Grabbed by the Ghoulies is acclaimed developer Rare’s first game made after coming under the ownership of Microsoft. For this game, they’re bringing their trademark quirky, goofy sensibilities for the Halloween season with their haunted mansion-themed game. It certainly presents itself well, with a humorous story, an excellent cel-shaded visual style, and some appropriately spooky music and voice samples. Sadly, Grabbed by the Ghoulies doesn’t live up to that promising first impression, and Rare’s atypical flourishes aren’t quite enough to overcome gameplay that oscillates between boring and frustrating.
Grim Grinning Ghosts Come Out to Socialize
The set-up for GbtG is simple, but fitting. You play as Cooper, who at the game’s beginning arrives with his girl Amber at, of course, a creepy haunted mansion, owned by the affably-evil Baron von Ghoul. Naturally, the mansion’s ghoulish inhabitants kidnap Amber, forcing Cooper to play the role of reluctant hero and venture into the mansion full of all manner of hostile monsters to rescue her. The plot is a simple one, but it’s held up by its amusing comic-book cutscenes populated full of quirky characters. True to Rareware, there’s no voice acting aside from snippets like grunts and screams, but these prove to be nearly as effective, and twice as amusing, so I can’t complain too much.Even more impressive than the sound design are the visuals. The graphics make use of cel-shading to create a sort of Scooby-Doo-esque wackiness, equal parts spooky and goofy. All the ghoulies are well-designed and a delight to look at (the Hunchback is a highlight), and the environments are beautifully realized and carry the spooky aesthetic pretty well. Cooper himself is an endearing creation thanks to his wonderfully expressive animations. His hilarious freakouts alone are well worth the price of admission.
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Cooper, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost!
But no great presentation would matter much if the gameplay weren’t up to snuff, and unfortunately, here’s where GbtG falls short. The game plays out like a fairly rudimentary beat-em-up — you simply enter a room, beat up enemies, and repeat. There’s a map that shows the layout of the mansion as well as the current area you’re in, but there’s really no point to it, considering the game constantly funnels you from one room to the next. Occasionally, you get startled by something, during which you respond to a sequence of button prompts to keep Cooper from shitting his pants, which isn’t a bad idea on paper but in execution can be a little annoying since they come without warning.
What separates GbtG from other beat-em-ups is its controls. Instead of pushing buttons to perform different combinations of moves, unloading blows at enemies is done solely by pushing the right analog stick towards whatever you want to hit. It may take some getting used to, but it actually works fairly well. Sadly, while it’s an interesting, functional control scheme, it’s not an especially fun one. At the very least, Cooper’s varied attack animations make combat look interesting, but the fact that you could get through most combat encounters by simply pushing on the thumbstick until all the ghoulies are dead feels even more simplistic than mashing a button. What’s more, you have no actual control over which move Cooper uses, you just move the thumbstick towards the enemy and watch to see if he uses a simple kick, or a throw, or a wrestling move. Too often, you feel strangely disconnected from the action, as if the game is being played on autopilot.
Don't Fear the Reaper
To Rare’s credit, they clearly knew the combat wasn’t strong enough to carry the game on its own, so they attached special challenges required to unlock doors that connect one room to the next, which makes things just a tad more interesting. These parameters range from simply beating up every enemy within a strict time limit, only using weapons, or killing a specific enemy while avoiding the others. Break a rule, and the one-hit KO Grim Reaper will show up to take you down — although, in a nice touch, he can also take out the enemies he touches, which can be a help in some of the tougher rooms. These challenges add a welcome bit of variety to the simplistic punch-and-kick action, and some of them are quite satisfying, like trying not to break furniture, which forces you to carefully maneuver through your surroundings while defending against a Ghoulie onslaught.It’s a shame GbtG’s gameplay is so inconsistent, because there are times where it comes really close to winning you over with its humor and atmosphere. Alas, you likely won’t stick around longer than the scant 6–8 hours it’ll take you to complete it, a fair portion of which will be spent replaying rooms because of the aforementioned challenges. The game tries to entice you to replay with one final challenge that follows the final boss, but all it really does is force you to revisit rooms you’ve already been to multiple times over the course of the game, all the while completing challenges of varying quality. It’s telling that my feeling upon getting through this final stretch wasn’t accomplishment, but relief.
And that, sadly, best describes the game on the whole. It’s almost a quality Rare game — it’s got the humor, the uniqueness, and the novelty— but the game can never maintain its highs long enough to rank among the highlights of the company’s output. The ending teases a sequel, and should one ever come (which, at this point, seems unlikely), hopefully it can iron the kinks out and make good on its awesome potential. But for now, this is a disappointing debut for Rare on Microsoft’s console. There’s enough value here to make it worth a play for those who can get it on the cheap (best way is the Xbox One Rare Replay collection), but we’ve come to expect far more from the guys behind Banjo-Kazooie.
Pros
- + Ghoulish art style
- + Varied challenges keep the gameplay interesting
- + Amusing cutscenes told comic book-style
Cons
- - Simplistic, repetitive combat not helped by autopilot controls
- - Extremely short, with little incentive to replay
- - Some extremely frustrating challenges
- - Map is totally useless
6
Gameplay
9
Graphics
8
Sound
5
Replayability
6.5
out of 10
Overall
Rare's spooktacular first effort with Microsoft is worth a play for those looking for a unique beat-em-up with the kind of quirkiness only the dev studio can provide, but don't expect it to hold your interest for long. With a bit more time and effort, hopefully their later MS games can be more than a spooky little treat.
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