Capcom has a franchise called Ghouls ‘N’ Ghosts (Makaimura in Japan.) wherein you take control of Sir Arthur, a knight whose princess is kidnapped by ghouls and/or ghosts. It’s pretty famous and has had several sequels, prequels, and spinoffs. I don’t actually like Ghouls ‘N’ Ghosts very much, but I love one of the spinnoff franchises: Gargoyle’s Quest.

Gargoyle’s Quest ( Red Arremer: Makaimura Gaiden in Japan.) concerns the adventures of one Gargoyle in particular named Firebrand. (Red Arremer in Japan) Firebrand is a gargoyle of legend, although the game doesn’t do a very good job of explaining that at any point. I’m not sure if the translation is bad, or the actual story is just vague, but the long and short of it all is you have to go on a quest to kick the various asses of other monsters to save the demon realm. It was released for the Nintendo Gameboy in the US in 1990, or thereabouts. So it was a very early release. I’m not sure when I acquired it, but I think I got it the same Xmas as my original Gameboy. It’s funny how much of that kind of information I just don’t remember anymore. I associate the game so strongly with the Gameboy it may as well have been a launch title. Gargoyle’s Quest is one of the best Gameboy games by far, and one of the best games of all time regardless of system. It really illustrated what the Gameboy was capable of even more than many of Nintendo’s own release titles. The controls are tight, the music is atmospheric, and the challenge is mostly fair. As you can probably tell at this point, I am a big fan. In fact, I have had my final password, or resurrection spell as the game calls them, memorized for 36 years. DAZA-RLMA. That’s pretty amazing if you realize how terrible I am at remembering strings of random numbers and letters. I guess it shows what my brain prioritizes.

I bring all of this up because I recently completed Gargoyle’s Quest 2 (Makaimura Gaiden: The Demon Darkness in Japan.) It was originally released on the NES, but I never had it. I purchased it a decade or so ago on the Nintendo 3DS online shop. Then I never got around to actually completing the game. With all the stress and traveling back and forth to see Mom I guess I was looking for something familiar but new to play when I wasn’t actively involved in the proceedings. The story of GQ2 is functionally identical to the original story. In fact, it’s supposed to be a prequel to Gargoyle’s Quest, but it isn’t very clear about that. The implication is that it takes place a very long time before the events of Gargoyle’s Quest, which itself takes place in roughly medieval times. At the end of Gargoyle’s Quest the king of the Demon Realm tries to convince Firebrand to conquer the human world, which he describes as a newly discovered sort of place. I always took it to mean that the King was afraid Firebrand would kick his ass and take over if he didn’t find some way to pacify him.

I tell you all of that stuff to tell you that they rereleased Makaimura Gaiden: The Demon Darkness on the Gameboy in Japan, but cancelled the release for the US due to disappointing sales of the NES version. The NES version is fine, but in my opinion the graphics of the Gameboy version are better. The NES looks flat to my eye whereas the Gameboy art has much more depth and atmosphere. The rerelease also has 2 bonus areas where you can acquire additional powers. This being the case I decided that I wanted to play Gargoyle’s Quest 2 for the Gameboy. As far as I know there is no ROM of a translation for it, but Gameboy games are region free, so you can just buy a Japanese one and play it on your American USA Apple Pie Guns Gameboy. So I did that. The game is an RPG, but since I know the story already I can just talk to the right characters and know what’s being said from memory. As far as the extra areas are concerned I suspect I can muddle through to find them easily enough. Plus the internet probably knows whatever I don’t.

For shids’n’gigs I also bought the Japanese version of Garg’s Quest. I was surprised to find out that there are differences between the games right from the start. When you find containers of stuff in the overworld, and collect the contents, the icon for the container remains on screen in the Japanese version. In the US version they disappear. I assume because they didn’t want to listen to American’s complaining about why they can’t get stuff from an empty container. Tangentially I also found out that my Gameboy advance has preprogramed color palates for Gary’s Queesto. It actually makes Firebrand red, which is his correct color, even though the box art shows him as green for the US release. So many interesting things to know.

Anyway, I didn’t feel like giving a status update so you got this questionably interesting essay instead. I will return on Friday with more comic. Until then, don’t let demons steal your loved ones.

3063 I’ve Had Adventures.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply