Capcom
Ghosts'N Goblins

As I had already mentioned in a review written in times unsuspected, one of the video games that literally drained my modest bank account at the "Banca Popolare dell'Infanzia" was "Ghost 'n Goblins". I must, with a pleasant compulsion and a touch of moving nostalgia, count it among the bricks that make up the wall of my life, as well as among the most beautiful video games created on the face of the earth.

The first half of the 1980s. A typical southern village where the order of importance is: mayor, priest, pharmacist, and marshal of the carabinieri. People mostly played soccer, hide and seek, tag, and for including the girls, color color. Also because there was very little reason to stay shut indoors and daze oneself (and it was better that way). At Vincenzo's bar, known to friends as "Vogliamoci bene," thanks to cunningly proletarian prices, this damned "knight's video game" was all the rage at the cost of 200 lire per game. And there, in the little room adjacent to the main counter space, where the elderly played "padrone e sotto," consuming hectoliters of Peroni, hundreds of unfiltered Nazionali N80 et/aut, and anecdotes of lived life, prevailed, to the delight of the youngest, a pinball machine, a foosball, and three video games among which HIM! The greatest corrupter of minors! Source of colossal show-offs and proverbial fits of rage. The "Ghost 'n Goblins"! And on went the rivers of coins!

The elements of hilarity that constituted the course of an average game were: the king statue or the red and white balloon, quickly dubbed "Diecimila punti", the dagger, the best weapon available, and the armor, absolutely untraceable if not thanks to some tricks discovered and spread by who knows who. Those of solemn rage, highlighted by a solemn flurry of curses, were instead: the torch, the worst weapon that could happen to you, that cursed "lemon head" of the devil, the bats, and, limited to the first level, the vampire that appeared after hitting a tombstone ten times. A good score if you hit it, and a short but risky spell that turned you into a frog if it hit you.

The game's "enemies" had taken on nicknames familiarly given to them by us kids, entering indelibly into the general collective imagination. For example, everyone in town, of course of my generation, knew who the "sparpaglioni" were (the aforementioned vampire), the "neon" (the ghosts waving between the first and second level), the "salsicciotti" (the ghosts armed with white sticks, indeed shaped like that, which appeared shortly after the neon), the "stupid uncles" (bald giants with a tattooed heart on their deltoid who strolled on the floors of an abandoned house), the infamous "capa 'e limone" (the cursed devil) and the "ghiaccioli" (the ice stalagmites in karst caves that defended by hurling blue spheres)... Followed by post-game comments, if completed, who had eliminated you, if any other trick came to light, how many games you played...

One of the best memories of my childhood and I take the opportunity to thank the editors for creating this new and interesting section on the site.

To be truthful, and I "am ashamed" to say it, I never finished it and never saw the end. Not even replaying for a few hours through the pirated "Mame 32". Maybe it's better this way. The ending will remain shrouded in mystery and maybe when I become a grandfather, when my grandchildren play with supports like "Minority report", by reviving the old video games I'll wonder: "But in the end, did that darn knight save that darn queen?"