Rick-rolled
We’ve had some real treats join the humongous Arcade Archives range this past month. Not only did we get rare puzzler Tetris: The Absolute Grand Master 2 and run ‘n’ gun classic Rolling Thunder 2, but this week sees Hamster delve back into the Namco catalog and emerge with its controversial horror scrapper, Splatterhouse!
Released to Japanese arcades in 1988, before heading west the following year, this ultra-iconic release has managed to retain its brand power over the ensuing decades, despite ultimately being a series of visually exciting, but fairly average titles. Inspired by an array of hyper-violent horror franchises, Splatterhouse sees hero Rick sally forth into the mansion of Dr. Henry West, on a do-or-die mission to rescue his girlfriend, Jennifer, from the truly unholy creatures that reside within.
Imbued with the power of the mysterious “Terror Mask”, and armed with an array of improvisational weaponry, Rick presses on through seven surprisingly tough stages, (though this is frequently down to his sluggish movement rather than challenging design). Going beyond your regular ghouls ‘n’ ghosts, Splatterhouse boasts a disgusting array of enemies, from strange-skinned fetuses to creepy water ghouls, possessed furniture, limbless demons, and grossly vulgar body horror monstrosities.
You get check out all the guts ‘n’ gory glory in the trailer below, courtesy of Hamster itself.
Splatterhouse is hardly a deep or even competent title, but it is, undeniably, arresting from a design standpoint. Shamelessly horrific and as unashamed of its own violence as much as its plagiarism. It also features a monster wielding a chainsaw and wearing a sack on its head before Leon S. Kennedy had even brushed his first fringe. Splatterhouse walks a line between being repetitively easy and hard-as-nails and, while flawed, is oddly compelling in its own clumsy fashion.
The arcade edition of Splatterhouse would receive heavily censored home ports on the PC Engine and several Japanese computers, before receiving two sequels on the Sega Mega Drive. Perhaps one of its most enjoyable iterations is the very silly Famicom version, known as Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti, which is well worth checking out. In 2010, Splatterhouse returned in a hack ‘n’ slash remake for PS3 and Xbox 360. This release was critically panned, but fans of the series were able to find fun in its janky nature, which seemed oddly fitting given its predecessors.
Whether we ever see Splatterhouse again remains to be seen, but it would be a shame for the franchise to remain undead and buried for too long.
Splatterhouse is available to download now on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, priced at around $8.
