[dahauns]

> I pushed through to the bitter end of Ghosts n' Goblins. And damned if I wasn't rewarded with the message, "This was all an illusion created by Satan."

Weeell...here's the thing. Erm. You didn't push through to the end. You just got the "bad" ending.

The game does very much have a proper ending, and reaching it is surprisingly straightforward.

You just have to beat it twice.

[Supernaut]

Sure, I get that. I was just aiming for comic effect in pointing out that the player's initial reward for having made it through all the levels of a very difficult game is "lol, do it again".

I did work my way through it a second time to see the "proper ending", and what's interesting is that I remember nothing about it. There's a moral in there, somewhere.