GHOULBOY: DARK SWORD OF GOBLIN

Summary

"Ghoulboy" is a 2D platformer made in the style of old DOS and NES games.

Story

• In a land of ghouls and monsters, a young boy must rescue his father who is perceived as a threat by a tyrant and imprisoned.
• The story is told through storyboards at the beginning and end of the game but is not referenced again during the game.

Controls and movements

• The controls are pretty smooth and fluid. The hero can walk, jump, double jump, attack with melee & throwable weapons and push blocks.
• The player is not knocked back upon taking damage. This is actually an advantage as getting hit in dangerous platform sections wont result in getting pushed into an insta-kill pit (as is the case in many other games of this genre).

Gameplay

• The gameplay comprises of the usual mix of combat and platforming and is quite well implemented.
• The core gameplay loop is that you move forward, kill enemies and collect stuff and make it to the exit. Every now and then you'll need to find keys, activate switches and levers in order to unlock doors and remove barriers.
• One of the more interesting mechanics of the game is the ability to create platforms by throwing spears at walls. This mechanic is integral to the gameplay as it will be regularly used to navigate through the levels and uncover secret areas. While this is a cool mechanic, there are some issues with the way the spear-platform mechanic has been implemented, which I'll cover in a separate section below.
• Most of the time, the game's difficulty level is balanced, neither too easy nor too hard. However, there are certain areas where the difficulty increases drastically, particularly when it involves performing jumping stunts with precise timing. If you fail to do these jumps correctly, it usually results in death.
• There are some small puzzles throughout the game and they have to do with finding ways to activate switches and levers.

Level Design

• The adventure is divided into 5 acts, each containing 5 levels.
• The levels are, for the most part, linear. But every now and then, the path branches off into multiple directions and you'll need to do some light exploration. Some paths lead to treasure chests containing loot and keys. Others lead to switches and levers that need to be activated to progress in the game.
• Save points are present but IMO I felt that more of them were needed during the later part of the game, when things start becoming difficult. To be honest, replaying the level over and over because I died in a difficult section felt unfair.
• There are some hidden areas and secrets mostly containing collectibles like ammo, health, lives and coins.
• There are also some very crazy platforming sections that test your reflexes and timing.
• The game's levels are set in "spooky" places like haunted forests and towns, dark caves, dungeons and castles. While there isn't too much visual diversity going on, the look and feel of the levels are pretty consistent with the the game's story.

Enemy and Boss Design

• The games enemies and bosses comprise of different types of "spooky" monsters: skeleton warriors, witches, strange animals, ghosts, ogres and other types of monsters. These fit very well with the game's environment and story.
• There are only 4 bosses, and that includes the final boss! With the exception of one boss that you just need to outrun, bosses have 2 or 3 types of attacks and can be easily killed once you learn their patterns.

Weapons and Items

• The hero's melee weapons are a little sword, a large sword and a mace that can be purchased from the in-game shop. He can also use two types of throwable weapons: a spear and a boomerang type blade (they can be thrown one or two at a time). Throwable weapons don't do much damage but are extremely useful to kill pesky enemies from afar, especially in situations where you're low on health and desperate to reach the next save point or escape the area.
• Coins and precious stones you find are converted to currency that can be used to buy health and weapons from the main menu "shop" or from witches who appear in the levels.

Visuals

• The game has well done pixel art reminiscent of old DOS and NES games. The sprites, cut scene illustrations, backgrounds and tiles are rather well drawn and feel consistent overall.
• The game also lets you apply special retro filters that emulate the "Retro" feel of playing on an old TV set. I thought this was a very nice touch to the game and adds another layer to the game's presentation.

Music and Sound

• Music is quite catchy without being too distracting and goes along well with the visuals. SFX is passable.

Issues

• Unfortunately, there were some issues. As stated earlier, the spear-platform mechanic is a big part of the game's design. But there are some major issues with it.
• Sometimes if a spear is stuck in a narrow vertical passage, you can jump through it from below, but you cannot jump down from it! This happened to me a few times and left me unable to proceed. The only way out was to restart the level and play everthing over!
• Sometimes, if a spear is thrown while too close to a wall, it goes all the way inside and cannot be used as a platform.
• Although spears can be abundantly found in treasure chests or dropped from defeated enemies, there might be times when you're out of spears and you cannot advance any further. This has caused me to re-start the level a few times.
• I also experienced glitches and errors with the UI elements. Hitting pause does not always bring up the pause menu and I become unable to resume the game. Or the game freezes causing me to manually exit the game. The level select screen did not work on controller. And while using the keyboard it was confusing to use as the levels are not labeled but are just listed as numbers from 1 to 26 which was quite confusing.

Final Thoughts

Ghoulboy may have some issues, but its fun gameplay still makes it a good platformer. For anyone who enjoys platformers, I highly recommend it. Plus, if the dev ever releases a sequel, I'd be sure to buy it!
Thanks for reading.

(Posted: 08/08/25)

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See this game's Steam Page.

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