Flesh will tear, heads will burst and bones will crunch in this horrifically gory and sadistic fleshfest!
Contains: Very Strong Bloody Sadistic Violence, Gore, Strong Language, Horror and Graphic Injury Detail
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Splatterhouse is beat 'em up horror game where Necrobiology is fictionalized as a scientific study in which dead matter can be reanimated, with evil intentions solely in mind.
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STORY - 3/5
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Rick Taylor and his girlfriend Jennifer enter the West Mansion, the home of an elusive scientist Dr. West. But after a sudden attack that leaves Rick fatally wounded in a pool of his own blood and his girlfriend taken by the crazed scientist's experiments, a mysterious Terror Mask promises the power he'll need to stay alive and get his girlfriend back safe and sound. The only catch is, Rick has to wear the mask until he gets his precious Jen back. Having no choice, Rick puts the mask on and is immediately transformed into hulking beast powered by the blood of other. Rick then follows Dr. West and Jen through other dimensions and time periods, subsequently learning the truth behind his girlfriend's kidnapping and the mad scientists evil plan for the rest of civilisation.
While it's clear the main focus in Splatterhouse isn't telling a story, but instead endless scenes of intense violence in beat 'em up style scenarios, the story does hold some interesting moments in-between levels that reveals snippets of detail that extend the opening introduction cinematic, and what initially proves slow, eventually grows on you and provokes some thoughtful scenes.
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CHARACTERS - 3/5
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Your character gets transformed into a hulking brute, an unstoppable monster and a purposeful meat grinder, and the supernatural entity within the mask won't let you back to your former self until you prove worthy enough and get your girlfriend back. Rick and the Terror Mask develop a rather humorous chemistry and strained relationship between each other as the game progresses, and many kills are accompanied by dark humour that perfectly suit's the tone of the game aswell as The Mask constantly taunting and teasing Rick about what to do next.
Dr. West takes centre stage as the rather clichéd power-hungry villain and holds a secret that fuses together the reasons behind his madness and voyage into evil darkness, and Jennifer is the typical damsel in distress female character who actually features more often throughout Splatterhouse with her clothes off in collectible torn pieces of photograph that she's used as breadcrumbs to aid Rick locate her whereabouts.
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GAMEPLAY - 4/5
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Splatterhouse is a blood drenched gorefest filled with the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh as you rip through multiple enemies in quick succession, spilling their blood and their guts as you proceed forward, relishing in each moment of sadistic killing where limbs are stretched, dismembered and ripped off. Every beat-'em-up segment of gory action inevitably splatters the screen with gallons and gallons of demonic blood, and it's clear that every move is emphasised to get the gut wrenching reaction when disembowelments occur and that the sheer amount of blood is greatly exaggerated to get the gratifying effect when you gruesomely finish off enemy after helpless enemy. You can grapple the necks of your demented enemies with strengthening grip, then have the option of how to further punish them if you have the purchased skills where you can rip off their arm to use as an improvised melee weapon or launch them with a powerful kick into more enemies. Either choice is a brutal delight to further quench your bloodlust. Through the use of hand-to-hand combat or improvised melee weapons such as a frequently found nail bat or the more uncommon chainsaw that creates all sorts of nasty messes, disposing of enemies is even greatly varied. Every punch is landed with force, and pummelling your demonic foes in a lashing combo of repeated attacks feels powerful and full of anger, and when they have taken enough damage from your rage you'll be able to perform a Splatterkill which will horrifically and provocatively display your enemies viscera or limbs being twisted or torn in some form of excruciating animation. Through various Quick-time events that make use of the attack buttons aswell as the analog sticks, the Splatterkill is exhibited uniquely, cutting off the rest of the environment and showcasing the finisher in a dark background where the blood is highlighted even further. Like initiating the finishing blow to one of many mini bosses - you'll perform moves that make this title the controversial one it is, but the unmistakeable last attack will leave you senseless and shocked as you climb over it's back, tap a button, move both analog sticks down and witness Rick ripping some form of demonic excrement from it's bottom. It's tasteless, as graphic as it sounds, it's provocative, outrageous and just plain wrong, yet somehow augments satisfaction each time it's performed, and just like the Terror Mask and Rick, you'll be bound tight in the universe of Splatterhouse right up to the ending.
