Together Retro: Alone in the Dark & Ghosts N Goblins

[racketboy]

Two haunting titles for one wonderful October
http://www.racketboy.com/together-retro ... -n-goblins

[noiseredux]

Heads up - Ghosts'n Demons is a free fan remake of Ghosts N Goblins available on Itch.io:



https://bonusjz.itch.io/ghostsn-demons

[BoneSnapDeez]

I may hit up the NES port of GnG as I've only beaten the arcade version.

[Xeogred]

I can only beat Super Ghouls! lol, tough stuff.

[J T]

Fun Ghosts n' Goblins (NES) secrets:

1.) In level 1, if you continually hit a tombstone, you will awaken the winged wizard who will turn you into a frog.

2.) At the end of level 3, after you defeat the flying dragon, kneel at the edge of the ledge so that the key falls on you while kneeling. Arthur will not run to the exit until he stands whenever you do this kneeling trick, but on this stage you can make him jump to the left of the ledge from the crouched position after the key has landed, and land on the level below the ledge. He will then raise his arms to celebrate victory, but when he runs on the lower level, he doesn't go through the door. Instead, he runs through screens of unused level material and weird tilings with everything glitching away. This might force you to reset to get out of it, but you'll see a bunch of creepy glitch stuff, so it's fun to try once.

3.) There is another glitch near the end of level 6. Just before you go to fight Satan, climb the ladder below where the key falls. If Arthur is stuck at the top of the ladder with his butt sticking out, then he won't automatically run to the exit. Instead, you can go down the ladder to the level below. Again, he will run forever through a weird glitchy mess of pixels and tiles. Again, you will have to reset if you do this, but it is fun to try once.

4.) Before you waste any time, know that you can only beat Satan with the cross shield (and on your second pass through the game). It's a terrible weapon, but you won't see the true ending without defeating him with it. It can be done (I've done it) but it's going to push you to the brink of insanity.

[noiseredux]

oh, I probably should have posted this here:

I installed Alone In The Dark this weekend, and fired it up. OMG. I have no idea what I'm doing. In the attic I found a shotgun. Something crashed through the window. I equipped the shotgun... and... no idea. That thing just killed me while I tried to figure out what to do. Time to RTFM.

[J T]

Yeah, Alone in the Dark is hard. You have to be really economical with your bullets, keep your distance, and fire until they drop, unless you can otherwise avoid the enemy. Your character is too slow and feable to do much else. Your weakness is just all part of the horror. Save often though. I find it hard to go back to this game because it is so hard to control, but I always liked the way the story unfolds over the course of the game. It starts off as a haunted house game, but as you learn more about your uncle, you get deeper and deeper into the evil.

[J T]

I'm playing Ghosts n' Goblins (NES) again. I grew up on this game, and we have a real love/hate relationship, so it's been awhile since I revisited GnG. There are so many cheap deaths. I'll try to post some of my tips as I remember them.

Level 1:
The first part with the zombies is the easiest part of the game, so hang out here for a bit just killing zombies until you get the throwing daggers. Once you have the daggers, avoiding other weapons is more important than avoiding death since you keep your weapon when you continue. The javeline is too slow and the torch is mostly worthless. If you ever accidentally get the torch, you may as well just hit reset and start over, unless you're at a point in the game where baskets with new weapons are offered frequently.

Once you have the throwing daggers, get good at jumping away from your enemies, then turning around in mid-air to continue throwing daggers at them. This is the only way to keep your distance and keep attacking, which is essential for defeating most of the level bosses. This strategy is also essential for defeating the little red firebrand demons. If you throw a straight shot at him, he will always evade, so you have to lure him into a dive, jump back, and unleash daggers.

After the graveyard, the flying knights can be a little tricky. Don't worry about killing them as they can only be hit from behind. They fly a sine wave pattern, so run away, then move forward when you have an opening to get past them.

After that is the haunted forest with the flying ghouls. They appear in random spots, so it's best to keep running and jumping while throwing daggers so that you might get lucky and land a hit as soon as they show up on screen. Don't stand under them or you'll get hit with a spear.

Approach the final boss slowly so you maximize your distance, then fire daggers as fast as you can. If he gets too close, jump back and fire. He might jump over your head and force you to reverse direction.

If you're interested in trying the key glitch I mentioned earlier, this is a good point to practice. Get under the key and kneel. When it falls on you, Arthur won't open the door and exit until you stand up. While crouched with the key, you can still fire. Practice jumping backwards from crouch, which is what you will need to do successfully to activate the Level 3 glitch.

[J T]

Level 2:
In the ice section, your goal is to quickly gain ground and get through this. Don't spend any more time attacking the blue gremlins than you need to because they are tricky and deadly. Best to avoid them, but pick them off while jumping up platforms if possible. You really just want to power through this section so you can get to the next check point.

At the haunted house, the ghosts come down from the windows, but they arc before moving forward, if you are directly below them, you can duck and they will not hit you. Before you jump to the house of tattooed muscley goblins, make sure the ghosts are done.

With the muscle men, you have to hit them ten times quickly. I've never survived this without the daggers, because they keep pushing their way towards you and every other weapon is too slow, so you have to hit them really fast starting from a distance or they will kill you. If a crow comes from behind, jump over it, but keep your fire on the muscle man. Your time limit is a factor here because you have to lure them away from ladders before you climb them, or else you're toast. If you stand below them, they will throw spikey balls down at you, but after they do this, they follow you, so you need to stand just to the side so you don't get hit, but get them to follow you away from the ladder, giving you an opportunity to run back and climb it. There are also brick walls on the right side. Kill the muscle men on the other side of the walls on each floor, so you don't have to deal with them later when you go back down.

Next there are elevator platforms. This part isn't too tough, just ride the platforms up to their max height and jump so you have enough distance to clear the water pits. After this, you are almost at the boss. This time there are two big angry cyclops troll giants, and they jump a lot. If you approach slowly, you can take them on one at a time, which is much easier than trying to contend with both of them at once.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Do you know how similar it is to the arcade game playa? I didn't think arcade GnG was too bad until the final two stages. And then - hoooly shit.