Ghostbusters for Master System might be an old game, but it’s still fun. I first played it near the end of 2022, so while I’m certainly fond of Ghostbusters the franchise, I didn’t have any nostalgia for this game. I’d meaning to post about it for a while (over a year I suppose). With Frozen Empire releasing next week, it seemed like a good time!
There are a ton of versions of this game for various consoles, so I tried to do research and pick the best one. I think the NES version is more common, and I even tried it, but I found the Master System version to be better.
You can equip your car with various tools, which you’ll use when driving around the city. Each stage first involves you driving to the haunted building, where you’ll try to catch ghosts on the way. The money is sort of score, but you can also start the game over with your current amount of money, allowing you to get more powerful.
Obviously this is New York City. It’s photorealistic. You can see the Keymaster and Gatekeeper walking around the city!
I liked the simple yet recognizable graphics during the driving portions of the game. This is one aspect of the game that looked significantly worse on most other platforms.
There are different cars you can choose and various upgrades for the car. Better equipment costs more money but allows you to earn more money. You’ll need to reach a certain threshold to be able to enter the final level.
At a job site, you control two Ghostbusters and try to herd the ghosts into the trap. It might not be as exciting as Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed – Ecto Edition or the Ghostbusters 2009 game, but it got the point across.
Stay Puft will begin to manifest around the city, and at the end of the game, you’ll need to run past him, dodging his attack, to get into the Zuul building. That part isn’t too bad, but climbing the stairs of the Zuul building is very difficult.
I abused save states from this point forward to beat the game. I hated this part. However, at least there’s only one Ghostbusters. In some versions of the game, there’s a trail of Ghostbusters like a snake, and if any of them touch a ghost, you lose a life.
At the top of the stairs, you face off against Gorza, which is I guess the name for Gozer. One hit and you go down, so this can be a bit challenging too!
The whole game probably takes 15 minutes, but it has some replay value in trying different equipment. It might not be a huge game, but I still found it pretty fun up against modern games. Plus, I enjoy games that aren’t huge, 100+ hour campaigns sometimes.
This is a cool video I found comparing the different versions of the game. It’s pretty neat to see similar yet different they are, and you’ll probably see why I chose the Master System version.
Polygons and Pixels 