Halloween: Our Favorite Ways of Fighting Ghosts and Monsters

It’s Halloween today! That means carved pumpkins at the door, fun costumes, and an annual SG Choice that gets into the spirit. Our prompt this time is for the kinds of tools, weapons, and items that have helped us conquer even the scariest monsters. Maybe the creature was a werewolf or a ghost or a zombie, but whatever it felled was pretty spooky. Maybe tool wasn’t even violent, just something to keep the baddies away. And a few aren’t even from horror games, just horror sequences or deployed against spooky enemies. But what brings them together is that they’re all fun, and they’re all quite fitting for the Halloween spirit.

Wolfman Jew: Any discussion of anti-monster tools would have to include Castlevania. The action-horror franchise is known for its wild sub-weapons. Holy Water, Crosses; it’s got it all. But I’d put the best as the one least tied to spiritual or magical power: the good ole’ Axe. The throwing axe has a curious trajectory—you toss it upward in a vertical arc—that gives you a bit of room. In many Castlevanias, you’re limited in how you use your main weapons. Typically, it’s a whip with a lot of horizontal range but nothing else; it’s hard to use it on swarms of bats that descend on you. The Axe, with its soft loop, gets around that very well.

Cart Boy: Imagine you’re trapped in a shopping mall or small city, settings full of different stores that contain different things. Anyone familiar with Capcom’s earlier Dead Rising games knows what that means: a plethora of everyday, common objects are at your disposal to dispose of the undead! Yes, earlier games have tackled this concept—NantenJex will discuss two of them—but nothing else did so with such gusto! Dead Rising is about improvising and experimentation, figuring out which makeshift weapons are effective. It’s about desperately using a mannequin until it breaks, and then reaching for its scattered limbs. Or running with an umbrella, shoving zombies out of your way. Or heating a frying pan and using it to burn a zombie’s face. It’s also about exploration and dedication, since stronger, more traditional weapons are hidden in odd locations, or are rewards for beating bosses.

Wolfman Jew: I use Dark Souls for a lot of these prompts, but it fits. Dark Souls is scary! And Dark Souls happens to have one of the funniest, rock-stupidest methods of ghost fighting. See, there are ghosts in New Londo Ruins with these stretchy arms, and while you don’t “have” to kill them it’s hard to get to the Four Kings fight otherwise. Except you can’t hurt ghosts. So how do you hurt them? You get yourself cursed, of course! Let a basilisk breath on you, die, and wake up with your health painfully depleted but able to harm specters. Actually, you can buy a Transient Curse that fakes the curse status effect for a few minutes, giving you ample time to stab the ghosts, but it’s the concept that matters most. You can’t fight these enemies unless you’re either badly weakened or pretending to be, and there’s no indication that any of this fits together. Just wonderfully absurd.

Wolfman Jew: Bloodborne fits even better here, since it’s basically “Victorian horror Dark Souls.” Its plot pits Gothic horror against Cosmic horror, with witches and werewolves obscuring alien gods from outer space. It’s super spooky. And while it does have guns with silver bullets, those are only for the complex parrying system. The real way you fight is with some honest, earthbound weapons. One of your starting tools is a nice axe, but the real joy is in its counterparts: the Saw Cleaver and Threaded Cane. One’s a giant switchblade hacksaw; the other’s a cane-sword-whip. Both are nasty things, and unlike the axe that can be found across Souls games, both are unique to this property. They slice flesh and shatter bone like nothing, and it’s with them that you get to paint the city of Yharnam and sop your own clothes in blood. Because sometimes, you need to be a bit monstrous yourself.

AShadowLink: I’m going to talk about a game that I hold very near and dear to myself, one that has been featured in a negative light on this site before! Oh boy! Let’s talk about Resident Evil 6, and in particular, its Parry mechanic. Simply put, with the well-timed press of the attack button you instantly counter anything thrown at you. Enemy about to hit you? Parry it. Leaping at you? Parry it. An entire squad of one of the most lethal enemies in the game rolling up to you? Parry away! There’s nothing that a press of the good ol’ RT button can’t solve.

Image: Steam. Some guy’s about to get himself PARRY’D.

NantenJex: When it comes to fighting zombies and other monsters that go bump in the dark, I like the absurd but effective options. The infinite rocket launcher from classic Resident Evil games comes to mind, or the Zombie Paper in Earthbound. But these are just single items in their games—why not a whole game filled with ridiculous monster killing items instead? Zombies Ate My Neighbours, and to a lesser extent its sequel Ghoul Patrol, gives the player an arsenal of everyday objects to use to beat down a zombie hoard, the kind you would just find lying around your home or in a supermarket. Dishes, silverware, popsicles, tomatoes and fire extinguishers are just some of the many weapons in the game. The default weapon all players start with is just a water gun, and it must be filled with holy water or something because it can slay almost any monster the player will come across. While the game does have more traditional weapons, the flamethrower and bazooka are two of its strongest, these are purposefully few and far between—often with very limited ammo. For the most part you’ll be launching whatever you can find at the invading hoard and that’s just really amusing to me. Real Shaun of the Dead vibes with this one.

PhantomZ2: While I don’t play horror games or games with horror sequences often, the two that I have played heavily focus on the relationships that you build with the characters in the game: Dreaming Mary and, most importantly, OMORI. Dreaming Mary is a short indie horror game that focuses on Mary playing games with the residents of her dream in order to wake up. From each resident, you’ll earn a key that allows you to open the door in order to exit. While there is a specific item there, I think the care and genuine love that one of the residents have for Mary is what pushed me forward to traversing through the game’s hidden, scarier path. As for OMORI, I do think you should go ahead and play this game yourself, but I will state that the friends and emotional trauma that you’ll have to reface will instill courage into you, pushing you through the game’s most unnerving and paranoia-inducing sequences. Courage, although not a physical item, is something that I think both these games give not only to the main characters but also to the player. If you want to hear more about OMORI, you can watch my video on it or our review of it that was done by KodyNOKOLO.

