apart from random battles becoming repetitive at some point. Apart from the main missions and those battles however, there isn't much else here.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN

The game works the same pretty much throughout. You make your way to a town in the overworld. On your way there, a few random battles take place in small areas and they end when you kill the enemies.

Once you make it to a town, you are given a quest and go to the dungeon, where you have to do some platforming. You kill a boss, return to the quest-giver, go to a new town and so it goes. It's a fun little loop but the game doesn't try to mix it up.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION

As I mentioned before, I did appreciate the mix of genres, but those features typically found in RPGs (overworld with towns and dungeons to enter, leveling systems) are the opposite of fleshed out and didn't quite work. With a bit better execution and more technological possibilities this could work though.

REPLAYABILITY

There isn't much incentive to replay this game after a first playthrough.

PLAYABILITY

The game worked well overall but specific sections had very low FPS for some reason. I didn't have problems with the emulator with any other game and the FPS drops happened at the same few areas, which was noticeable, so I think it's worth mentioning, but I had no issues other than that.

OVERALL

An above-average platformer as an overall product, but I would put that on the platforming sections being fairer than others that I have played rather than the game having RPG / Action Adventure elements mixed in. Most of you will probably enjoy your time with this one, but I'd suggest the use of save states when playing. You won't need to use any guides however, and it won't take you too many afternoons to go through it either.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

• Charlie T. Aslan for GamePro Issue 13 (Aug 90): "Every once in a while, a game comes along that is so original and enjoyable it becomes an instant hit and remains a top-seller for years to come. Gargoyle's Quest [...] falls into this category." | Based on this review, the mix of genres was seen as a good thing, a reminder that MY reviews represent MY opinion and yours may vary
• ? for Nintendo Power Issue 12 (May-June 90): "The excitement of an action game and the depth of a [RPG] are combined in Gargoyle's Quest from Capcom."

First of all, I tried to play this legit without save states rewind and ooh boy after about an hour i realized this was a lot tougher than review i read somewhere gave it credit for. Always felt like there are a certain element of game boy games that are designed to be hard in such a way as to extend the time you will be playing it (even more than home consoles of the time) and this would be one of those. It's not a long game, or a big game but it will take you time to play legit without cheating, lots of memorization and retries.

GQ is basically a side-scrolling platform shooter It's a watered down action-RPG of the era (Japanese-style not modern ARPG) The description on this site is pretty glowing, and I found it's okay but overall hasn't aged all that well. Still, for a Action-RPG it manages to have quite a bit for a game boy game. The whole RPG mechanics is mostly filler and window dressing, though. you basically progress through a gated area of the game, get a little more HP or can fly higher. (It would not be sincere to suggest that the genre of this game is an RPG)

SO the main attraction is the platforming (with shooting), it's okay. I don't like how you can jump and cling to walls and cant actually break off without jumping higher in the process (usually into a spike trap or something that will harm you) also the players playing field is relatively small (so as to be able to see things easier i imagine) and this is one of those games where if you move away enough, enemies respawn, so basically its a short walk until they are back, and there are a lot of back and forth platforming jumps in this. Shooting has the usual harware limitation gimmick in that you can only fire two times until your shot hits something allowing you to fire again (with the usage of a new sprite.)

I played Demon's Crest before this game, and GQ lays some foundation for it but it's without much resemblance of the later game's better bits.

Platform:

Gameboy version.

Graphics/Sound:

It's the old non-color gameboy so I find it kind of funny that the whole game has to spell it out loud that you are red, and apparently the cover art designer didn't play the game. The sprites are well made. The soundtrack is awesome, and has some parodies from Ghosts'n'Goblins in it. I mean Capcom, they deliver solid stuff.

It's mix between adventure/rpg and platformer. There is no experience system so it's not really an rpg. But it has random battles, which are basically little platforming stages that require you to kill the enemies and are a means to earn some money. There is an overworld map in top down perspective and towns where you can buy stuff and talk to npcs. I like how this all feels like a miniature adventure. The platforming itself is also unique in that you have skills like clinging to walls and flying a certain distance which make this different from standard platformers right off the bat.

Difficulty:

It starts out pretty tough with only a few hitpoints and little flight stamina, but as it progresses you get better skills and more hitpoints, so it essentially becomes a bit easier - Except for the final boss which is still a real challenge. But for a game in the Ghosts'n'Goblins franchise it's surprisingly playable.

