VGR Splatterhouse

Are you ready for some gory, violent, brutal old school beat 'em all action?!?
Are you ready for the Splatterhouse!?

In case you missed it, I've recently posted the Japanese manga and the American comic page telling Splatterhouse's plot.

VGR: Splatterhouse
From Namco
Played on PC Engine DUO
Also available on Arcades, FM Towns, PC & Virtual Console

Type Sidescrollin' beat 'em all
Year 1988/90

Aaaahh, Splatterhouse!
Who doesn't love Splatterhouse? Or more importantly, who doesn't know Splatterhouse?
What? You want me to tell you more about Splatterhouse? Alright-y!

It all started started with two kids and a "welcoming" house in the middle of nowhere...

Splatterhouse is an arcade beat'em all created by Namco in the late 80s.
It's you typical sidescroller/beat 'em all. Lots of enemies to defeat, big ugly bosses at the end and around ten level longs.

The little twist, Splatterhouse's particularity, was in the execution. It was very gory, bloody and violent.
Like watching a John Carpenter movie, only in gaming. For the 1980s that was something pretty new! Even the later Mortal Kombat games didn't achieve the same kind of violence. This wasn't cartoony, this was like watching a slasher...

Splatterhouse was ported to the PC Engine, the version which I'm reviewing here. It was pretty faithful and only lost some minor details and colors in the background. And as the HuCard tells us, it's an 8 bit game, which makes it all more impressive seing how colorful the game looks!

I'm a MAAAAAN!!~

The game has a little story, as the bits of merchandising here and there try to tell us.
Rick and Jennifer, our game's main character had to hide in the West Mansion. They were trying to find a certain Dr. West who's been making some pretty weird experiments in his basement.
As soon as they sat foot in the mansion monsters attacked them.... Jennifer was captured and Rick was left behind, dead...
So it seems!
Rick later woke up...alive?! How can this be??
The Terror Mask resurrected Rick! Stronger...with a taste for blood...now Rick wants payback! And to find Jennifer!

You play as Rick.
Thanks to the Terror Mask, he's now stronger and can punch any creature to death with his giant fists, his powerful arms and can also jump-kicks monster's faces!!

Tons of different kind of monsters, lots of terrifying bosses...

Everybody will try to kill you in this mansion!!

You guessed it, it's not very serious... but works great for this kind of game!
It's like a slasher....in fact, there's a lot of references to various horror and slasher movies!
The whole plot is pretty similar to that of Evil Dead 1 & 2, our hero is kinda similar to Jason from Friday the 13th, there's bits of The Thing, A Nightmare on Elm Streets, Poltergeist, The Exorcist, and many more...

The game is a veritable tribute to the genre!

The music is specially good, pretty similar to what you'd hear in horror/thriller flicks... There's some very catchy and memorable tunes to be found in this game.
(note that the ending theme is...strangely different from the rest... the games end on a happy/sad melody which is kinda funny to hear after defeating the last boss!)

"Biggy Man", the man, the legend...

Being an 8 bit beat'em all, despite it's wonderful presentation, the game is pretty basic in its gameplay.
There's no 3D movements on the plane (as in Streets of Rage), you go from left to right.
There's some light platforming elements (jumping to avoid enemies, holes, spikes and traps).
Rick can only punch (or kick) in one way, and crounch or jump to alter it.
The enemies can be annoying sometimes...and use patterns you better learn quick!
The game is ~7 level longs with multiple screens. There's some forced sidescrolling.

The main meat of the game is the boss fights. Very original and they will always surprise you!
A poltergeist boss, an exorcist-like fake Jennifer to fight, Rick's mirror image,the famous Biggy Man - a chainsway wielding Jason-from-Friday.The-13th-part2-like monster (my favorite one!)...

The other main feature of the game is the weapons you'll encounter and be able to use.
From simple pieces of wood to knives, clubs, bats and even a shotgun!
It's very fun to punch monsters to death but sometimes a good hit with a bat will be more effective.

Victorious, Rick walks off the mansion...but at what price?...

The story is told through animated cutscenes using the game's models. Yes, like in Sonic 3.
The situation or action speak from themselves.
Rick is trying to find Jennifer... find her at some point...but it's too late, isn't it?
Tracks down the source of all evil inside the house... the background goes from the mansion to something more organic, hellish...
The Terror Mask helps Rick awake the "source"... you defeat it... and...?

The story kind of goes into a "to be continued"....
Exactly as in slashers, there's a sort of cliffhanger/unresolved ending at the end (think any Jason or Freddy movie). It will be continued in Splatterhouse Part 2...

This game was one of the first games to require a sort of "parental advisory warning" on the box. Which would later evolve into our current ratings.

It's gory, but it's very fun. Even if you're not a big fan of the movie genre, chances are you'll enjoy this very messy house cleaning.
It was from a time when Namco wasn't the huge popular brand and tried to compete against the such as Capcom or Konami. And they tried real hard to produce such quality title! The music seems pretty much inspired by those brands (albeit in a more horror/suspenseful genre)
The gameplay is very simple, but like I said, it wasn't a 16-bit game!

Overall, this is a classic hit from the arcades in a wonderful home system port!
The game only uses two buttons and looks & sounds fantastic on a little HuCard!

Splatterhouse is a difficult and very fun beat'em all. Sure, it doesn't have the same depth or class as a Streets of Rage or Comix Zone.. but it got the attitude!

The first Splatterhouse may lacks some of the sequels attributes but it's a great place to start!

It was ported to the Virtual Console...but... it is the American version. What about the American version?

This US version on the TurboGrafx-16 (as the PC Engine was known in America) was very highly edited!! It's less gory... Was censored... And changed many visual elements... The Terror Mask, which was mostly a white hockey mask in Splatterhouse Part 1, was edited into a red-like mask with black spots...Which is pretty stupid in my eye and loses connections to the next Splatterhouse games (where the Terror Mask continues to evolve into a more skull-like appearance while it awakens). Also meat-like objects were edited into generic objects, creatures bleed less, a chapel where Rick founds a crucifix was turned into a random hallway with Jennifer scream edited out, an "inverted cross" boss with floating hellish heads was taken out and a new enemy was created instead, a "womb boss" was heavily edited, etc... The "uncensored" arcade or japanese PC Engine version wasn't released (at least for the moment) on the Virtual Console nor Xbox live...

Anyway, I really Recommend to try this game for yourself, at least once! It's fun, addictive and pretty difficult (it took me several tries to finally be able to see the ending, and the credits do run out pretty fast)... if you got a PC Engine, give it a try!

I give it:

 2 / 3 Invaders!