One of the better Sony PlayStation Portable games that few people seem to have played is Capcom's Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins, another modern revamp of a classic video game from a publisher that knows how to treat their old properties with respect.  The PSP game maintains the crushingly unforgiving gameplay that makes the franchise a bizarre combination of total fun and controller-throwing frustration while adding lots to do and plenty of new items to collect.  Those of you out there who passed the game by when it was first released are getting a second chance to take up the role of Arthur the noble knight, as the game is coming to the PlayStation Network as a downloadable title for PSP.  The PlayStation Blog has the announcement.

To kick off 2009, I’m happy to announce that Ultimate Ghost ‘n Goblins will be available tomorrow in the PSP store for $19.99. For those of you not familiar with the game, UGG is a side-scrolling platform game featuring the heroic knight, Arthur, as he battles hordes of undead in his quest to save Princess Prin Prin. (total run on sentence) I think just having the name “Prin Prin” is reason enough for saving. UGG maintains the 2D gameplay mechanics of this classic franchise and is the only game in the series to employ 3D graphics. The graphics are beautiful and the gameplay is intuitive yet addicting, everything you want in a quality PSP game.

I rented the game last year and enjoyed it, but never actually got around to buying it.  I'm hoping that this downloadable version of the game can pick up on my old save data so I don't have to begin the game from scratch (it was frustrating enough making progress the first time around), but based on what Capcom's John Diamonon had to say when I asked the question, I'm not getting my hopes up.