Customer Reviews

Splatterhouse

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Remember the movie Re-Animator, based on the short stories by HP Lovecraft? Remember the crazy Doctor Herbert West, played so wildly by Jeffrey Combs? Well it seems that Doctor West has been dabbling some more into bad science and has created an army of freaks and monsters. He's long since vanished but the monsters still live in his mansion. You play a college nerd called Rick Taylor who has to rescue his girl (a popular feature in beat-em-up games at the time) from this house of madness. Rick is aided in his mission by a special Aztec sacrificial mask which gives him superhuman strength and powers to go zombie-bashing.

Splatterhouse is a very hard game to across. Either you play the arcade machine (now very, very hard to find) or you buy a Turbo-Grafx PC Engine and get the home-console version, which is so horribly censored that it even deletes the cut-scenes. Thus making the game completely storyless.

Still, it's a cool-looking game and one can really tell where a lot of Resident Evil's influences came from. At one point in the game, the character of Rick walks through a giant vagina and battles evil foetuses. As a side-scrolling beat-em-up it's pretty weak. There's no real impact to the fighting and the controls feel somewhat sluggish.

Seriously, the Arcade is the only place to go if you want to have a go at Splatterhouse. The Turbo-Grafx version neuters the game to the point of no-fun-ism.

Who cares about censorship? This game has all the arcade action down. I don't care about the story line, it's VERY bad anyway. Some college kids wander into a house, the girl gets kidnapped by demons. . . yadda, yadda, yadda . . .

In the TG16 version, you STILL smash hordes of monsters. There is STILL violence and gore. Not to mention, the game play is intact from the arcade. Which is more than can be said for the sequels on the Genesis, which to me, look and play like garbage.

This game is addictive and fun. That's what counts. Sure, the PC Engine (Japanese) version has some of the arcade gore (and Rick wears the correct color mask). First of all, that version costs more. Secondly, you need to either own a PC Engine or get an expensive converter in order to play it.

The Turbo Version is still great as it features the same great gameplay, multiple paths, some challenging bits, not to mention some of the least terrible box art for the system (It doesn't take much). Well worth your time if you're into action games or the Turbo Grafx 16. This was one of the Turbo's few system sellers back then and to me, it is one of the top five action games on the console.

The US version is heavily censored. Japanese version is not censored at all. you'll need a pc engine system or a hucard converter to play it though.

Splatterhouse is one of those games for the turbo grafx-16 that you either hate or love. its based on the arcade game of the same name...i remember back in the day playing it at my neighborhood arcade, and having a great time.

when you look at this game you'll see that it set the standard for the horror/ survival game genre such as the resident evil series etc.

for those not familiar to the splatterhouse world you play Rick a nerd who wears a ancient mask that grants him powers to kick serious undead booty ! he has to save his girl who was captured by the nefarious dr west. so into his mansion you go which is dubbed the splatterhouse..due to dr west's experiments in the occult and paranormal

when the turbo grafx 16 came out this was one of the better selling titles..it had all that you could want..zombie crushing action, lots of gore, great graphics, and even excellent music.

the mask rick wears was originally a white hockey mask..but here in the us it was changed to red probably due to the characters uncanny likeness to a famous horror icon of the 80s (do i really have to tell you who he is? im sure you know already)

later in the 2 sequels released on the sega genesis the mask was made more skull like But in japan it was unchanged.....the us version of splatterhouse was edited..but there is still lots to enjoy here. personally ,i like the import version more though because i hate it when things are censored for stupid reasons.

rick has his handy 2 by 4, a wrench, a meat cleaver, his bare fists, and the best weapon..the shotgun

the graphics here are outstanding for a turbo grafx 16 game..the effects are creepy and somber. its amazing that all this detail could be rendered from a hucard..it just shows that the tg 16 was ahead of its time(back then anyway) and is still fun to play today

there is a remake coming next year for the playstation 3 and the xbox360 and it looks great.

to sum it up.. the original splatterhouse is WORTH picking up..its a little hard to find in some places but if you see a copy grab it..you'll be glad you did..

much like the genesis version of strider the turbo grfx 16 version of splatterhouse holds its own vs the arcade the graphics look great the higher colors that the turbo created shows it was the closest thing you got to survival horror back then this version was censored for home consoles but its just a few upside down crosses whocares its almost exactly the same and scary on the turbo grafx it feels mesnt for the turbopad too the sequals arent close

Looked awesome but was watered down, spaded and given horrid controls to the point of no return. This sucks.