Ghost Rider (GBA)

When I was younger, my favorite Marvel superhero was Ghost Rider, the reason being that he had a flaming skull and rode on a motorcycle. As I grew older my favorite inevitably shifted away to heroes who I had less shallow reason for liking than just their appearance, but I did actually begin to look into Ghost Rider media and learn who the character is. Now with a more genuine appreciation for the character, the idea of a Ghost Rider game did intrigue me on some level, especially since he doesn’t get the title spot in most of the video games he appears in. While the Game Boy Advance Ghost Rider game is the simplest of the three games made to tie-in with Ghost Rider’s 2007 movie, it manages to at least adequately transition the character onto the handheld’s hardware with an experience different from it’s PSP and PS2 counterparts.

Positioning itself oddly enough as a sequel to the events of the Ghost Rider film, Johnny Blaze is pulled into Hell by Marvel’s Satan analogue Mephisto to once again become his servant on Earth, the Ghost Rider. A group of demons are trying to restore the film’s villain to power and Mephisto needs this potential usurper stopped, but Ghost Rider is having none of it this time, refusing to play along even slightly even after learning that the demons and Mephisto both aim to use his girlfriend as leverage to try and force him to play the role they want him to in the conflict. For the most part, Ghost Rider just bounces from villain, foiling one plan only to learn there’s another in the works, the game touching on some foes familiar to Ghost Rider readers as well as including an appearance from the vampire hunter Blade who just appears for a cutscene and does not interact with the actual gameplay. It’s likely his appearance is done to assure story parity with the PlayStation consoles’ versions of the events, even though the story really doesn’t have much substance outside of getting Ghost Rider to his next battle.

Ghost Rider levels come in two different types, on foot brawler stages and levels where you ride your motorbike. For the most part, the game alternates between them, a structure that initially helps them both avoid growing too stale, but the endgame begins piling on the on foot stages a bit too much. The brawling in Ghost Rider isn’t truly bad though. The action is limited to a 2D plane, meaning you’re always on the same plane as your foes and don’t have to move about too much in a fight, but Ghost Rider’s attacks still have a decent bit of variety to them.  A quick and repeatable punch combo for close range, long range strikes he can execute with his flaming chain, grabs both close and long range for holding a foe still as you lay on the hurt or pulling them in for a beat down, and some jump attacks that become a necessity due to the layouts of the areas you battle in. On foot levels usually have some light platforming elements, Ghost Rider having to jump across some fairly easy areas that only really might trip up a player when they add in the pits that will instantly kill you if you fall down them. Level exploration mostly just leads to the screen locking in place and Ghost Rider having to defeat any enemies who appear to move on, with the only other purpose to it besides reaching the end of the stage being to find health, mana, and experience for upgrading. Ghost Rider’s moveset starts with the previously mentioned moves, but as he beats levels and earns experience for fighting or breaking open environmental objects, his skillset will begin to evolve some. One such upgrade is a powered up mode where he can can take and deal more damage as well as later unlock some powerful special attacks exclusive to that mode, although you can also upgrade the basic combos to be more effective or longer as well.

The enemies you’ll actually use all these moves on are often not all that tough, their numbers and positioning being what’s most likely to cause damage to you, but the game does gradually begin introducing more competent foes who can block attacks or jump over them, requiring you to diversify your approach. While many of the battles can feel similar, as the enemies get harder, the brawling begins to put up more of a fight and the value in upgrading your abilities becomes more apparent. Near the end when the game piles on the brawler levels, Ghost Rider’s combat system almost loses its steam entirely, but it gets a shot in the arm for the final levels with foes who are a big step up in their aggression to make them more dangerous. Since your range of movement is limited, you always need to make sure you keep your front and back equally safe, as well as the area above you as shooting enemies and birds are added to the mix. Ghost Rider’s combat can be a bumpy ride due to how it takes its time in advancing your opposition’s abilities, but it never quite wears out its welcome fully before moving onto the next idea. Minibosses are an odd aspect to it though. Almost every miniboss in the game is a variation of the first one you fight, that being a large monstrous creature with the same attack pattern and vulnerabilities. Its visual design is different across the iterations of it, but its not really a challenge once you learn when to block and when to attack. In general your health has a decent balance for the gameplay, strong moments of opposition often followed by a hearty heal so the game can justify throwing you into the thick of things again soon.

