Ghostbusters (NES) Walkthrough No Commentary
0Ghostbusters is a game originally released in 1984, and ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System and released in North America in 1988. It was an action/adventure game based on the 1984 film of the same name.The player sets up a ghost busting franchise in a city with a rising Psychokinetic (PK) Energy level and has the ability to purchase equipment such as traps, or to upgrade their vehicle. The player then negotiates a grid representing the city. They need to stop the "roamers" from reaching the temple of Zuul (which causes the PK Energy level to jump). When the player moves to a city block that is flashing red, the game mode switches to an overhead view of the player's vehicle driving to the location. The player must move left and right to vacuum up the stray ghosts and avoid cars. The player then moves to a screen in which a Slimer ghost must be guided with two proton streams over a ghost trap.
If the ghost is successfully captured, the player's income increases. The aim is to have $10,000 by the time the city's PK level reaches 9999, where in the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man will appear and wreak havoc on the city, thereby ending the game. In some versions (e.g. the Commodore 64 version), after the first successful game, the player is given an account number, which stores the amount of money the player had at the end of the game. This allowed for purchasing more expensive items for use (faster cars, more traps etc.). In order to win at these games the player was required to have earned more money than their initial account balance. This is one of the earliest uses of passwords being used as a 'save game' feature on home computers.The game was also released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988, (1986 in Japan) and the Master System in 1987. These versions featured added gameplay after the Ghostbusters sneak by the Marshmallow Man. It played more like a conventional vertical scrolling platform game, where they were to actually climb the stairs to get to the roof.
However, in the NES version, the Ghostbusters could not fire their weapons nor trap any of the ghosts and had to instead sneak by all the floors. In contrast, in the Master System version, the Ghostbusters are able to shoot the ghosts with their proton streams to temporarily make them go away. The NES version is considered more difficult for this reason.
At the end of the NES version, the final screen states: "Conglaturation!!! [sic] You have completed a great game. And prooved [sic] the justice of our culture. Now go and rest our heroes!".
This version has been extremely negatively received by critics for monotonous gameplay, poor graphics and sound, as well as unfair difficulty (particularly in the stairway).[20]