Splatterhouse is this generation's best action game that almost nobody bothered to play
Beat-‘em-up and hack-&-slash action games have come back into vogue thanks to franchises like Devil May Cry, the modern Ninja Gaiden and, most notably, God of War. But I’ve mentioned before how little I care for God of War. So, if you’re wondering what kind of game in the genre I think is a REAL triumph, here it is.
What makes this such a triumph?
It’s about impact.
If you’re new to the blog, let me reiterate: When I throw a punch or swing a sword in a video game, I want to FEEL it. You convey the impact through how you animate the enemy’s reaction. I want to see the bad guys stumble a bit, recoil, SOMETHING.
I get irritated when I play games where you smack and pummel and slice into bad guys, but never see any physical reaction. It’s the kind of crap you experience throughout most of your playtime with God of War or, even more obviously, the recent Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. There’s nothing that shows that you’re having any impact on the bad guys except for the sight of their health bars slowly draining, until you finally get to that gory payoff when you kill them at last.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about doing it RIGHT.
Splatterhouse is a franchise that’s always understood the value of impact. The original three games are highly flawed titles in many ways thanks to some clunky controls, and oversized player-character and some unforgiving hit detection. But they succeed admirably in terms of providing an atmosphere of horror (particularly admirable given that they come from a time when horror games barely existed), and, of course, in providing you with the feeling that your strikes had IMPACT. You punch someone, and they fly in half. You hit them with a 2x4, and they splatter against the back wall of the level. You feel powerful. You feel like a badass - not someone who might as well be striking their opponents with a slightly weighty feather boa (*cough*GabrielBelmont*cough*).
See, now THAT’S one powerful action hero.
In November of 2010, Namco resurrected Splatterhouse with an all-new reboot. The story follows the basic narrative of the original game: two college students, Rick and Jennifer, enter the “West Mansion,” where Jennifer is kidnapped and Rick is charged with saving her from a house full of horrors… with the help of the “Terror Mask,” a mystical being that attaches itself to Rick’s head and gives him incredible power. However, there are a number of new wrinkles now. Not only do you get actually meet Dr. West this time, but you also learn a lot more about WHY his house is infested with so many demonic horrors. You not only get to see and hear a helluva lot more from Rick and Jennifer, you actually get a ton of detail on their relationship so far.
The idea of learning about the relationship between these two college kids may sound boring, but it’s well-written and effective at making you feel genuinely invested in their well-being.
But the best new wrinkle has to come in the form of the new Terror Mask, which gets an utterly hilarious personality. The smart-assed mask has little reason to care about Jennifer, but DOES have reasons to want West dead all the same. It has its own agenda that just happens to sync up with Rick’s; whereas Rick only wants to rescue his girl from being sacrificed because he loves her, the Mask is mostly concerned with preventing the invasion of Earth that will be brought about by said sacrifice. Why does the Mask care about the invasion? Well, he doesn’t care about Earth or humanity or anything. He just hates the shit out of the group of demons that plan to do the invading and would very much like to screw their plans over for his own personal satisfaction.
The mask is bloodthirsty, vicious, foul-mouthed and pretty much the funniest video game character since Portal’s GLaDOS (until Wheatley came along, at least). On the downside, he has a habit of being repetitive at times, especially in regards to his quips during combat and when picking up new weapons. On the flip side, though, there’s more than enough unique material that’s specific to each stage to keep him entertaining, and even after you’ve heard him say some of the same combat-oriented wisecracks eight times, you’ll likely be surprised to hear him start whipping out all NEW ones shortly thereafter. Just because he’s a bit repetitive doesn’t mean he’s lacking material.
So what about that combat? After all, that’s the core of the gameplay in these sorts of beat-'em-up, hack-&-slash titles. The game is roughly 80% combat, 5% platforming and 15% QuickTime events. To maintain interest, the combat has to be GOOD, since you’re going to be beating up the baddies so extensively.
And oh yeah, it’s damn good. And if you had to guess the number-one reason WHY it’s so good, you’d probably get it on the first try: It’s about impact.
When I play a beat-'em-up action game, I want to feel like a badass. And Splatterhouse surely delivers that precious sensation.
Every single punch you throw causes your enemy’s blood to spray across the floor and onto the camera. (Don’t worry, it won’t block your view.) This is possibly the goriest game ever made, but it’s not just gore for the sake of exploitation - it provides a palpable KICK to the sense of all-important impact. Yet blood can’t make a game good or bad. Blood is never enough to save a game with poor mechanics.