Conclusion:

It's a lovely little adventure with some unique elements. Sure the random battles could have been more varied and meaningful or just been scrapped, but apart from that this is a really well made game.

History:

Played plenty of Ghouls & Ghosts, but never this or even Demon's Crest.

Expectations:

Capcom platformer, I'm not sure if it's possible to be too disappointed and after this recent string of games, I just want something with some substance.

Day 1:

I know, you play as a monster from Ghouls & Ghosts (I keep calling it that because Genesis) and I know it has the name in the sub title, but I wasn't expecting it to "feel" so much like the source material! This is a good thing.

The platforming sections of the game are proving to be incredibly difficult, but not in a terribly cheap way. Still, I think I'll need to play this one on the Super Gameboy just to get the more precise controls and bigger screen.

If only all that awesome platforming wasn't broken up by RANDOM BATTLES! Seriously, is it too much to ask to just have a straight through platformer? Even back then, "RPGification" was in full swing...

Day 2:

Paying on the Super Gameboy was much easier, which is to slightly less brutal. I was able to make it through the first couple towers without too much trouble, and the game does get slightly easier the more power-ups you get.

Is that foreshadowing I smell?

Towards the end of the game you start to see a lot of stupid crap like this, and the most optimal strategy becomes taking damage from something that only hurts you for one health, like spikes, so you can use the temporary invulnerability to skip past things that will kill you, like this literally impossible to dodge drill. When did I start playing games like this!?

Nailed it.

This was the boss from last tower, and he ended up being remarkably easy. As soon as he opened a window for me to attack it only took one cycle of mashing the attack button and beast was done.

After Super Kami Guru unlocked my full potential I had a ton of health, a new weapon, and most importantly, infinite flight. Being able to hover indefinitely changed the way you playing the game, and I was happy to see the last few sections of the game changed up their layouts to accommodate and challenge this new ability.

Unfortunately, this is another one of those games where pausing obscures everything on screen, so I couldn't get a shot of the final confrontation. Just imagine it was epic.

Imagine it, because sadly it was just as anticlimactic as the last fight. As soon as his arms go down, spam your new weapon into his face and the fight's over before it can begin.

Conclusion:

Gargoyle's Quest was... okay. Definitely not a bad game, but I feel like, for me, it falls short in places. This is one of those games where I would have loved to have played it straight through as a platformer, or at least with a Mega Man stage select screen, as opposed to playing more like, say, Zelda II.

The platforming is very challenging, which is just fine, until you suffer a cheap death in a random encounter on your way to a tower and now you're one life down for no good reason. Losing all your lives sends you back to the last chapel you checked in at, and the trip from their back to your destination will likely include several random encounters.

In spite of this, I was able to enjoy Gargoyle's Quest thanks to its platforming stages and progression system, and it's got me looking forward to playing Demon's Crest on the SNES, a game I previously had no interest in.

Liked:

- Fun and challenging platforming stages.
- Music motifs pulled straight from Ghouls & Ghosts
- Progression system had you feeling very powerful by the end of the game.

Disliked:

- Would have preferred a straight platformer as opposed to mixing in adventure and RPG elements.
- Random encounters.

Personal Score:

I was going though my gameboy games and was just about to play this and finally beat it, when I remembered I had already beaten it a long time ago!

The game is pretty well dated, and the battle system is kind of like Legend of Zelda 2. You have an overworld that generates random battle encounters which kick you to a battle screen with a stage, but you cant leave until you defeat all the enemies on the stage.

One of the first games I played when I was younger. I never got really far as I was young and I kinda ran out of steam. It can be a little unforgiving right at the beginning but once you are able to glide longer it becomes much easier. If you are playing this game back in 1993 like I was, you have the added difficulty of trying to play when your older brother won't share his games with you cause he is a game hog, and will try to write up convoluted contracts to trick you out of ownership of your own games and beat you up when you tell your parents he won't share his games or even let you play your own.

Not super long. Maybe 8ish hours?

Nostalgia glasses aside, you can probably disregard this game if you have played anything old from this era. It's just one of those games that has its own little system of doing things and doesn't have a whole lot of replay value.