In today’s era of video game reviews we hear the phrase “the Dark Souls of [insert genre]”. Most of the time this claim seems to be unwarranted, yet Super Ghouls and Ghosts (SGG) might just be the “Dark Souls before Dark Souls”. SGG is extremely difficult for a myriad of reasons, however, I cannot tell if this was a design choice or just a coincidence. Yet I like to believe that it was made difficult in order to create a welcoming environment to play with friends and create a social connection.
See the game spends little time on developing the story, the game opens with a screeching sound as it proceeds to show the princess being stolen by a group of demon-ish sprites before being taken away from the main character. The game then shows you the “world” map, I put world in quotations because I cannot in good faith believe that anyone let alone a young child (who this game was probably target at) would be able to get to level 8. I know I didn’t get to get to level 8, hell I didn’t even get to level 2! It was not just me, however, after throwing myself at the game for a couple of hours I started to recruit a couple of friends into helping me try to beat the first level. It was at this point did I start to find the charm in SGG’s difficulty.
As me and my group of friends went through countless lives and game over screens we started to shift away from an overwhelming sense of frustration to a sense of camaraderie over our journey, we started to cheer for each other when we would move our furthest point just a couple of inches and would all cry out when the game would “mess up” and one of us would die. I believe that this is why the game is so difficult. It was made difficult not to make the players suffer repeatedly, but to create this sense of camaraderie while showing the player(s) that the idea of just throwing yourself at the game is pointless. As the more you rush into the game the more you fail. And the more you fail the more the game seems to laugh at you. It does not come out and laugh at you directly however the enemies you face and the controls of the game continuously create this feeling of embarrassment.
The controls of SGG seem to tow the line between infuriatingly loose and way too tight. The movement feels loose, and the attack mechanic tends to lag. But the worst of them all is the jumping. See the jumping mechanic is both confusing and has a steep learning curve. You can only jump in two ways: straight up or forward. And while you can sort of move in the air by using a double jump, after this jump you are helpless, and if you happen to get hit in the air, you are not given another jump. No you are thrown slightly and are then stuck falling which tends to cause you to be juggled in a funny yet frustrating way. The juggling though it may be fun also seems like the game is purposefully spawning enemies in your flight path just to kill you. This causes learning how to jump and prevent dying this way to take a lot of tries. The idea of funny but frustrating carries throughout the game. There are weapons in the game that are clearly better than others (the crossbow is OP), yet I repeatedly found myself accidentally jumping into the weaker weapons. While in most games this isn’t a big deal as once you die you reset to your default weapon, in SGG you carry your mistakes into the next life forcing you to start with less ideal weaponry. These two mechanics in tandem caused some interesting moments as if you happened to be the poor soul who died with the fire you got repeatedly lambasted because you were also forcing the next person to use it.
The general aesthetic of the game carries this fun but difficult idea to its core. The majority of enemies are from folklore and are well enough rendered that they can be best described as creepy but in a cute way. The “jester” is one of my favorite enemies as his ability to hide in chests and turn you into a baby if he hits you is just so charming that it almost made the fact that it made the current life a waste worth it. This feeling also is felt when you get hit for the first time and see the main characters heart covered underwear.
And while all these aspects alone could possibly ruin any other game, the mix of bad controls, random weapon drops, frequent frame drops, and ridiculous humor leads to a game that is perfect for playing with others. And this is what I believe the games true purpose was all along. The games bare bones story doesn't leave much room for in depth moral quandary, however by creating a difficult game that causes you to repeatedly fail, the players find that this game is the perfect canvas for creating memories with their friends… well the memories of only getting halfway through level one sadly.
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