The third installments in the Ghosts 'n Goblins series and the first not to be released for arcades, it again depicts knight Arthur saving Princess Guinevere and the kingdom from Emperor Sardius, who has cast a spell that has revived the Ghoul Realm.

[2] In each of the eight levels (named Quests), five of them consisting of two sections, Arthur, has a time limit to fight ghouls before defeating a Foul Guardian that protects the gate to the next stage.

[1] Parts of the environment, such as earth ground lifting caused by earthquakes, blizzards, heavy sea waves and avalanches, are also threats to Arthur.

Chests have unwanted deadly traps, and a magician, the Conjurer, transforms Arthur into one of four weaker forms temporarily: a baby, a girl, a seal or a wasp.

[16][9] A gold armor, a new feature for the series, provides him the enchanted weapon plus a Moon Shield, which protects him from one projectile and only works while standing still, and magic that typically hits most of the screen and needs to be charged up.

[19] Leading the 50-member staff, in his first time managing a team, was Tatsuya Minami, who by then already took on positions as artist and producer for console ports of Rush & Crash (1986), Final Fight (1989) and Street Fighter 2 (1991).

[20] Capcom's boss assigned Minami to Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts following a two-week break that began after completing Final Fight.

He opined it "relies far too heavily on cheap tricks and blatantly unfair game mechanics to turn an otherwise pleasant platformer into an exercise in cruel frustration", his rationales including inability to change directions during a jump, and superior enemy advantages in terms of movement and ability for foes to shoot through certain objects Arthur could not.

[43] Oxford, as well as reviewers from Nintendo World Report and Super Play, stated the difficulty level was so high some players, even those of average skill, wouldn't enjoy it.

[42][15][43] Super Play claimed it was hard to beat even a single section without the power-up armors, made worse by how easy it is to lose it.

[9] Super Pro felt it had more depth and replay-a-bility than other arcade ports due to its "exciting" graphics and sound and the "variety and imagination" in its level design.

[8] Wrote McFerran: "The fantastic level design, inventive enemies and gripping gameplay lock you in for hours, despite the fact that for a large portion of that time you'll feel like you're banging your head against a wall".

[47] Claimed Super Gamer, "there's a multitude of power-ups, hideously imaginative monsters and fantastic settings, including a beautifully drawn sunken ship.

"[48] Mean Machines writer Rich, calling the graphics "exceptional", stated the game superseded another one of Capcom's arcade ports to the SNES, U.N. Squadron, in term of backdrops.

"[9] On the other hand, Tim Boone, although amazed by the look and sound, found the game just another side-scrolling platformer, which he was already tired of due to the amount of similar titles that existed since the original Ghost 'n Goblins.

[9][7] On the other hand, Super Play opined it negatively affected the experience in general,[42] and Craig Harris of IGN found it harder to control Arthur when the game slowed down.