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Gargoyle's Quest II review

Game: Gargoyle's Quest II
Platform: NES
Genre: Action (Platformer)
Developer: Capcom
AKA: Red Arremer II (JP)

Reader review by Dominic

January 10, 2008

Remember that red jerk from Ghosts n' Goblins? The one who'd be sitting with his back turned and when you got close enough he'd start flying around and knock your armor off? If not, here's a pic:

That's him on the right there...plotting his evil and such. Anyway, he's the lead role in Gargoyle's Quest 2. His name in this particular game is Firebrand, but he's also known as Red Arremer as he appears in other Capcom games. The game begins in the Ghoul Realm. Firebrand is training to become a warrior in the peaceful monster town of Etruria. While Firebrand is off training one day, the town is attacked by the, "Black Light." Firebrand returns from his training to find the other monsters in his town dead. He visits King Morock who has also been attacked. With the king's last few breathes, he hands Firebrand the Spectral Fingernail (gross) and sends him on his journey to defeat the, "Black Light," and become the legendary Red Blaze. The king then blinks a few times then disappears. This is apparently how monsters die in the Ghoul Realm.

GQ2's gameplay combines great traditional platform jumping adventure with some RPG elements. The action takes place in the side scrolling mode as you shoot, jump, climb and briefly fly to complete levels. You also come across a very cool group of enemies including a flying eye with a skull helmet, ghosts of bird heads and green blobs filled with eyes...ok so maybe they're not that cool, just weird. In the midst of these levels you are subject to traveling from town to town in attempts to gain information and new abilities. The towns are normally filled with mummy and zombie townsfolk. And we all know there's nothing cooler than being able to ask a mummy for help. As you progress through the game you obtain new armor, new wings, new firepower and the ability to jump higher. You also collect, "vials," along the way which can be used to purchase extra lives from monsters in town.

Some of the new firepower you obtain double as tools to help you complete levels, such as the Magic Tornado shown here. You can shoot a tornado out and use it as another platform. As it may seem like a blessing it only foreshadows the more complicated platform jumping you'll have to complete.

Difficulty in GQ2 isn't always consistent. Some of the earlier levels are actually tougher than some of the later ones. This is mainly due to the fact that you can jump higher and fly longer later in the game. The levels are pretty straight forward, but some of the classic platform jumping can at times become tough and may turn some gamers off. Spikes seem to be an incredibly popular fashion in the Ghoul Realm, and they often kill you. But there is a helpful password save system to keep you coming back.

Those platforms move and shoot...I'm totally not going to make that.

The boss battles are all fairly simple but some can be annoyingly difficult. The hardest boss in the game (to me at least) comes 3rd to last.

That's him on the right, the Doppelganger in the House of Mirrors. The last boss on the other hand is actually the easiest in the game.

The graphics presented in GQ2 are on par with the other games that were released around it's time (Kirby's Adventure was released in 1992 as well). Capcom really came a long way in terms of graphics. For comparison, take a look at the Ghosts n' Goblin's picture. That game was released as an arcade port in the early days of Nintendo, and also looks like it was developed in MS paint.
If you're in the retro mood, Gargoyle's Quest 2 is the perfect pick-up. It's a very good platformer with a twist of RPG elements to create something different. Though the actual cart is a little tough to find we can hope to see a release on virtual console in the future...*cough*oryoucouldgooglesearchnintendoemulatorsandroms*cough*

At this point you may ask yourself, "If this is Gargoyle's Quest 2, where's Gargoyle's Quest 1?" Fair enough, Gargoyle's Quest 1 was released on Gameboy 1990. There's also another chapter available on Super Nintendo called Demon's Crest which is also very good.

Rating: 8/10

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