Fun Yet Frustrating 3D Beat Em Up
Grabbed By The Ghoulies developed by Rare and Published by Microsoft is the first Rare developed game to come out after their acquisition by Microsoft. The game was released in 2003 on the Xbox and is a quirky, charming, and creepy 3D Beat Em Up that has interesting level design and controls. Despite being interesting and charming the game falls short in a lot of areas especially with the gameplay. I played the version found on the Rare Replay for the Xbox One.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies stars Cooper and his love interest Amber who stumbled upon this mysterious mansion owned by Baron Von Ghoul. The duo needs a place to stay for the night so they decide that this creepy and obviously haunted mansion would be the best place to stay! They quickly realize they are in trouble as Amber gets kidnapped and Cooper must try to navigate through the Mansions many rooms to find her. The story is told through comic book like animation cells and pictures, and is sufficient but all in all there isn’t too much going on with the plot.
The gameplay is an interesting combination of a Beat Em Up and challenge-based puzzle game. Cooper must traverse through the game room by room and each room will have a different challenge or set criteria to fulfill before the door to the next room will open. The game despite having a map is completely linear with no freedom of exploration. The main component to each room is some type of battle against all different types of ghouls such as skeletons, pirates, floating coats, and even ninja imps. The variety of enemies and the strategy used to defeat each one is one of the strengths of the game. The combat is very simple and plays out like a generic Beat Em Up but you can also use weapons in the environment to attack with or throw at enemies as well. There are also segments to the game that will give you a weapon to shoot such as a water gun or a garlic shooter, and I found those parts of the game some of the funnest to play. There are also these jump scares that require quick time events to avoid, and this game is one of the earliest games to feature a quick time sequence. The controls are pretty awkward and take some time to get use to as you use the Left stick to move, and the right stick to attack directionally such as something you would see in a twin stick shooter. The camera is controlled with the LT and RT triggers, and this control scheme although unique falls short of being fun. The combination of the awkward attack mechanic and the camera controls really left me frustrated for a lot of the game trying to get it to cooperate with me, as the game is pretty tough already without having to fight the controls.
Most of the frustration from the game comes from its puzzle aspect to each room. In a lot of the rooms your starting health is randomly set by Baron Von Ghoul and often times I was dying very fast because of just randomly being low on health. The different conditions you need to meet in each room are very annoying as well. One room will have you not hurting two of the same enemies in a row, or having to kill a certain number of enemies in a set time limit. Breaking the challenge rules or running out of time will trigger the Grim Reaper sequence. The grim reaper will chase you around the level and insta kill you if he gets near you. There were some rooms I needed to try at least 10+ times to get through and lot of times I found myself cheating the system by running around and not killing anything when I could, or letting the reaper come in right away and kill everything for you as he will kill any thing he gets near. Some of the rooms legitimately felt like I had no chance in, and the majority of them were just way too difficult and frustrating. There are also collectibles to find as bonus books with the Rare logo on them, and collecting these books will unlock challenges in the challenge mode. I usually don’t spend a lot of time messing around with challenge modes ect, but the ones here are pretty cool and I would say even more fun to play than the core game.
Grabbed By the Ghoulies will take about 6-7 hours to play through the game, and replayability will come in the form of going back and finding the collectibles and playing the unlocked challenges. There is a final secret challenge after getting Gold medals on the other challenges that will unlock a hard mode when you play as Amber and there are no pickups to help you through the game. I will not even try to unlock this as only .001% of players on xbox live have the achievement for this. I could see myself playing the game again possibly some day but likely not for a long time.
The graphics and sound in the game are both pretty good. There really is nothing that stands out but everything in these departments is sufficient. I like the way the different ghouls look, and overall the game has some nice design and atmosphere. The ghouls will also make some weird and comical sounds through the game which Is amusing.
All in all I had some fun with Grabbed By The Ghoulies, but the overall frustration from the annoying controls and challenge/room rules design was enough to make me kind of hate this game at points. It seems like this game is either loved, hated, or just considered meh by people. I side with the meh part of that debate as the game is nothing more than sufficient and average to me. Interesting and charming yet difficult and annoying I give Grabbed By The Ghoulies a 6/10 (3/5) score. (C Tier-Toolzz Game Rank)
