It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Classic SNES gaming has been dormant for too long, remakes of such classic games as Mario, Zelda, and the like are commonplace nowadays but whatever happened to the little guys? One in particular, Arthur from the Ghosts and Goblins games?? Well Capcom finally decided to re-incarnate the classic G&G’s gameplay in the form of Maximo Ghosts to Glory. Does it bring back the feelings that G&G’s did?
For starters Arthur is absent from this outing, not to worry though as our new hero Maximo is just as cool as our boxer shorts wearing little friend. You play as Maximo, you begin the game where the the king Achilles has popped a cap in your ass to get you out of his way so he could rule the kingdom how he saw fit. With you out of the way nothing can stop his evil plot. One problem, the Grim Reaper doesn’t like King Achilles taking all of his dead and bringing them back to life. It messes with his business you see. So the Grim Reaper makes you a deal, if you stop King Achilles then he will let you come back to life to do so. How is that for a plot?
The game play in Maximo is very reminiscent of the old school G&G’s, except of course in 3D. You move around ala Zelda wielding a sword and shield. Along the way you can gain power ups that enhance your sword and give it special abilites such as fire strike, lighting attacks, and one massive ground attack that could clear a room of dead baddies in a short time. You can also upgrade other abilities along the way, but it costs you coins and souls which are gathered throughout the levels.
The game is broken up into levels, which are broken down into sections…confused? OK for instance you start the game in the first area on level 1. Once you complete level one you are sent to a large area with all 5 levels of that area surrounding it and the boss level in the center. You can do the levels in any order you wish. In the outside area is where you can also save your game. There are large pools located in the areas and it costs 100 coins to save your game!! Now that is crazy hehe what if you are on the last level and only have 99 coins and no health.
This is the next part of my review, this game is HARD! It definitely brings the difficulty of the originals back. You get 3 lives to start and one continue. You gain continues by earning souls. Once 50 souls are collected you get another death coin, which is what you give the Grim Reaper when you die to come back to life. After you die so many times he wants more and more coins, so if you get killed a lot you may end up owing the reaper 3 or 4 coins at a time just to continue. Oh yeah did I mention that there are enemies in the game that steal your souls and coins for fun? The difficulty in this game may turn off casual gamers that are not used to old school difficulty.
The visuals are very nice, mixing some great graphical effects into an environment full of cartoon style characters. The game runs at a solid speed and the animation is excellent for all of the characters. The music is derived from the original G&G’s games and suits the game perfectly. The voices for the characters are great especially the grim reaper, you should hear him in the JAP version.
Overall I highly recommend Maximo for fans of old school gaming. This is one title that defines what an action platformer should be. The difficulty will turn off casual gamers so if you are such please rent it first and don’t say I didn’t warn you! Another fine ass game from Capcom, hopefully the trend continues and who knows, someday we will see Maximo in his own 2D game.
