Megaman vs. Ghosts and Goblins is exactly as the name implies: two old school Capcom titles merged together to whet the appetite of any retro gamer. Developer Staticreator's approach was to extend a ROM Check Fail mash-up into a full game. Specifically, they took Megaman (given that he can both slide and power up his blaster, the game places his move vocabulary around Megaman 4) and pit him against the originally hellacious level design and enemies of Ghosts and Goblins.
The result is a fun and nostalgic romp. This holds true especially if you spent countless lives fighting your way through the original G&G, as Megaman controls vastly better than Arthur (being able to jump off ladders and change directions in midair goes a long way). The improved controls lets you wreak vengeance upon your once-infuriating enemies, blowing away those bastard zombies you used to have to impale with spears.
The game plays surprisingly like an overly long level of Megaman, and almost would feel at home on an old Nintendo ROM if it weren't for the shitty overproduced music. The game concludes with a boss fight against Arthur, who retains his original moveset; defeat him and you gain his lance attack in true Megaman fashion, which you can use in the equally fun Megaman vs Metroid (and vice versa if you complete the other title first.) Here's to hoping the developer makes four more installments to form both an 8-bit "Best Of" compilation and the best non-Capcom Megaman game out there.
Mashups!
I think we need more "mashups" and "remixes". That seems to me to be an important part of any art form. It's too bad it's so hard to create them...A musican can grab old tracks and sample them, but it's hard to do that with NES games.
In a way, this reminds me of
In a way, this reminds me of a text adventure called Spadventure, which is Colossal Cave with the spells from Infocom's Enchanter series grafted onto it.