There’s not much story after the introduction, but the basic premise of the game is that an evil overlord wants to mix up the royal lineage so he kidnaps the princess. You’ll traverse through six different stages, chucking weapons, leaping over pits and dodging bizarre creatures. Along the way you pick up various types of armor to give you greater protection, as well as upgraded weapons which come in an unlimited supply.

There are three levels of difficulty, and I found that even on novice, it doesn’t really make the game much easier; it just lets you die a lot more without having to start over from the beginning of the stage. I suppose this helps if you have a tendency to get hit a lot, but at that point, if you’re getting hit that often your chances of making it to the end are slim anyway. There is no such thing as a break. If you dilly dally, even at the start, you’ll find yourself transformed into a pile of bones. The most challenging part I find, besides the unlimited amount of monsters that are coming at me, are the jumps. You’ll get the opportunity to do double jumps early on, which helps a great deal, but there is no real maneuvering involved once your jump is executed; it’s about as stiff as it gets in terms of platform gaming.

For the stages that I managed to make it to, the backgrounds had a great level of detail. If only they put that kind of effort into the gameplay, I would have enjoyed myself a bit more. Due to the rather frustrating controls and my lack of skill when it comes to jumping, I had to eventually pass this game over to Vaelin to play for me.

What Vaelin says

Unlike Soapy, this game brought back memories of dumping hundreds of quarters into a stand-up arcade Ghosts’n Goblins at the local 7-Eleven. Hundreds of thousands of thrown lances later, and a beat-up shield, I finally beat the mega-boss and swore off GnG. I think I got a blister hitting the fire button so many times. This was one of those fast paced, crazy games that kept your adrenaline running because the monsters pretty much never stopped attacking from all directions.

Fast forward 20+ years, and now I find myself doing the same thing. Graphics and sound are much improved, however, and now I’m playing it in the comfort of my own home on a little technological marvel called the PlayStation Portable.

The game is just as fast paced before, even more so probably, but then again it may be because I’m 2 decades older. The formula hasn’t changed much, which brings nostalgia back, however also shows just how much games have progressed. Even other platform games have improved, and GnG is no different. From the additional spells to the different items and power-ups, the game plays a bit more like a super-fast-paced RPG now. One problem, at least for me, since this was a rented game in my case, I had no manual. Not having it makes figuring out the controls a bit harder, especially when you’re in the inventory screen. I went through most of the game without knowing what to do in that inventory screen, so I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Ultimate Ghosts’n Goblins is a blast from the past that many older players will probably enjoy having on their PSP. Its mindless entertainment at it’s best, hack and slash your way through levels, jumping, throwing and making things explode. However, as a game for a current generation handheld, its simplistic nature will probably turn off the younger players, especially those who had never had the pleasure of stuffing quarters down the arcade machine slots, hearing the sound of “Credit 1” pop on screen.