Quick Impressions: "Makaimura for WonderSwan" (WonderSwan)
Oh yes, my friends: I'm here today to talk about yet another Ghosts 'n Goblins game!
What can I say? In the five years since I got into the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, I've become very fond of it. I've come to see it as a truly great gaming series.
In that time, I've been constantly looking for ways to further grow my relationship with the series. I've been doing so, mostly, by seeking out and playing any game that bears one of its popular titles (Ghosts 'n Goblins, Ghouls 'n Ghosts or Dai Makaimura) or has any known connection to it.
In 2025, my continuing journey led me to two particular games: The PC Engine SuperGrafx version of Ghosts 'n Goblins, which is considered to be a special "challenging version" of the original (because it has limited continues), and the Commodore 64 version of Ghosts 'n Goblins, which I hadn't played since I was a kid (I stayed away from it for most of my life because I remembered it as being insanely difficult and feared it for that reason). I played through and beat both of them and thus enjoyed them in full and consequently, as I'd hoped, formed a deeper connection with the series.
And this year, my journey led me to Makaimura for WonderSwan, which I'd been meaning to play for a while--ever since I watched a couple of streamers play Ghosts 'n Demons, which is an unofficial fan remake of the former.
I got around to doing so, finally, about three weeks ago.
In truth, my play-through of the game wasn't triggered by a single impulse, no. Rather, it was, much like my High Seas Havoc play-through, prompted by the convergence of two separate interests: The first was my stated desire to form a deeper connection with the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, and the other was my eagerness to further explore the WonderSwan's library, which I'd planned to do after playing Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chosensha but failed to do for a number of reasons.
"If I'm going to return to the Ghosts 'n Goblins series," I thought, "then it would make a ton of sense for me to do so on the WonderSwan, which also deserves more of my attention."
So that's what I did. And as a result, I was able to satisfy two separate needs.
And now I'd like to talk a bit about my Makaimura experience and tell you how the WonderSwan's capabilities shaped it.
From what I've read, Makaimura for WonderSwan is the series' fourth mainline entry, but it has no official place in the series' canon. Rather, it's another one of those vaguely defined "side stories" that exists because developers are too intellectually dishonest to admit that they don't give a damn about such things as "overarching stories," "continuity" or "canon.""The only thing that we cared about doing, really, was following corporate's orders and pumping out a popularly titled game before the deadline," Makaimura's developers could've simply told us.
And we would have understood because we know how lazy and uninspired these companies can get when they start believing that their games can sell on name-value alone.
So of course, Capcom slotting Makaimura as a "side story" is an excuse for the company to recycle an older game's story: Arthur, the kingdom's hero, is enjoying a nice day with the princess, his beloved (as always, in the ever-romantic confines of a dark and creepy graveyard), when suddenly winged messengers from the Demon Realm appear and take revenge on Arthur by kidnapping the princess. So now Arthur must venture into the Demon Realm and rescue his beloved from the clutches of the monsters and their leader: the Demon Emperor Azazel. (So clearly Makaimura is intended to be a reimagining of Ghouls 'n Ghosts.)
In terms of gameplay and mechanics, Makaimura isn't derivative of any single series game, no. Rather, it's a mixture of Ghosts 'n Goblins, Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. It combines elements from all three of them: visual themes, enemies, weapons and systems.
Overall, though, its gameplay style is mostly reminiscent of the original Ghosts 'n Goblins', which is to say that it's basic and simple in nature. Arthur can jump and attack, and that's about it. He can't toss his weapons upward or downward, he can't double-jump, and he can't utilize magic at any point.
All of the complexity lies within the armor system, which works similarly to the other two games': Chests drop armors in sequential orders that are determined by Arthur's current condition. If, say, he hasn't lost his armor since the action began, the second spawned chest will contain upgraded armor, and then the fourth and sixth chests will also contain upgraded armor (assuming that he hasn't lost his armor in the meantime).
It'll come off to you as a complicated system if you don't how it works and how Arthur's changing physical states affects its sequencing. The only thing that I can say, in trying to simplify the matter, is that you'll get the best outcomes if you can avoid losing your armor.
