Playing on the Game Boy got me a little nostalgic, so I'm trying to recollect what games I played back in the day, and deciding whether they're worth revisiting after all these years.
Then I remembered one in particular. I remember it quite vividly because it gave 12-year old me the biggest tantrum I've ever had. There was a boss monster in the game that I just couldn't beat, and it literally enraged me to tears. The reason for that was because I hadn't learned an important lesson yet - hardware limitations can screw up games.
The game in question?
Gargoyle's Quest.
Note the cover image, showing a very green gargoyle. This becomes somewhat relevant later on, especially considering this is a monochrome Game Boy-title.
12-year old me learned my lesson - games can be hard, and sometimes it's not their fault. So I pressed on and beat that boss, then played and beat the rest of the game, and said "I'm never playing this one again!".
Until now. I felt like conducting an experiment. It took me weeks, months even, to beat the game back in the day. Since then I've gotten gud at games, surely I can beat it again with impunity? So I went and did precisely that.
GQ is a hybrid lite-JRPG with platforming elements. There's a Final Fantasy-esque overworld to explore and interact with, and also side-view stages in between which must be cleared to proceed. You control Firebrand, a gargoyle summed to the Ghoul Realm to save its inhabitants from the evil Army of Destruction. Sounds very samey, but the one gimmick is that you're a monster, saving a realm of monsters, from some other monsters, and every item, place or thing of relevance has a monster-y name to it. You can have up to nine 'Talismans of the Cyclone', when in fact everyone else calls them 'Lives'. Were it not for the monochrome graphics this game would be a good contender for a Halloween-themed gaming session. And the difficulty level. Despite everything this is NOT an easy game, and the primary reasons are due to the Game Boy's limited hardware.
Unlike most Game Boy-titles of the time, GQ uses large and pretty graphics for the side-scrolling sections. Meaning the player's range of vision is very limited, and most of these levels consist of flying through passages filled with traps, spikes, monsters and more. So basically you're flying blind most of the time. One level in particular has you descending into a pit, that one is gonna eat up a lot of lives as you try to find a safe place to perch.
But the hardware limitations also apply to the monsters. Basically if they're off-screen, they don't exist. This becomes a factor in the boss battles, as most of them tend to move about, but if you know where they are and fire off-screen, nothing happens. This is why that boss in the Gremlin Tower frustrated me so much, as one of the four things you must shoot is located away from safe platforms, in a room
covered with spikes. So you have to jump and fly to the right, shoot at it while it's on-screen, wait for the projectile to hit (this is key) then quickly fly back and land in a safe spot before your flight time expires and you crash into spikes. Repeat until it dies.
But I'm also no fool. This time I wasn't gonna waste about with playing fair. I dug up some maps, abused save states and just went in as hard as I knew the game was gonna be to me. Time to beat it: Just over three hours. It is a very small game compared to what came afterwards in gaming.
And it was many years after I beat it, that I learned that this game is part of the Ghosts 'n Goblins-universe, starring that red bastard that attacks the player half-way through the first stage. (At least, he's red in the arcade version. Back then I played Ghosts 'n Goblins on the Amstrad, and he's orange in that one.) And that's why I brought up the cover for the game: The game assumes that Firebrand is very red (to the point that he's officially named 'The Red Blaze' at the end) but when the cover art is misleading and in-game is monochrome - let's just say it's a hard sell.
I'd rate this game somewhere around 4/10 - it's only worth playing for masochists and GnG-fans, and in the case of the latter I'd think twice.
But now I'm curious if anyone reading this has any suggestions - are there any decent Game Boy-titles out there, still worth playing after all these years? I feel obligated to give
Monster Max a try, but beyond that I'm stumped.
