I'll never forget the day when my father first brought home the original Splatterhouse for the Turbografx-16. It was the very first horror game I probably ever saw, let alone played. And if there is an earlier example that escapes my memory, that's because no other horror game of that era could strike me or make a lasting impression on me the way that Splatterhouse did. I'll never forget its saturated 80s-era horror imagery. I'll never forget the morbid satisfaction that came from whacking those hanging, decomposing corpses that dropped from the ceilings at you with a 2x4, and watching their slimy remains splat against the wall and slowly slide down to the floor in a trail of bloody goo. I'll never forget traversing the shoulder-deep waters of the sewers below the mansion, and intense heat I felt in my chest at the ghastly sight of the first sludge monster that suddenly rose from the water and slowly lumbered towards me. I'll never forget the Poltergeist room, where silverware and furniture suddenly began attacking me, and after barely surviving the onslaught with one heart left, and the victory music having just wrapped up, the chandelier I was standing under suddenly gave way, dropping down on my head and killing me. The game was full of surprise little "gotcha!" deaths like that. Meaning you always had to be on your toes, because you never knew what crazy s**t this mansion was going to throw at you next. And lastly, I'll never forget the subtle, dark narrative of the grisly side-scrolling beat 'em up adventure. The story takes place in the West Mansion, known to all who knew of its legend as the "Splatterhouse". It was once the home of a famed parapsychologist, Dr. West, who had not been seen or heard from in many years. There was said to be a research lab in the house where Dr. West conducted some of his most gruesome experiments, creating some of the most hideous creatures that ever walked the face of the Earth. Two college students, Rick and his girlfriend, Jennifer, take refuge from a storm in the mansion. The couple is suddenly attacked in the dark, fatally wounding Rick and and dragging Jennifer away. When Rick awakens, the "Terror Mask", a Mayan sacrificial artifact from West's house that is capable of sentient thought, has been fused to his face and cannot be removed. The mask essentially possesses Rick, healing his wounds and giving him the superhuman strength needed to save Jennifer. And so, Rick's rampage through the Splatterhouse begins. Okay, sure. It sounds like your basic cookie-cutter plot from the 8 & 16-bit eras: save the princess. But unlike, say, Mario, your princess isn't in another castle. In fact, when you do eventually find Jennifer late into the game, she is suddenly possessed and transforms into a rather hideous creature, and you are forced to kill her. Throughout the entire fight as you're beating her to death, she is reverting back and forth between human form and monster, still begging, "Help me, Rick" in her sweet, defenseless, feminine voice. Well... as sweet and feminine as the 16-bit sound card in the Turbografx could produce anyway. I'm a sucker for bleak outcomes like that, and that was some pretty heavy s**t, considering the time in which Splatterhouse was released, which is probably what earned it the first ever "Parental Advisory" warning label before Mortal Kombat and the creation of the ESRB. You do eventually save Jennifer in the Sega Genesis sequel, and then defend her once again, along with your son, in the third installment.
So in case you haven't caught on by now, I'm a huge fan of the Splatterhouse franchise. Before the videogame horror genre really hit it big with the likes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, this was pretty much thee go-to franchise for horror. At least for me it was. So when the next-gen remake was first announced sometime back in '07 to be developed by BottleRocket Entertainment (the creators of Mark of Kri), I was pretty excited for it. I was following it pretty closely initially, until news on the game gradually began slowing, and other games began grabbing my attention and interest. It turned out that the big guns at Namco pulled the project from BottleRocket due to "performance issues", and handed development over to an internal studio (the same one behind Afro Samurai). Given its marred development, and its going from a studio that had produced a great game to a studio that had produced a mediocre one, my high hopes for the game had dropped exponentially. I began to wonder if the title would even see the light of day, let alone be any good. Well, here we are four years later the game has finally released quietly in stores. I tried looking up reviews on the game, but the big guns like IGN and Gamespot hadn't even bothered to review it. I knew this game wasn't going to generate a lot of buzz or get a lot of love, but damn. And what couple of reviews I did manage to find really threw it under the bus. So though my expectations were not very high, I still went to Gamestop and plunked my $60 down for the game anyway. What can I say, nostalgia is a very powerful thing. And though I'm not good at this whole videogame reviewing thing, I'm going to attempt it here.The storyline itself is a fairly faithful retelling of the storyline of the original game, though there are some subtle differences, and the story is told a lot more in-depth than the original as you'd probably come to expect, drawing a lot more Lovecraftian horror influences. The West Mansion is also not the sole location of the quest this time around, as Rick hits up a few portals to different locations and environments. I'd call this more of a reboot or a "re-imagining" than a remake. But the biggest difference from the original, aside from its updated graphics and gameplay, is in its overall style and approach. And as an old-school fan, that's where most of the problems lie for me. For starters, Rick looks ridiculous in this new version, with his stupidly huge biceps and upper body, and a tiny little head. When the camera is positioned behind the character, you'd think you were playing an update of Decap Attack rather than Splatterhouse, because all you can see is this ridiculously proportioned, headless body running around. Granted, he may have looked too Jason Voorhees-like in the arcade original, but at least he looked like a man, not a frikkin' mutant. He looks like The Incredible Hulk or something here, which I guess is in keeping with the game's cel-shaded, comic book-style graphics. Then you got Rick and Jennifer themselves, who are huge metal heads this time around... and that's about all there is of note to say about either of them, other than Rick's personality is pretty much the heavy metal equivalent of Peter Parker, and Jennifer doesn't really come off as anything other than a preppy bimbo, which doesn't really fit the profile of your typical female metal head, but whatever. Did I mention that you find torn up, naked photos of her around the mansion that you have to piece together? Look, I have no problem whatsoever with tits (I love tits!), but Jennifer was no friggin' pin-up. It's just pointless, tasteless, and nudity for the sake of it (that said, I still collected them all redface ). Maybe I just idealized her due to the fact that she didn't really have any dialogue in the original aside from the occasional scream and plea for help, but I still found her to be a much more sympathetic character in the original, and she didn't have to show me her tits to do it. And then you have the Terror Mask, voiced by Jim Cummings (you know, the guy who did Darkwing Duck) who, given his kind of symbiotic relationship with Rick, you could call him the Venom to Rick's Peter Parker. He definitely steals the show, often spitting amusing dialogue and exchanging in some funny banter with Rick.
