Game:

Gargoyle's Quest (1990)

Duration: 16:57

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2

Please allow me to introduce "Rushifell"
He's a ghoul of wealth and taste
Stole many a man's soul and faith

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed his name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of his game

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call him Lucifer
'Cause he's in need of some restraint

So if you meet him
Have some sympathy
Have some courtesy
And have some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or he'll lay your soul to waste

---

Okay, that's quite enough of that.

I have refrained ever since he was first name-dropped from jumping at the chance to point out the truth to the name "Rushifell"... I don't know if it's just bad (or lazy) translation or perhaps an intentional corruption to avoid stirring up controversy... but the character in question is quite clearly intended to be "Lucifer" himself. (Fun side note: in some versions of his appearance in the main Ghosts 'n Whatever series proper, Lucifer was referred to as "Loki" to skirt this very same potential controversy.)

He's passing himself off as the Red Blaze and bogarting that eternal candle we've been sent to collect! Why does everyone we meet after the point we learn something also knows most of that same previously-unknown something... but only enough of it to be dangerously misleading or plain wrong?

...this is... hands-down, probably the most frustrating segment of the game because of the combination of several elements, not least of which is "Rushifell" himself.

His castle is absolutely riddled with traps of any and all possible description thus far... Specifically, the wall-mounted drills are probably among my most hated hazards in the entirety of Gargoyle's Quest... the window to slip by them unharmed is ridiculously small and they even seem to mess with your movements for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, making it one of the few nearly-deplorable lapses in otherwise spot-on game control and collision mechanics. (Seeing as how they only occur here, I guess I can forgive them this one violation... if only it wasn't HERE of all places...)

As one might imagine, we're in for a fairly long and arduous journey through surprisingly confined spaces for the palace of the prince of lies... there's also only one checkpoint in the whole place, so you'll have to progress through a more-than-decent chunk of it without getting yourself hobbled before you reach your final destination.

Speaking of which, here's a pretty big opening with... uh... Lucy just sitting there... I think. It's hard to tell, since you can't interact with the apparent "background" until you scroll the screen far enough...

---

"Rushifell" (a.k.a. Lucifer)

So yep, this is him... I guess all that standing around in an entryway wore him out and now he'd prefer to sit. No, no... don't get up... really. We're here for the candle. You could just... y'know... give it to us. No? Really? We're going to do things like this, huh? ...right from the chair... okay... sure... let's get to it.

His whole battle style is basically shooting energy balls from his fingertips at a few limited possible angles. This might sound relatively unthreatening, but they cover all the best perches and airspace that a gargoyle could ask for, although he's not exceptionally proactive about his aiming.

Curiously, lazily firing scattered shots in the direction of your location as of a few seconds ago is actually a better overall strategy, especially combined with his real ace in the hole: a special slow-moving, but incredibly tenacious energy ball that he'll generate every so often as long as one's not already in play. You can't destroy it (directly), and it will chase you around independently while the scatter shots are still coming in hot, so suddenly Lucifer doesn't even NEED to move to clean your clock. You CAN force the disappearance of the homing projectile by leaving it far enough behind offscreen that it simply de-instances... until he creates a new one ...oh, and do NOT touch him... seriously. Don't. Not any part of him.

The only part of him that's vulnerable to damage is his head, and even this is a fairly tricky hurtbox to hit properly, especially since all the shooting will cause him to flail his arms slowly into your only line of fire.

Most curiously, and I can't say as I actually recall this being the case, but he seems to be immune to Claw damage (and amusingly, his feet are regarded as valid hazards for sticking Claw shots to) ...and I will admit that I didn't try quite long enough with Buster, but those shots are big and easily blocked by hitzones that won't register a clean hit.

It's worth mentioning that since Lucy is entirely stationary and his arm movements are slow... you CAN get in his face against rational contact-fearing considerations and just unload a rapid barrage in his face in order to end the fight early... but... then how would that have taught us anything about his attack patterns?!

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