Honestly, I have mixed opinions on Makaimura's convergence of elements. I love how the game combines enemies from the previous games and produces surreal enemy sets like Ghosts 'n Goblins' Woody Pigs (the "flying burritos," as they're affectionally known), Ghouls 'n Ghosts' Green Monster MKIIs, and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' Weredogs and consequently creates the type of cool cohesion that's largely missing from the other games. For me, seeing Zombies and Skeleton Murderers in the same space does a lot to reconcile the other three games' different art styles and show me that their enemies can fit together in a visually consistent and natural-looking way.
What I'm not fond of, though, is how Makaimura looks at all of the available options that this interesting convergence provides and often chooses the most regressive of them. In too many instances, it disappointingly declines the opportunity to further evolve the series' formula or even meet the standard set by Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.
I talked about this earlier, when I was laying out how the game's systems work, and I'll have more to say about the matter in later sections of this piece.
Makaimura's weapons are exactly what I expected them to be: mostly bad and largely an encumbrance, as per tradition.The game's arsenal is comprised of seven weapons, all of which are taken from previous Ghost 'n Goblins games. It includes series staples like the lance (which is, as usual, Arthur's default weapon), the dagger, and the torch; the sword from Ghouls 'n Ghosts; and the crossbow, the axe, and the Goddesses' Bracelet from Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. And all such weapons function very similarly to how they did in said games.
The fact is that you don't have many great options. The torch, the sword (which now has even less horizontal range) and the axe are all terrible, and the lance, while it works well and has no unfortunate quirks attached to it, is still only adequate.
The Goddesses' Bracelet is indeed powerful, but it only appears in the second loop, and it's very difficult to get a hold of (because stages only contain around six secret chests in general, and thus you have to know where all of the chests are if you want to spawn both the gold armor and the bracelet and you have to remain armored for the entirety of the chest-spawning period).
In reality, there are only two good weapons available: the dagger and the crossbow. They're weaker than the other weapons, of course, but honestly not by much, and because they can be tossed rapidly, you can use them to lock enemies in place and overwhelm them.
So attempting to get a hold of either of these weapons will always be one of your immediate goals.
The others, of course, are intentionally designed to be unwieldy and unreliable, and if you find yourself in possession of one of them, you'll want to replace it as soon as possible. You can help that process along by breaking open item-holding chests or by killing pot-holding enemies ("potheads," as I call them), which sometimes carry weapons.
Makaimura's level design is in line with the earlier games', which is to say that it renders stage environments that are largely uncomplex in nature and designed to emphasize fast-paced combat over platforming (there's about a 90/10 split between the two, I'd say). It's mostly simple and safe.
However, the game does break from formula at times and take some chances with its structuring. Most notably, it allows you to choose between one of two separate routes in its third stage. One of them leads you to a flooded cave while the other leads you to a dimly lit mine.
Otherwise, there are times when the game has some interesting variety to its action. This is true mostly in the aforementioned separate routes: In the former, you have to actually swim your way through stage sections, Super Mario Bros.-style, and in the latter, you have to use a rope to rappel your way down the mine (similarly to how you do so in Battletoads & Double Dragon's third stage).
The mine stage is especially cool because it's one of those that's designed to take advantage of the WonderSwan's vertical-mode capability! It puts you in unique-feeling 144x224 spaces and requires you to rappel your way down narrow spaces and do so while dealing with threats that are emerging from both above and below.
I like what the designers did with this stage. They used to the opportunity to get creative and have some fun with the portable's vertical-mode capability, and consequently they created one of the series' most memorable stages.
That's why I'm disappointed that they only included a single vertical-mode stage. In choosing to limit themselves to one such stage, they missed the opportunity to continue flexing their creative muscle and more strongly distinguish Makaimura from the rest of the Ghosts 'n Goblins games. (I had the same complaint about Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chosensha, which was made by some of the same people.)
The game has a good variety of environments (graveyards, cliffsides, fortresses, caves, aquatic areas, and castles), and it's cool that some stage sections are designed to remind you of those that you traversed in previous games (the most memorable of these locations is Stage 2's multi-level fortress, which bears a strong resemblance to the one that you passed through in Ghosts 'n Goblins' second stage and even contains some familiar enemies: the pig-like goblins and the pesky crows!).
The problem is that these stages aren't always fun to traverse. All too often their level design is scattershot, and most commonly, platforms are haphazardly placed throughout stages. Some are placed so close together that they get in each other's way and cause you land in places in which you didn't intend to, and others are arranged in such a disorganized manner that they make platforming feel awkward and unnecessarily harrowing.
