Little Red Bastard

Christmas of 1991 was one hell of a Christmas for me. When I was 6 years old, my parents did me a solid and bought me the raddest system on the face of the planet, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The "SNES", if you're nasty. If I'm remembering correctly, Super Mario World was a pack-in game, because I know that I played it all morning that day before leaving to meet up with my extended family for the holiday. I was pretty upset that I had to leave my shiny new console behind, but all of that sorrow and despair flew out the window when I opened up a gift from my aunt. She had bought me a game for my SNES. A game that terrified me the moment I laid eyes on it. A game known simply as "Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts".

Apparently my aunt was torn between buying me that or Final Fight, and I guess the image of a knight fighting zombies was a bit more appropriate for my young impressionable eyes than a picture Mayor Mike Haggar mean-mugging some random thug. The box art for SG'nG scared the crap out of me. I mean, I was 6 years old, and I was afraid of pretty much everything at the time. I didn't let anyone know about my fear of this new game because, well, it was a new game. I couldn't risk having it taken away by my parents, as I had been playing a hand-me-down Intellivision up until that point in time, and my young gamer mind needed to be fed new, cutting edge technology. I was sick of sucking it up at "Burger Time". I needed to suck at a new game. And boy, was this ever the game to satisfy my needs.

We got a chance to play my new game the day after Christmas, and although I was excited to play something new, I was also incredibly nervous. I imagined some horrible ghoul jumping through the television once we powered on the console. My dad popped the game into the SNES and I promptly ran out of the room. The opening cinematic scared me half to death, and the accompanying music makes my heart drop to this day. The terror that this game evoked in me actually contributed to me not really wanting to play it. As a result, I spent the next few months watching my dad play.

Anyone who has ever played SG'nG knows how hard it is. This game is not just difficult, but it will actually rip out your heart and stomp it into the ground if you aren't careful. It is soul crushingly hard. I heard more curse words in the few months it took for my dad to beat this game than I have for the rest of my life up until now. Not only does the game throw a ton of enemies at you, but the fact that you can't change direction mid-jump results in a lot of "oh crap" moments where you can see your death coming but can't actually do anything about it.

The hardest enemy in this game isn't even a boss, in my opinion, and I'm sure many others would agree with me. The hardest enemy in SG'nG is a little red bastard known as Red Arremer, or "SONOFABITCH" as my dad liked to call him. This little demon would fly in at a set point in a level, and fly around erratically, with no apparent pattern. Any time you tried to move forward for an attack, he would fly away and then swoop down for the kill as you were stuck in the middle of a jump. Red Arremer was no joke.

I've since played through SG'nG, although it took me about ten years to build up the courage to try it on my own. The game was as hard as I remembered, but the memories that it brought back gave me the will to play through to the end.