Everything about this new Splatterhouse, from its excessive gore to its dialogue, is very cartoony and whimsical. There's no genuine horror or creepy moments to be found here at all, unlike the originals. Thankfully, all three of the original games are included as unlockables on this disc, but more on that later. It's not that I hate Splatterhouse's new comic booky, tongue-in-cheek style... it's just that it doesn't feel quite right for Splatterhouse. It may have been due to my age, but I found nothing cartoony about the originals. I know the premise of the original story may be a little silly on paper, but I would have rather seen a more serious and genuine attempt at a real horror story, and a true remake of the original. I think it would've been quite possible to pull that off, but hey, what do I know. Still, I could only imagine the kind of brutal impact this game could have had on new players had they actually took the time to maybe develop Jennifer and Rick a little better, and included the original Jennifer boss from the first game, along with some genuinely creepy atmosphere and monsters throughout. That would have been epic, and would have gone down in history as one of the darkest horror games ever conceived. However, the plot as it stands is perfectly adequate for what it is, and even throws a few twists at you. Lastly, there's no classic music. The original Splatterhouse games had some of the greatest music tracks ever digitized to a cartridge. Here, you have nothing but generic heavy metal and screamo bands. Some of the tracks are listenable... but that's about all I can say. If you have the 360 version, at least you can set the game to your own soundtrack. I recommend downloading the soundtracks for Splatterhouse 1 & 2 and rocking that s**t out to this. Alright. And with that nerd rant out of the way, now on to the meat of things...
Brief synopsis of gameplay: God of War + Madworld + Splatterhouse = Splatterhouse 2010.
That's a helluva cocktail right there. But yeah, it's a very derivative title, so don't expect to be seeing anything new or ground-breaking here. It's pretty much your standard next-gen 3D beat 'em up brawler. You go from room to room, beating down monsters until they're all dead and you're given clearence to proceed to the next area, with the occasional switch or puzzle here and there in order to break up the monotony. There is also occasional 2D side-scrolling sections, which also switch the gameplay up a bit, and serve as nice throwbacks to the originals, featuring the classic platforming and death traps that series veterans have come to know. Standard Attacks are mapped to the
button, Strong Attacks are mapped to the 
button, Grab is 
, and 
is jump -- just like God of War. You also have a block/dodge button for evading enemy attacks. Also similar to God of War is the upgrade system. The Mask feeds on the (copious amounts of) blood you drain from your victims, which can then be used to upgrade your character and unlock more devasting combos and such in order to keep the combat varied and interesting. You also fill your Mask's "Necro Meter" with each enemy you dispatch, and when it is filled, you can use it to either siphon much-needed health from enemies or unleash your devistating Berserker mode, in which Rick sprouts some Baraka-style claws and effortlessly slices and dices through hordes of enemies. In addition to the standard combos and movesets at your disposal, classic melee weapons such as the cleaver, 2x4, and shotgun all make their welcome return. As well as the steel pipe, chainsaw, and even dismembered enemy limbs and heads, and they're all just as fun and satisfying to wreak havoc with as you'd expect. There's also environmental weapons at your disposal, such as spikes and giant fan blades, which are very reminiscent of Madworld -- that goes for the finishing moves as well, called "Splatter Kills" here. And just like Madworld, they're cool to watch at first, but the limited number of animations for these finishers means they quickly become repetitive and stale to sit through. Unfortunately though, using them is often a necessity, as they fill more of your Necro Meter, which is often essential for getting you out of tight situations.