Image: The Urban Wire.

Wolfman Jew: See, it’s not all about weapons! Sometimes fighting the undead just needs you to keep yourself alive and kicking. And in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, with its real time clock, kicking is just as important as living. The Re-Deads of the Zelda franchise freeze you with their screams, nosh on your head, and ruin your day. But in Majora’s Mask, you can keep them at bay with several masks. The Garo’s Mask, Gibdo Mask, and Captain’s Hat are perfect for tricking them into seeing you as one of their own. And that doesn’t just make them peaceful, it makes them joyful! They dance wildly, giving you a nice performance instead of an attempted head-chomping. How friendly!

Cart Boy: One of gaming’s earliest power-ups is still one of my favorites, and it gives me a rush whenever I use it. Of course, I’m talking about Pac-Man’s Power Pellets. Traditionally, four of them sit across each corner of each maze, and munching one instantly flips the power dynamic between Pac-Man and his ghostly stalkers: now, he’s the predator. If you want to rack up a high score, eating the ghosts in succession before the Power Pellet expires yields bonus points. But that’s risky; the power-up doesn’t last too long, so if you want to ensure you eat all four ghouls, you’ll have to let them closely tail you before nabbing the energizer. If you’re desperate to clear the maze you’re currently on, however, then these delicacies are a life-saver; they cause the ghosts to run away from you, briefly taking the pressure off. Rightfully, these goodies remain a staple of the franchise, appearing in virtually every game. Bon appétit!

Image: Casio Watches.

Liquid: Wolfman, in his FromSoftware wall of text above, omitted their latest outing, Elden Ring. As that game has lived entirely rent free in my head since I bought it, I can’t let that omission go unnoticed, and there’s one weapon that definitely merits a mention: the Serpent Hunter. As you might correctly infer, it’s a weapon (a greatspear) designed with one core use: hunting a massive god devouring serpent—who is also Rykard, the Lord of Blasphemy who fed himself to the snake, became one with it, and empowered it with one of the Seven Great Runes. The Serpent Hunter is provided to any Tarnished daring enough to challenge Rykard, who boasts the highest HP not just in Elden Ring but also the entire FromSoftware RPG library at 89,000 across both of his phases; as a unit of measurement, that’s nearly six times that of Slave Knight Gael from Dark Souls III. The Serpent Hunter is there to even the odds against Rykard by dealing exorbitant amounts of damage to him per swing, and yet you need to actually be good to beat him as he’s not just going to sit there and let you hack him to death. And as an added bonus? The weapon is usable outside this one fight as any character can run it due to it’s having no stat requirements. Players looking for an upgradeable weapon with little hassle can pick it up straight from the beginning of the game if they know what they’re doing, making the weapon solid as a choice for self imposed challenges like low-level runs. Is it the best weapon out there? No. But it’s not bad for a free weapon solely designed to slay one enemy.

Hamada: *major spoilers for Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling*

This successor to Mario’s storied RPGs keeps its tone light and welcoming, but it’s not afraid to explore the darkness a world dominated by bugs could provide. For one, just how screwed up can cordyceps, the infamous bug-zombifying fungi, get when their victims are sentient? In Bug Fables’ most involved mission, we take Leif, our amnesiac, inexplicably ice-bending, mothy(?) third party member to an abandoned lab where experiments involving the parasites were conducted. But in the ruins’ depths, Team Snakemouth discovers a giant, slithering monster with the upper body of a moth, but the face and lower half of a cordyceps. Leif is horrified by his feeling of kinship with the abomination and is left paralyzed with fear, leaving Kabbu and Vi to get thrashed on their own.

It’s revealed that Leif is just like the “Zommoth”, a cordyceps inhabiting the corpse of the real, long-dead moth named Leif. Nevertheless, he strengthens his resolve and puts his cryomancy to good use in helping his companions put his “sibling” to rest. Unsurprisingly, he’s the MVP in this haunting encounter, deflecting team-wiping laser beams with his bubble shields and dealing “super-effective” damage to the plant-type monstrosity. This arc might be optional (I can’t imagine why), but it takes place in one of the most enticing locations in all of Bugaria, provides a fantastic answer to a game-spanning question, and tightens our team’s bonds to an immeasurable degree.

Image: Something Awful. Paper Mario-styles ice magic right here.

Wolfman Jew: And for one more bit of family-friendly horror, the trusty Poltergust from Luigi’s Mansion. I may not like Ghostbusters at all, but I’ll always give it credit for inspiring one of the most satisfying tools of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s a vacuum that sucks ghosts, but in practice it’s less cleaning up dust than wrangling an animal. You end up having to slam your targets on the ground, drag them across the rug, and avoid being pulled yourself. All three Luigi’s Mansion games give their version of the Poltergust exclusive bells and whistles, and those can be fun, but the basic pull-and-pull just blows them away. Pun intended.

And what about you, dear readers? Do you like to climb Lavender Tower’s stairs with a Silph Scope at the ready? Are you excited for how the Dead Space remake is gonna carve up that mini-buzzsaw goodness? Or are you more of an intellectual type who prefers a Camera Obscura? Let us know in the comments!