What causes you the most pain, though, is the game's unfortunate technical issue: poorly mapped bounding boxes.
They don't extend to platform edges, and resultantly, you'll often accidentally walk off platforms as you approach their edges and fail to land on far-away platforms when you jump toward them.
This becomes a particularly troublesome issue when you have to jump onto moving platforms, most of which are already distressingly narrow. These types of platforms are usually placed over death or spike pits, so there's almost no room for error when you're jumping onto them. If you're not able to calculate your jumps correctly and land on the platforms' traversable center portions, you'll have a rough time clearing segments that are comprised of series of moving platforms.
That's why I'm thankful that the game only has a small number of moving-platform segments.
I can't go without mentioning Makaimura's bosses, which represent one of the game's best elements. They're appealing in how they look and operate, and the battles that they present are often interesting and creative.
My favorite of them is the Ghost Tower--a living fortress that chases you during an auto-scrolling segment and attacks you by firing cannonballs and spitting rocks. The battle that it prompts is unlike anything I've ever seen in a Ghosts 'n Goblins game, and it stands out to me mostly because of how visually interesting and surprisingly unique it is.
I mean, you're fighting a sentient building that's chasing you through a forest! It's a delightfully absurd, wonderfully novel idea for a boss fight, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen anything like it in any of the hundreds of action games that I've played.
It's a very memorable battle.
The only problem is that the boss battles are rarely challenging. Most of the bosses have only a moderate amount of health, so it's all too easy to beat them by merely getting up close to them and proceeding to spam attacks and basically face-tank them to death.
This is part of a larger issue that I'll talk about later.
And I'm honestly disappointed with how the infamous-but-legendary Red Arremer is represented in this game. He has, sadly, been downgraded to a mundane low-level flying enemy. Most of the time, the only thing that he does is slowly fly in your direction while undulating slightly. That's it. He doesn't dodge your attacks, pursue you aggressively, or execute his iconic swoop and dash attacks, no. Rather, he flies forward in a predictable manner and simply absorbs strikes.
He does spit fireballs, yes, but only sporadically, and his shots travel so slowly that's it's very easy to evade them.
And he's so non-aggressive that he'll sometimes fly off the screen for about 10-15 seconds and then casually fly back onto the scene and proceed to hang around in the corner for an indefinite amount of time.
It's such weird behavior.
The only time that the Red Arremer is a threat is when you encounter him in a narrow passage, and that's the case mainly because he's so large.
I realize, though, that this is all a matter of perspective and that those of you who hate the Red Arremer are probably happy to hear that he's been nerfed. If you're in that camp, then, surely, it's instead good news to you that this variation of the Red Arremer is slow and predictable and thus much easier to dispatch than the Arremers that you encountered in other Ghosts 'n Goblins games.
On the plus side, Makaimura absolutely looks the part. From state to finish, it exhibits the types of visuals and environments that you expect to see in a Ghosts 'n Goblins game (stylistically, it's most similar to Ghouls 'n Ghosts).Its world is formed from appropriately creepy and spooky graveyards, crypts, abandoned villages, decayed forests, castles, caverns, mines, and old mansions, many of which display twisted and bizarre images that are alluring because of how visually interesting they are and how effective they are at telling compelling stories and informing you of what the Demon Realm is and what occurs within it. And its characters are wonderfully evil-looking and expressive in a sinister way.
And all such visuals are impressively rendered. They're monochrome in appearance, yes, but still they're highly detailed, remarkably sharp-looking, and filled with character.
What's great, also, is that Makaimura has multi-layer support and uses it to implement foreground effects like pouring rain and water- and distortion-shading.
It also has parallax scrolling!
Admittedly, this doesn't mean as much as it should--because there are few independently scrolling backgrounds, and those of their type are, in accordance with series tradition, muted and deemphasized--but still it's cool to see such an effect on display in a black-and-white portable game, even if it's being used to a limited degree.
The only downside to the game's monochrome display is that it makes it difficult for you to determine which armor type you're picking up. Because of the lack of distinctive coloring, you can't tell if a revealed armor icon represents bronze or gold armor. Instead you have to keep track of your current armor status in your head.
The designers could have easily mitigated this issue by giving the bronze and gold armor icons their own unique look. Instead they used the same sprite for both.
This doesn't have any real detrimental impact on the gameplay, no, but still it comes off as a curiously careless design decision.
Then there's the game's music.
