Gargoyle's Quest

Its kind of amazing to think this game came out in 1990, it was before games like Super Mario World, Sonic The Hedgehog, or Doom. The Gameboy was a new console and the first successful handheld console that expanded the World of gaming, but it was a very limited system that only had a fraction of the power of that of a SNES or Sega Genesis, the music and graphics had to be watered down from that of most NES games even. For that purpose the Gameboy, while being a great system, ended up having tons of restricted games that were nowhere near as fun or fleshed out as core games on the NES or SNES. However, Occasionally there would be a gem on the Gameboy that stood the test of time and still can be enjoyed today, and Gargoyle's Quest is a somewhat forgotten one that has aged fairly well. Its a game that was influenced by Ghosts N Goblins and its pretty similar. You go through levels and die in only a few hits, and you have to platform through tough areas and enemies that are unrelenting. To be fair, its a lot more balanced and less annoying than Ghosts N Goblins but it still has its share of difficult and unfair moments.

You can tell this game was heavily influenced by games like Legend of Zelda II and Dragon's Quest, you navigate on an overworld and can go between different villages and talk to NPCs, buy things like extra lives from them, and on the map you get random encounters similar to that of Zelda II where you have a quick battle against generic enemies. The Overworld really just acts as a way to travel between the different levels of the game, similar to that of Zelda II. There aren't a whole lot of levels in this game, I think there are only around 10 or so, and there are only around 5 bosses in this game. The bosses actually are one of the better parts of this game, they aren't too difficult and actually are fun.

My biggest problems with Gargoyle's Quest have to do with the length and confused identity. This game tries to incorporate elements of RPG games like the Overworld and random encounters, but they just feel a bit forced and out of place, and really discourage you from exploring, the other is the game is way too short. The game can easily be beaten in 2 or 3 hours, and even that's being a bit generous. Most of the levels in this game are short, the bosses aren't challenging so you won't be dying a lot to them, and by the end of the game you'll have plenty of health and lives to take on the final boss. The game starts of challenging due to the lack of health but it gets easier the further on you get. Sure there are some difficult platforming areas and annoying areas where they throw cheap enemies at you, but you unlock better attacks to deal with them. I like the idea that you gain better power like being able to glide for longer and stronger attacks as you advance in the game, but the game is so short I found myself not being able to play around with all them.

I mean for 1990 this is a good game, but its way shorter than even many NES games and it still does have some flawed design choices. But for what its worth, I'd say its better than the Ghosts N Goblins games, which were just brutally unfair and cheap. This game is mostly fair and gives you more chances and isn't just pure trial and error. But the Gameboy hardware kind of restricted this, and the future Gargoyle games improved on the formula of this a lot.

I recall playing this as a small child and being completely overwhelmed by the difficulty in those days, I eventually reached the first town after beating the first level, but couldn't make it any farther than that. So coming back to it as a grown-up, I was under the illusion the game was going to be difficult, but it is actually a pretty easy game. Not "trivial", but a good, balanced difficulty for this kind of game to find a wide audience of children, teenagers and adults.

You play as the gargoyle Firebrand wandering the ghoul realm, and it's kind of a mixture of an rpg/adventure game and a sidescrolling action game, as wasn't that uncommon at the time, but I wonder how many games like that there were before this one on the Gameboy? It's very much a gothic adventure which gains style points, but even from a gameplay perspective it really is surprisingly solid. Although it is very much a bite-sized experience (an "RPG" you can finish blind in a matter of 2 or 3 hours) it really packs good content. So you have the top-down RPG segments, which includes an overworld with random encounters and various places to visit, either towns with the standard NPCs or side scrolling action areas. However, if you are a fan of RPGs, then you shouldn't expect much of that here because this is a very barebones take on the format. The towns have barely anything to do in them, there's little storytelling and few characters. You do grow stronger and you'll gain new abilities over the course of the game, it's simple yet feels natural. It just works. The levels, considering how few they are, are fairly small just like the overworld, but they all have their own unique design and most levels are designed kind of like little labyrinths with some branching paths. The action segments are I guess the real meat of the game, and while these might not be the best thing ever, there's just something magical about the game that draws me in. It's not just the level design, it's not just the atmosphere, it's not just the sense of "progression/growing stronger" which makes great use of the RPG format to forward the sense of progression in the action segments... there's just something awesome about how Gargoyle's Quest fuses it all together to create a cohesive whole. It's hard to call Gargoyle's Quest a particularly fantastic game in the grand scheme of things, but it has earned its place as a notable title specifically for the Gameboy, and I can see great things in it with that in mind. An essential game for GB enthusiasts and otherwise it'll depend on your tastes. Personally I have a lot of fondness for it even if the gameplay is a bit clunky and stuff, and I generally don't like Gameboy games.