The Real Ghostbusters was released in arcades in 1987 by Data East. The game can be played with up to three players. The objective is to work your way through all ten levels, capturing and storing ghosts along the way. The end of each level requires you to fight a guardian. Once defeated, the guardian will drop a key that will lead to the next level. Each character has the same move sets and abilities. Which kind of feels like a missed opportunity to add some variety between characters. You are all armed with a gun and a proton beam. Enemies can be shot with either weapon, turning them into ghosts. The ghosts can then be stored in your backpack using the proton beam.
I recently was able to play through the whole game on a real arcade with my dad and brother. Like most arcade games, it was designed to get as many quarters from you as possible by adding unnecessary difficulty. Lucky for us, the arcade was set to free play, allowing us to breeze through the whole game without much trouble... Of course, we all died about seventy times each. But that doesn't really matter when you have unlimited credits. If I had to compare this game to something else, I guess the most similar game would be Gauntlet. The hordes of enemies, the constant tapping of the fire button, and the dungeon crawling level layouts are all very reminiscent of the Gauntlet series. However, Ghostbusters is far more linear, trading the maze levels for a much more straight forward south to north layout.
One of the best features of the game is when two proton beams cross, they combine into an even more powerful beam. This can be very helpful when fighting the guardians. Unfortunately, the game does get repetitive. There is very little difference between levels and enemies. On the positive side, the game does not over stay it's welcome. It can be beaten in about thirty minutes or so. This might seem short, but for this game, I think it's the perfect length.
The Real Ghostbusters isn't a perfect game. But if you are able to get two friends together, it's definitely worth the experience. Finding arcades that have older cabinets is getting harder and harder now days. But if you ever run into this game, it's a really short and fun play through. Just bring lots of quarters!