Honestly, even weeks later, I still don't have any strong opinions on it. The only thing that I can think to say about the game's tunes is that they're appropriately gothic and spooky in character and nicely composed but otherwise mostly unmemorable.
They're good tunes, certainly, but sadly none of them really stand out or truly grab you.
The main problem with them is that they're so high-pitched that they tend to become grating and sometimes even ear-splitting. And for that reason, you wind up tuning them out and escaping from them by directing all of your focus to the gameplay. Thus you neglect to accurately judge their quality and fully understand what they're saying about the stages they accompany. And that's an unfortunate consequence.
The game's soundtrack is largely original. It has only one recurring piece: Haunted Graveyard, which is, of course, the series' signature musical theme. As per tradition, it plays during the opening stage and provides accompaniment to a graveyard setting.
And it's a solid version of the tune. It's a little too high-pitched, yeah, but at the same time it's more complex and more textured than other Haunted Graveyard variations and thus one of the more absorbing renditions of it.
But the rest of the tunes are all original works, and to their credit, they have unique character to them and they're absolutely sincere in their mission to help the game establish its own identity.
So I give them points for that.
This is a Ghosts 'n Goblins game, so I can't neglect to talk about its difficulty. Because after all: High difficulty is a staple of the series' games, and the first thing you wonder when you learn of one of them is not "Is it difficult?" but rather "Just how difficult is it?"And well, what I can tell you is that Makaimura is a considerably difficult game, but it's not nearly as difficult as the series' other games. It is, I'd say, about half as challenging as the most difficult of them. It's Castlevania or Mega Man 4 compared to the most difficult NES Ninja Gaiden game.
This is true for a couple of reasons: The stages aren't particularly long. Enemies, for the most part, move slowly and predictably. It's all too easy to pick off enemies by attacking them when they're only partially onscreen and thus restricted from operating. A lot of the time, the enemy placement is poorly considered, and consequently it's easy to pass over or slip by certain enemies (like Stage 5's Flying Killers and Seirens, which won't attack or pursue you if swim away from or over them). Most bosses, as I've said, can be easily face-tanked. And you have unlimited continues.
Really, the game's entire challenge derives from three particular elements: Stage 4's awful end segment, in which you have to ascend via moving platforms while dealing with pursuing ghosts that repeatedly materialize in inconvenient locations; the Nightmare boss (a giant horse), whose large fire-ring projectiles are exceptionally hard to evade; and Stage 6's final section, in which you have to endure a boss rush and two final boss fights.
But on the whole, Makaimura is only a moderately difficult game.
Ordinarily a game not being extremely difficult would be a good thing, but because Makaimura is part of a series whose identity is based around its game's high degree of difficulty, it's kinda disappointing that it doesn't offer more of a challenge.
Because with Ghosts 'n Goblins games, it's always been the case that pain and suffering are essential parts of the experience. They're what you proudly overcome to achieve victory. But disappointingly, Makaimura is absent of such a trial. Thus it leaves you feeling unfulfilled.
But the real problem, as I've said, is that Makaimura plays it too safe. It had all of the opportunity in the world to evolve the series' formula in some way or introduce some type of game-changing mechanic (as both Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts did), but it declined to do so and instead chose to be largely derivative and basic.It added interesting mechanics like swimming and rappelling, yeah, but it used them to only a limited degree and thus rendered them less impactful than they should have been. Instead it put most of its energy into replicating the mechanics and level design from an ancient arcade game.
As a result, it feels less like a mainline series entry--the next in a line of increasingly epic sequels--and more like your average 80s-era creative-license-taking computer port of Ghosts 'n Goblins or Ghouls 'n Ghosts.
It's only a "good" game when it could have been so much more.
If that's what Capcom intended for it to be, then, well, that's fine. Sometimes games are designed to simply fill niches or give platforms' fans a little taste of a series action. They can't all be top-tier masterworks.
But still, I feel that the WonderSwan deserved something better. It's a cool portable device, and certainly it has the capability to produce a game that's close in quality to the Genesis and SNES series games (it is a 16-bit system, after all). In working with a new portable, Capcom had the perfect excuse to get really experimental and create one of the boldest, most genuinely unique series entries and consequently introduce exciting new ideas that future entries could build upon. And by doing so, it could have drawn in curious audiences and potentially expanded the series' fanbase.
Unfortunately, though, the company simply didn't care to aim that high.
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