Ghostbusters II (Nintendo)
4 min read
Ghostbusters II was adapted into more than one game for Nintendo's hardware. On the Nintendo Entertainment System there were two distinct releases: a North American version published by Activision and developed by Kemco, and a separate game built by HAL Laboratory that shipped in Japan and PAL territories as "New" Ghostbusters II. Both retell the plot of the 1989 film Ghostbusters II, sending the team through the river of mood slime, the courtroom, the streets of Manhattan, and the final confrontation with Vigo at the museum.
This page covers the NES games. A related Game Boy port also carried the Ghostbusters II name and reused assets from HAL's NES game, but it is a different game with its own levels.
Activision NES version
The Activision-published Ghostbusters II for the NES was developed by Kemco and designed by Dan Kitchen. It was released in North America on April 1, 1990, and in Europe on December 9, 1990. The four playable Ghostbusters are Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, Egon Spengler, and Peter Venkman.
Story
The game's instruction booklet frames the story as a direct continuation of the first film. Five years after the team first cleared the Big Apple of ghosts, the Ghostbusters discover a huge river of slime running beneath the city. This time it is mood slime, feeding off the meanness, rudeness, and general ill-will of New York. The river flows toward the Manhattan Museum of Art, where Vigo the Carpathian waits trapped inside a portrait for the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve to break free and gather the slime's power. The player runs through the city blasting slime and dodging ghosts, drives the Ecto-1A, guides the Statue of Liberty through ghost-infested waters into Manhattan, and finally faces Vigo in a closing battle.
Scenes
The booklet names the seven levels:
- Tunnel of Slime
- Hitting the Road
- Order in the Court
- Ghosts in the Park
- Subway Slime
- The Statue of Liberty Strikes Back
- Storming the Museum
The roster of ghosts and obstacles includes Slimer, flying courtroom objects in the trial level, flying museum objects in the finale, and Vigo as the final opponent.