Luckily, even without the blood, the impact of the combat is still tangible, because your enemies actually react to your blows. That’s right, unlike in Castlevania: God of Persia, the baddies in this game stumble, stagger and reel from your mighty strikes!
You won’t just be mashing the same buttons over and over - that’ll only get you through the first couple of “Phases” (the game’s name for its 12 Chapters), even on the lowest difficulty, before you’re dead as hell. Once you’ve reached the “meat factory,” though, you’re going to need to use the more specific attacks. On the PS3, this means using the square button for quick attacks and the triangle button for strong attacks. You’ll occasionally be dialing in your “Devil May Cry”/“God-of-War”-like combos, but thankfully, these are short and simple. Really, it’s more about how you time your strikes and your dodges. It’s about what attack you choose for each situation. Holding down the triangle button will add much more strength to your blows, but can you afford to do so with all the enemies closing in? Hitting circle will grab an opponent, but do you have the upgrade you need to swing him around you for crowd control?
Yes, there are upgrades that you can purchase based on how much blood you collect. That’s a pretty typical feature in modern action games, and the upgrades here will keep you coming back for multiple playthroughs if you hope to maximize your Rick. Collecting blood also powers up a meter that allows Rick to either A) grow tentacles from his body that reach out and siphon the health from your opponents, or B) grow into a “monster” form that deals far more damage than regular Rick - a concept taken directly from the classic Splatterhouse 3. The health-siphon move is a mandatory part of your arsenal if you really want to stay alive long enough to see this game through to the end.
Monster Rick: For those times when being the ultimate badass just isn’t badass enough.
Oh, did I mention an amusement park a couple of paragraphs back? Indeed I did. You’re not staying confined to the titular house this time around. Rick and the Mask find themselves thrown across time and space, visiting the future, the past, distant factories and amusement parks, crumbling apartment structures and more. Wormholes throw spit them to different nexus points of dark energy, returning them to the house multiple times in-between these excursions so that they can dig ever deeper into its dark secrets. The basic combat remains fun all of the time, but the beautiful stages, varied settings and engaging characters are what will really keep you coming back.
Your love for the music is something that depends on your taste. Like metal? This game is about serious THRASH tunes. You can adjust the sound as you see fit to emphasize music, dialogue or sound effects, so even if you hate heavy metal, you’ll be fine here. But being a metalhead will surely increase your enjoyment of the game.
The occasional side-scrolling throwback segments use gentler music pulled from the arcade original, and the controls feel tighter than the first game ever did.
So the music might be an issue, and this adventure has its other flaws to be sure. Load times after you’re dead tend to last far too long. There are one or two short platforming segments that require specific timing and don’t feel quite right. And the use of “splatterkills” - special Quick Time Events that create ultra-gory deaths for your enemies and make your blood meter climb rapidly - leads to a lot of repetitive animations and dialogue. The “splatterkills” are the only one of these three problems that really impact the game much. They permeate the experience. You’ll need to perform a lot to get enough blood to keep yourself going, and every time you perform one, you’ll feel a bit more irritated at having to watch that same animation and do another mini-QTE. How much this bugs you probably depends on the person. But for me, it didn’t detract from how good the whole thing feels.
That’s the key - it just FEELS good. And impact is a big part of why it feels so damn nice. Moreover, it just draws you in. From its characters to its graphics, it creates a world you start to care about. It’s more than just gore-for-the-sake-of-gore. It’s SO MUCH more than that. Sure, it pushes as hard as it can to be as R-rated as it can, and sometimes it feels forced. But I cared about the dialogue and characters while simultaneously relishing the combat and visuals. Let me ask you: Did you ever care about Kratos while playing God of War? Of course not - no one feels an emotional bond with Kratos. He’s a lunatic. But I cared about Rick in Splatterhouse, and that’s a noteworthy victory.
The visuals are dripping with astmosphere. See what I did there? “Dripping”? 'Cause, you know… I’ll stop.
It’s really just one victory among many, in an excellent action game that seems to have flown under the radar for far too many gamers. Maybe I’m a few months late, but I’m telling you: If you love third-person action or beat-'em-ups or horror games or heavy metal, give last year’s Splatterhouse a go. It even comes with the three original games right on the disk. That ALONE makes this worth the price of admission.
janainaart
stormborns
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