Speaking of which, button mashing will get you through the majority of the game until you reach around Level 8, and then the difficulty spikes considerably, forcing you to strategize and choose your moves wisely. That's where the real fun (and often frustration) comes in. Even standard, low-level enemies can drain your health bar to zero in mere seconds. There's one particularly annoying fast-moving enemy that drains half your life bar and lops off your arm in one hit. The reason this is so annoying is because losing your arm severely limits your moveset, basically forcing you to simply dodge and evade attacks until your arm can grow back, but the animation for the regeneration causes Rick to stop dead in his tracks, leaving you wide open for the thing to jump at you and chop your arm off all over again while also leaving you near-death.
Many of the reviews I've read have declared the platforming in this game -- especially on the side-scrolling sections -- broken, claiming Rick can't jump to save his life. I really don't know if we were playing the same game, because I encountered no such problems with Rick's ability to jump. If it's a wide gap, hold R1 to run and then jump. If it's a short gap, just jump. If it's a spike trap or something like that, use the roll button. There are indeed some poorly-designed visual cues on some of the platforming sections that took me a few minutes to figure out exactly what I was supposed to do, but I found nothing wrong with the actual gameplay mechanics you're provided with to avoid those traps.
That said, this game is definitely not perfect. The overall gameplay is quite competent and good for what it is, but it is a little clunky in certain areas. It lacks the kind of Triple A polish of something like a God of War, and there's also a plethora of technical issues that hinder it. The load times between deaths are absolutely atrocious, and can take anywhere from 20 - 30 seconds to put you back into the game (apparently, the load times on the 360 are a little better, provided you install the game to your hard drive). The camera can also be a little jittery at times, but it's not a huge issue. I've heard talk of bad frame rates, but I experienced no such problems. I've also heard claims that the controls are unresponsive and horrible. Again, I had no such experience. The controls are fine. I did, however, experience a handful of glitches. After one cutscene leading to a boss battle, the camera got stuck behind a wall, and wouldn't move, forcing me to fight blind until I was inevitably killed. The game also loads certain in-game events during play, and one such time, I got stuck on the roof of a building and had to reload from my last checkpoint because the game didn't load an event where a water tower was supposed to fall over and act as a bridge for me to get across to the next building over. The loading icon just sat there while I ran around like an idiot for ten minutes. And one time, the game outright froze on me. Lame and frustrating, yes, but fairly minor, given that the game is generous with checkpoints. And it's nothing compared to something like, say, Fallout 3 or New Vegas.
I don't go by numbers, but I can tell you that even with all it's problems, I enjoyed the hell out of this game. It may be the nostalgia goggles at work here, but at its best moments, I dare say I enjoyed it even more than God of War III. It's definitely not for everyone, but this game brings me back to the old-school hardcore gaming days of yesteryear. If you're a horror junkie and a fan of beat 'em ups, even if you have no nostalgic ties to this franchise, I'd still definitely recommend this game to you when it drops down to the $30 - $20 range. If nothing else, I thank Namco for finally digging this franchise out of their closet and dusting it off.
And now, a brief rundown of the ports of the original trilogy...
Splatterhouse: This is the original 1988 arcade version as opposed to the 1990 Turbografx-16 port, which censored out quite a few things. It features superior graphics and sound over the Turbo (personally, I still prefer the red mask from the Turbo version over the Jason-style hockey mask of the original). Overall though, it's a near-perfect port of the arcade classic, and the best version of this game there is to own. Only hiccup is that some of your HUD display flickers during the Poltergeist room fight, and the spinning knife sound effect is missing.
Splatterhouse 2: This is a nearly perfect port with one BIG exception... the sound. Apparently, this is a big issue with a lot of Genesis emulation. Some of the music, particularly, the amazing Intro music is slightly off from the original Sega Genesis game. It's like subtle little parts of the orchestra were done on an 8-bit NES or something. The same goes for the rest of the music throughout the game. Also, depending on the particular boot-up of the game, sometimes the tempo of the music is noticeably slower than the original Genesis version; and on other boot-ups, it runs at the correct speed. Weird. The same goes for the voice in the game, what little there is. Sometimes it's noticeably higher-pitched than it should be; and at other times, it sounds as it should. This kinda stuff isn't really going to bother anyone who doesn't know any better, though. The worst of it is that sometimes you'll get these random glitchy (very loud, grating and unpleasent) sounds shearing through your speakers that weren't in the Genesis version at all. I experienced this only on Stage 5, and it seemed to be accompanied by the flashes of lightning and the defeat of the following boss when it flashed.
Splatterhouse 3: This is a fairly decent port of the Genesis original, but the same sound issues that plague Splatterhouse 2 are present here. Also, the digitized pictures and animations that made up the cutscenes of the game have been replaced with artwork that only resembles the original digitized actors. They must not have been able to retain the rights to the actors for this port. As a result, the animations are a little choppier. They were quite fluid on the Genesis. This was by far the most disturbing of the trilogy. You were on a constant time limit, and some really nasty things were in store for Jennifer and the kid if you didn't complete certain objectives in time -- all shown in graphic, digitized cutscenes that were adequately nasty. I still shudder at the thought of those boreworms in Jennifer's brain!
