#130: Gargoyle's Quest I and II

Gargoyle's Quest I and II

Capcom

Initial release (Gargoyle's Quest): May 2, 1990 (Japan)
Platform: Game Boy, Famicom/NES
Also known as: Red Arremer: Makaimura Gaiden (Japan)

Gargoyle's Quest (Game Boy)
this and all other screenshots c/o Mobygames

Did you ever play Ghosts 'n Goblins and look at the red devil enemy and think, "what an interesting fellow, I’d like to know more about him?" Yeah, me neither, but in the early 1990s, Capcom for whatever reason saw fit to give him his own spinoff series. God knows why; it doesn’t seem like a wise business decision to make a game for a notoriously hated enemy. But somehow, it works. They called it Gargoyle's Quest, though in keeping with Ghosts 'n Goblins never sticking to one name, the third game was titled Demon's Crest.

(Now, you may have noticed that Demon’s Crest isn’t in this review despite being the most famous game in the sub-franchise. But here’s the thing: Demon’s Crest is very much its own beast; in a franchise notorious for each new entry being almost identical to its predecessors, Demon’s Crest is so dramatically different from its predecessors it deserves to be covered separately.)

As you might guess, the two Gargoyle’s Quest games are almost identical. In fact, if not for the fact that Gargoyle’s Quest II is intended as a prequel (which the first game thus retroactively makes references to) one could be forgiven for mistaking Gargoyle’s Quest II to be a NES port or remake of the original. (Oddly, it also later saw a port back to the Game Boy, but only in Asian markets.) In that sense, it's not too different from, say, Kid Icarus, the Game Boy version of which was technically a sequel, but otherwise played almost exactly the same as the NES version.

The core plot is that some vague enemy of darkness is invading the ghoul realm (which bears a lot of superficial similarities to the underworld in Japanese mythology — indeed, many of the monsters in the Ghosts 'n Goblins franchise resemble Japanese yokai.) The player takes on the role of a singular red devil, named "Firebrand" in the English localization, to fight back against this evil and save the ghoul realm from destruction. Or something like that. It’s all a little vague, despite an attempt at RPG-style elements.

While the game is primarily a platformer, in between levels is a jRPG-style overworld where you wander around visiting towns and talking to people. It’s extremely stripped down from what you would expect, however. There’s no shops or quests or anything; each town has some people who give you hints or tell you where to go next. The closest thing to a shop are people who will sell you extra lives in exchange for an ever-increasing number of vials that you can collect throughout the game. You probably won’t need those extra lives too much, though. Unlike its parent franchise, Gargoyle’s Quest is almost pathetically easy and short — both games can be gotten through in a matter of hours without much difficulty, save for some fairly bullshit platforming sections. As you go through each game you’ll get progressively better powers, allowing you to jump higher, fly longer, take more hits, and spit differing kinds of fireballs, some with different functions such as creating a safe spot to hang on to spiked walls for a short time.

Gargoyle's Quest II: The Demon Darkness
(Famicom/NES)

The first game, true to its jRPG influence, has random encounters; these are merely tiny arenas in which you fight a small number of trash enemies, and you get some vials as your reward. The NES followup does away with this, but static enemies on the map can be fought repeatedly. Anyway, the only real difference between the two games, plot-wise, is that Gargoyle’s Quest II starts off with Firebrand taking a training course to become a great warrior; by the events of the first game, he’s already well-established as a hero of the realm. Other than that, many plot elements are identical, other than a few name changes.

Gargoyle’s Quest I has some really nice music for the Game Boy chip; it’s honestly a standout soundtrack amidst a sea of games with mostly middling or even trashy soundtracks. In comparison I find the NES version to be less interesting, though it has a few good tracks of its own.

Ultimately, while these games are an interesting departure from their more notorious parent franchise, their short length, somewhat imbalanced difficulty and overall kinda mediocre atmosphere don’t make them much more than an entertaining diversion.

-june❤