Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold

It's difficult to believe there are many people who will be thrilled at the arrival of Ghosts 'n Goblins on mobile phone.

Some might think they're thrilled, but once the game's downloaded and they've just been shot 20 times by eyeball plants then squashed a further ten by leaping knights (and that's just the first level), they might reconsider their initial excitement.

Because – as anyone who remembers the original Capcom arcade game will know – Ghosts 'n Goblins is a stupidly difficult game. The crimes Sir Arthur commited in a previous life must have been of Ted Bundy proportions because he gets hit with some serious punishment in this one.

Essentially, he's got everything you wouldn't want to run into on a dark night plus the entire cast of a George Romero film after him, and they all scurry about the screen at the sort of pace younger players of more cuddly platform games won't be accustomed to. There's no learning curve. Some would say there's not much pleasure in it either.

The problem is that while Ghosts 'n Goblins was brilliant back in its day, gamers nowadays are more accustomed to soft and squishy games. Games like SolaRola, for instance. They're not all about survival and high scores like the arcade games of ye olde times. They tell stories, they test our puzzle solving skills, they make us smile – they entertain us. They're not meant to be as loin-clenchingly irritating as having someone repeatedly slap you about the head then laugh in your face as they urinate into your open mouth.

'How hard can a platform game be?' the naive and annoyingly youthful among you might be wondering. After all, on paper it seems simple enough: you just have to run left to right, shooting the odd lance at skeletons rising from their graves or crows trying to peck your eyes out and try to scoop up the odd bonus axe or shield to make the job a teeny bit easier.

But Ghosts 'n Goblins is seriously tough because there are so many of these pesky undead creatures coming at you from all sides, and your measly store of lives can be wiped out in an eye-blink if you're a nanosecond out with your timing or not light-speed quick on the fire button. And as you'd expect, playing it on a phone with buttons so close together just further complicates matters.

In fairness, Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold is a fraction more generous than the original arcade game in that it gives you a whole third life. Now, instead of one hit reducing Arthur to his pants and two hits to a pile of bones, one strips him of his armour to his clothes, then another to his pants, and a third to the graveyard. It doesn't sound like much, but in a game that's about as generous as Scrooge it feels like the gift of eternal youth. Gift-wrapped.

Don't get any ideas, though. Actually finishing the game's entire six levels and making it past numerous tricky boss characters is still going to be beyond most mere mortals' gaming skills, but at least they now stand more chance of doing it.

It's hard to reach a conclusion on Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold. Because, while it has very little other than retro value to recommend it on mobile, it also seems a bit unfair to knock a classic game from 1985 because it's not as good as one made in 2008.

So instead we'll just say it seems a bit pointless to buy it for your mobile phone unless you're old enough to remember it first time around and fancy a nostalgia hit. If you're not old enough, we almost guarantee you'll hate every life-losing second of it because – great as it once was – it's not a patch on newer, more sophisticated mobile platformers.