Hey everyone! Has there ever been a point when you’re looking through your gaming library and wondered, “Huh, I wonder whatever happened to this series?” Well, I’ll be taking a look at videogame franchises and the lead up to their eventual absence. With that being said, today I’ll be asking the question: “Whatever Happened to Splatterhouse?”
Does Not Like Shoes: In the original Splatterhouse and the sequel, Splatterhouse 2, she was clearly bare foot, along with being in a tattered attire. In Splatterhouse 3 and the remake, she is not. '80s Hair: Especially in Splatterhouse 2 where her hair reaches down to her hips. Heroes Want Redheads: In the original series, she had red hair. Dave's not in bad shape, since he was basically just hired on for Splatterhouse as far as I can tell - to my knowledge, he has his comic gigs for Marvel plus a bunch of other stuff he's working on, so he's got plenty of work - but Dan was a Namco employee and is now having to search for a job.
A series that spans almost 30 years in gaming, Splatterhouse is a beat em’ up slasher that cashed in on the controversy of that late 80’s to early 90’s period of gaming, where anything with even a small amount of violence was considered uphauling. Titles such as Mortal Kombat, Splatterhouse, Wolfenstein and Doom dominated this time frame and allowed gamers to experience a more hectic, fast-paced style that they had never seen before.
So what happened? Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein and Doom are all flourishing, all with popular recent releases and all with dedicated fanbases. Somewhere, however, Splatterhouse got lost in the mix. Maybe a lack of fanfare, perhaps too little promotion or not enough market value, something has kept Splatterhouse off the minds of Namco Bandai.
To revisit some history, the first Splatterhouse was released in 1988, much to the disheartenment of parents everywhere. The game, upon release, was already deep in the conversation of having graphic and disturbing content that was unsuitable for children. That said content would largely be the game's saving grace as gameplay wise it was considered disappointing and all-around lacking.
Some time would pass before the eventual release of Splatterhouse 2 in 1992. Unfortunately, Splatterhouse 2 would fare even worse than the original. Praised for it’s gore but, again, was hindered by a lack of technical innovation which would led it to achieving mixed reviews at best.
A year later, fans of the gory, side-scroller would be introduced to Splatterhouse 3. An interesting entry to the franchise, it would feature a multiple ending scenario that resonated fairly well with fans. Also, being more technically sound than its predecessors, it is considered a highlight in the series, having a decent balance between gore and gameplay.
After 1993, 17 years would come and go before the reboot of Splatterhouse would be announced. Splatterhouse (2010) came out to fairly average reviews, making it, quite possibly, the best reviewed title out of them all. The reboot featured a well layered heavy metal soundtrack, overall decent gameplay mechanics and a fun, over-the-top combat system that was easy to get into. Most criticisms were directed to story, length and rushed development cycle.
So, all in all, with no news or rumours of a follow-up six years later, it seems that time is the enemy of Splatterhouse. A game that prides itself on gore, but had no real emergence of technical capability until the third title in the series, it looks as if Splatterhouse is all flash with no substance. Thus, resulting in no sequel.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happened to Splatterhouse.
It's a pretty common occurrence today to see a sequel released that's just a rehash of the original game with the numeral 2 slapped across the package. It was less of a standard practice in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, where follow-ups to successful titles were most often innovative in their own right, making significant strides to separate themselves in design from what players had already played in their predecessors. I suppose that makes ahead of its time - because this game didn't innovate at all. Like the modern, present-day, slapped-on-numeral sequels we see hitting store shelves every week any more, it took what did and simply did it again.first arrived in the Wii Shop early last month, and when it did there was little reason to celebrate and few fans sprinting to the store to buy more Wii Points cards. And that's because this by-the-numbers sequel simply doesn't stand out - not today, and not 16 years ago when it was first released. Namco's decision makers were surprised by the sales success they saw with the first game in the series when it hit the TurboGrafx-16 in the States, and so decided to crank out a quick continuation of the story.
But when this game was finished and came to the Genesis in 1992, it looked far too similar to what had come before to really make any kind of impact on its own. Rick Taylor is the name of our gruesome hero. A teenager who was murdered and then brought back to life by the dark magic of the sinister Terror Mask, Rick seeks to save his kidnapped girlfriend, Jennifer, from the underworld demons who've abducted her. At the end of the first game, it appeared that Jennifer had died - Rick was plagued with despair by his failure. But as this game opens, the Terror Mask calls out to Rick and tells him there's still a chance to save her - he just needs to put on the Mask again, and return to the ruins of the.Using+a+chainsaw+to+hack+apart+blood-red+mutated+fetuses+hanging+on+chains.It's+no+wonder+this+game+is+rated+M.
The game plays out exactly as the first did - Rick walks slowly to the right side of the screen with strict two-dimensional progression that doesn't allow for backtracking, and he punches and kicks at the various enemies that assault him. His attacks are basic, and still the same from the first game - punches hit high, kicks strike low, and jumping in the air lets him pull off a jump kick. Landing in the right way after a jump kick lets him slide along the ground in what may be a new move, but it's hard to tell. It's pretty much a cut-and-paste of 1's gameplay in every way. And that includes the weapons.
Rick will occasionally come across equip-able items that add to his destructive power, like metal pipes, oversized animal bones and chainsaws. But, again, these items and their functionality are all still the same as before - the metal pipe has replaced the wooden 2x4, but that's about the extent of the alterations.
What this lack of advancement in gameplay ultimately does is expose the relative blandness of the beat 'em up design employed by Splatterhouse in the first place. The simplicity of Rick's walk-to-the-right-and-hit-things gameplay was easy to dismiss when playing the original, because the focus was placed much more on the presentation than the play style - the over-the-top, excessively gory action got all the attention there. But while is even more violent and replete with even more disturbing images, the shock value is largely gone. We've seen it all before, we've played it all before. Even the novelty of this game being the only Mature-rated title on sale in the Wii Shop isn't curiosity enough to warrant a recommendation of purchase. VerdictSo steer clear of Splatterhouse 2 on the VirtualConsole, as it offers nothing more than what you couldfind in the original Splatterhouse (which is also onsale, and two dollars cheaper).
But though thisparticular installment didn’t do anything newfor the series, you shouldn’t write off thefranchise entirely. The third game, completely altered the designdirection of the series and will be much more worthyour consideration if and when it arrives on VC. Andthe series is set to see a major reboot next year,through remake currentlyin development for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.Stay tuned and save your cash to put towards one ofthose superior efforts.