The Dark Souls of Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Cursed Castilla, also known as Maldita Castilla EX is out on Japan on the 3DS next week long after its release on PC and PS4. (On sale now for the glorious Steam Summer Sale) Announced earlier in the year, and released in physical form on PS4 by Play-Asia in super limited quantities, the game is a love letter to the Ghouls ‘n Ghosts series and is a lot of fun to play if you are a fan of wanting to eat the inside of your own mouth out of sheer frustration.
Interesting thing about this game is that it had to be re-done in an entirely new engine. Written in Gamemaker, it was not compatible with the 3DS hardware; people often completely misunderstand the difficulty of porting certain games. Sometimes it does require completely starting from scratch, so it’s cool to see the developers go ahead with it and give the 3DS some Ghouls ‘n Ghosts love.
I’d like to take a second to remind everyone what a fucking nightmare the Ghouls ‘n Ghosts games are. Everything these days is compared to Dark Souls (even goddamn Crash Bandicoot can’t escape this apparently) but let’s not forget who the real motherfucker in town used to be. I am an old fat man who has conquered many insanely difficult games, but Ghouls ‘n Ghosts has always eluded me. Once I was watching a Japanese man be really good at it on Nico Nico, beating it multiple times. I sent him a message saying, “Hi, I am Canadian, and I really enjoy watching you play” to which he responded, “HAHA CANADA OK” and blocked me. I think that speaks for itself.
It’s a good time to be a masochist. Battle Princess Madelyn was recently Kickstarted, and Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts is being featured on the SNES classic. And if they localize this we will also be able to enjoy self-loathing, misery, and sadness on the go on our 3DS handheld systems.
Maldita Castilla EX coming to 3DS next week [Japanese Nintendo]
