Welcome to the 77th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This is a weekly feature where we share some our favourite games. Some may be well known, others I feel have been ignored but all are fantastic and deserve at least a play.
For the next four weeks we're going to showcase four "lesser known" NES titles. These games aren't particularly well known amongst the likes of Kirby, Mega Man, Zelda or Castlevania but in our eyes they're every bit as good as those and hopefully some more people can discover these gems. First up a game based on a movie...wait wait this one wasn't by those scurvy LJN folk, it's by HAL Labs, you know the folks behind Kirby, Earthbound, Smash Bros etc! It's New Ghostbusters II![prebreak][/prebreak]
New Ghostbusters II was only released in Japan & Europe, in the US they had a really bad game by Activision title which played like the usual movie tie in NES game. Reasons why was due to an licensing issue, you see in the past a publisher may only get the rights to release a game for different regions or even consoles (Batman: The Movie had loads of various different games by different publishers because of this) so Activision could only release their game in the US leaving HAL to release theirs in Japan & Europe.
When you start the game you get to choose to play two out of five Ghostbusters (the fifth is Louis who isn't actually not a proper Ghostbuster but still it was a nice inclusion seeing that he did put the gear on in the film) both of which can shoot out of their proton packs but only one has a trap. When you go about busting ghosts, you both hold down the fire button to grab hold of a ghost and then one player chucks out a trap to capture it. There isn't really much to say, it's pretty simple and straight forward and works pretty well...however the computer controlled player can have a habit of just getting stuck meaning you having to go guide him back but you know it's a NES game this stuff happened and it's not much of a big deal.
The levels are presented in a top down view and all locations come straight from the film but are much bigger and feature various ghosts as well as other decalls that are not in the film. There are six locations in total and at the end of each is a boss (or two) and each boss has a certain weakness that you must discover to defeat it...you know like with Zelda/Metroid etc
The sound & music is classic NES, catchy & recognisable tunes and pleasant sound effects. The musical arrangements are varitiations of the usual GB themes re-arranged and I really love what they did. Graphically, being a HAL game, they sport a cutesy super deformed look but they are really well drawn and fit the theme so well. The backgrounds are also well done but can get repetitive from time to time.
Previous Ghostbusters games have been a bit iffy, with the only good one being the original first game of the first movie by Activision (the NES version is crappy though) and even then it hasn't aged well. Some people love the Mega Drive/Genesis Ghostbusters game (which was a platform shooter) but I never got on with it. This game for me, though it isn't perfect, is the best and most fun GB title. Sure the recent Terminal Reality game had higher production values, was written by Ramis/Ackroyd and had full voice acting by the original GB team (Bill Murray is totally phoning it in though) but sometimes simpler can be better and this NES game had less gaming filler which blights modern games. The story isn't explained at all throughout the game and the game can be too short and easy but it is an very enjoyable game & I recommend it to people even if they're not into Ghostbusters. The game was also released for the GB and though its a good version, its not worth playing when the NES one exists.
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Platform NES / Gameboy
Released 1990
Developer HAL Labs
Publisher HAL Labs
Genre Overhead scrolling action