Perhaps what most benefits Ghost Rider’s combat though is the rating system. Hitting enemies consecutively will make pop-ups appear on the lower left of the screen, these indicators of how big of a combo you have going playing into a reward system tied to each level. At the start of the stage the game lays out a challenge that, if completed, will give you a big boost to your experience points. These challenges are all about getting those combo levels to a certain height, sometimes getting that combo level a few times across a stage. Here you must be even more thoughtful about what attacks to use, as some may knock a foe down so you can’t hit them for a time, meaning your combo might run out before the next opportunity to strike arises.  Sadly, the game’s way of making this more challenging mostly comes in the form of waiting to spawn in more enemies, the player usually needing to clear one wave before another can come in, the delay just long enough between a foe falling and a new one appearing that the combo counter ends and needs to be built up all over again. It is a good idea, but the execution is not all there, and it can make otherwise decent combat disappointing as you miss your mark because an enemy took their time being vulnerable to damage again.

The bike riding sections are a welcome break from the combat not because the combat is so bad it needs to be broken away from, but because it can get repetitive if done too many times in a row. The motorbike segments involve Ghost Rider driving and fighting enemies on different types of roads, many of them packing obstacles he’ll need to dodge between the fights with foes. While the brawler areas make up the bulk of the game, the driving is perhaps the area you’re most likely to rack up deaths in, mostly because things are much more damaging here. Hitting objects in the road can take a chunk off you that will be difficult to recover due to minimal resources in these stages, but good driving can be rewarding, as if you are able to drive at a high speed across a stretch of road for long enough, you’ll be able to beat the stage’s challenge in a much fairer test of skill than the combo challenges of regular stages. Fights on the bike aren’t as deep as they are on foot, Ghost Rider able to shoot fireballs in front of his bike and swing his chain at enemies to his sides. Positioning yourself and managing your speed is how you win skirmishes on the road, but that need to adjust your movement so much isn’t quite as tight as it should be, Ghost Rider basically having two speeds and his attacks not having much room to hit anything save what’s directly in front of him or right beside him. The fireballs also have a limited quantity, although beating enemies refills it and crates sometimes pop up when you run out to make sure you have them when they’re needed during a boss fight. Strangely enough, most boss battles are done on your bike, save some disappointingly easy late game bosses done on foot. Because of the health limitations they can sometimes put up a good fight, especially when the game begins to counter the easy tactics like riding behind a boss and just firing every fireball you have. While certainly not able to carry the game on their back with their simplicity, the driving stages are a welcome break from the rest of the game with some decent mechanics to ensure they aren’t just upgraded minigames.

Ghost Rider places its harder difficulty as an unlockable for finishing the game on an easier mode, but there is an interesting aspect about Ghost Rider’s level structure that makes replaying it a breeze. Once you have completed a level, you can replay it at any time from the menu, even if you’re starting a follow-up file on the harder difficulty. It doesn’t fix everything with the difficulty, the final boss is still hilariously easy, but you can replay levels as you please on the harder mode, helping to avoid the tedium of too many of the same level type in a row and helping you with the odd 100% completion quest it adds to each stage despite them not really having meaningful secrets to plumb.

THE VERDICT: Ghost Rider’s Game Boy Advance outing could have certainly gone worse. Competent brawling broken up well for the most part by the motorbike stages helps it maintain a decent level of variety even if its slow to up the difficulty of both sides of its gameplay. The upgrade system and level challenges help make each encounter more meaningful though as you can always try to get more out of it than just dead enemies, meaning a familiar fight might just be a blessing in disguise when it comes to earning the combo marker you need to get more experience for unlocking the cooler skills. The game still sits at the ground level of where its combat and driving mechanics could be, the game’s enemies just not quite there when it comes to truly engaging the player.

And so, I give Ghost Rider for the Game Boy Advance…

An OKAY rating. Ghost Rider’s extra elements like the challenges and upgrades help it reach the end without sputtering out, but it’s hard to hide that the combat and driving are both being stretched a little thin. Driving could have used some more developments besides the bosses packing a new trick and enemies sometimes getting a new attack, and the brawler gameplay should probably swap in enemies with more interesting attack methods or defensive options to encourage a fight dynamic greater than watching your back and breaking the enemy’s guard every now and then. Other than that concern of oversaturation of the simple gameplay styles, Ghost Rider does keep its flaming skull above water for the most part, although some rebalancing in structure could help it keep its energy longer.

The Ghost Rider Game Boy Advance game doesn’t quite capture the inherent coolness of the Ghost Rider character or cover the story elements and personality found in the comics and other media, but while it won’t excite either side of my history of Ghost Rider interest, it doesn’t offend them either. It captures just enough of him to make for a decent experience, not really doing him full justice but not serving as an injustice to Johnny Blaze either.