 Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss That's drunk. Ghoul Patrol is a tricky game to review. I've talked about this one a little bit in the past going all the way back to the video about Zombies Ate My Neighbors from October of 2014. And I guess that's where I have to start. Many people think that this is a sequel to that game, and why wouldn't they? It's a top-down shooter, it's got similar gameplay, it's got the same vibe, the same structure, where you have to explore a bit and rescue people before finding the exit. According to a 2008 Sega 16 interview with technical director Toshiyasu Morita, the game engine for Zombies 8 My Neighbors was licensed out to a third party, that being a developer based out of Malaysia named MotionPixel. It was not originally intended to have anything to do with Zombies 8 My Neighbors or use the same characters or have any sort of horror theme at all. One of the developers of the game engine, Mike Ebert, said in an interview with Hardcore Gaming 101 that when he first saw Ghoul Patrol, it was its own thing, no Ghouls, no horror stuff. Then one day out of nowhere, the characters from Zombies 8 My Neighbors were in it. So yeah, while it's a very similar game, it's technically not a sequel. And if you sit down to play this one, you'll be able to tell pretty quickly, because the game kind of feels like a cheap knockoff, especially with the controls and the feel of how your character moves. One fundamental facet that's required for any top-down shooter to be any good is the immediacy of the controls. I'm talking start, stop, no drifty momentum, just very crisp, clean movement. Not only do you see this in games like Zombies 8 My Neighbors, you see it in Smash TV, Pocky & Rocky, True Lies, even going all the way back to Robotron 2084. Unfortunately, that's the number one thing Ghoul Patrol gets wrong. The dev team simply got way too cute with this one, with your characters having momentum-based movement. And as a result, it makes this one a bit of a pain to play through. Your character doesn't move immediately when you hold a direction on the D-pad. They start up slowly like Mario, and slow down the same way. And in a game like this, it turns an already difficult game into something that's frustrating for all the wrong reasons. I will say though, despite the problems with the controls, Ghoul Patrol does still have quite a bit going for it. You can see the visuals here, the game looks freaking great, and some of the bosses look fantastic to the point that I was happy to keep playing through this one to see what the next crazy looking boss would be. You got this huge skeleton samurai dude, this giant pirate guy. Even the regular enemies and themes here are great looking. You get three lives, and zero continues to get through 17 levels, and there is a password system here. And like I said, the structure of each level is the same as Zombies Ate My Neighbors. You have to rescue 10 people to generate an exit. One key difference here though is that the exit doesn't appear right next to you. You have to wander around and find it. And that can get kind of annoying because that usually involves backtracking and killing all the same enemies again. Another key difference is that instead of a radar, you get text popping up coming from the direction where you're supposed to go to rescue someone. I actually really like this and it's implemented very well. Another thing I love is all the power-ups and weapons. There's a crossbow, a homing laser, a machine gun, and best of all, your special ability is changing into the Grim Reaper. Now that is cool. Unfortunately though, the mazes in which you use all this cool stuff aren't very interesting or player friendly. Like I said, there is a lot of backtracking and a lot of long corridors with enemies spawning all over the place. Again, with something like this, it's frustrating for the wrong reasons and there's just not enough space to work with here. So instead of making monsters go boom, you end up just sliding out of the way so you can get the heck out of there. Also, I should mention that you can jump in Ghoul Patrol. Why? I don't really know. It's not a particularly useful skill in this game and I often forgot that I even had that ability. I guess you can jump onto furniture, so that's... something, I guess. There's also a story here. Zeke and Julie are at a library where they find an old treasure chest which contains an old haunted book. You open it up and it unleashes hell with some of the ghouls escaping the book and possessing other books in the library, hence all the different historical settings you see throughout your playthrough. It's a neat bit of context that adds a little more to the visual presentation, so that's cool. But yeah, overall, Ghoul Patrol is a tough one to recommend. It's definitely not a bad game. It's pretty decent on its own, but Zombies 8 My Neighbors is not only extremely similar, it's a much better game. And it's all because of how your character controls. Zombies 8 My Neighbors is more immediate, Ghoul Patrol is more deliberate and showy. It's one of those games that went overboard trying to show off sprite animations. Yeah, your characters look great, but it comes at the cost of a better gameplay experience. Ghoul Patrol is good enough on its own, but it tends to be really aggravating to play with the maze design not doing the game any favors either. However, I will say, if you feel like you can get used to the controls and you like top-down shooters like this, then hey, you'll like this game. I had a hard time getting into it myself, especially since I knew the whole time I was playing that there is a way better version of this game elsewhere, but I do think Ghoul Patrol is still worth a shot just to see if the controls agree with you. Alright, that's all for now, and I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.