It's a slaughterhouse of flesh and bone that gets briskly dispersed in all directions but all the extreme amounts of blood you traipse through doesn't go to waste. All attacks and hits add blood to your blood bank, where the points are stored until you wish to improve your move arsenal. The blood gathered from enemies can be exchanged to unlock new moves and upgrade or improve combinations to your choosing, so you can specifically make a certain attack more powerful and devastating against the hundreds more enemies left to deal with on your brutal path to payback. You won't be the only one dishing out handfuls of vicious moves though, as enemies come equipped with advantages of their own. As you take damage and your health bar depletes you'll notice the injury detail sustained from attacks, and your physique will change considerably the more you get hit, eventually revealing layers of bone and muscle. It's even possible to be dismembered yourself, losing an arm and bleeding out for a brief time until a new limb regenerates in it's place, and ironically you can actually use your own severed arm as an offensive and greatly improvised weapon for death to those that sliced it off. Below your health metre is a necro metre that feed off of necro - the energy of the dead. Killing fills it up, and when needed can be used to restore your health bar by a cool move called Health Siphon which extracts the blood from nearby enemies to heal major wounds and damage taken with the only drawback being a subtraction of a single segment each time you instigate the bloodthirsty animation in a clustered group of hostiles. However, it's best to hack and slash until the necro metre is full up for ultimate risk-vs.-reward scenario and the thrilling dilemma to commit mass slaughter and earn extra blood in Berserker mode - a mode which grants you and your body a new look with incredible strength and resilience whilst also providing sharp blades to cut up enemies in a quick short burst of dismemberment action. Within this new visual style and classic brutal rampage you only have a short time before your necro metre completely depletes, but the results are satisfying and worth the experimentation of your improved body structure. It turns things into an even deeper bloodbath, a bloody blender of carnage complete with flying limbs and splattering blood that is produced thick and fast in the gallons and sprays so impatiently across the screen that it's impossible to see what your doing beyond the red liquid that squirts from the wounds you're constantly inflicting.
Even the occasional puzzles and environmental challenges include brutality and gore in some way. You'll be impaling certain amounts of enemies on spikes in order to reveal an exit to the room your trapped within, will be traversing a long room with rotary blades underneath that sequentially open up and quickly chop up anything unfortunate to have not recognised the cycle for parts of the floor moving away, and will even have the enjoyable task of feeding a giant mouth with opponents to then subsequently be able to navigate through the mouth to the next area. It's crazy, impossible, yet all rather entertaining.
Another variation in gameplay is side scrolling elements. Moving left to right, you'll be able to splat your enemies against the background or the screen depending on the swing from your melee weapon, and you'll need to avoid dangers such as spinning blades that stick out the floor, crushing pillars and other obstacles that require careful analysing for the patterns before jumping to unnecessary conclusions and sprinting across hoping for maximum luck. But these sections look better than they actually play out, and are full of cheap deaths and control issues that cause unneeded frustrations.
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GRAPHICS - 3/5
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The visuals are unexpectedly cell shaded, which at first sight is a disappointment, but once you get used to the visual style you can notice some nice artistic touches in the level design that stands out because of the outlines to minor details down the passages you traverse which otherwise could have been missed. Because of the different chapters taking you through different dimensions, there is plenty of various artistic designs that take effect, some unspectacular (especially towards the end) but some quite impressive to be seen halfway through the single player like a perilous and twisted theme park attraction with menacing and suitably fitting enemies that contributes the setting, aswell as a meat factory with scientific likenesses to inject some similarity to the plot direction, and both of these artistically stunning areas make the bouts of mayhem even more enjoyable because of the backdrop it's up against.
The thick red colour of blood is a constantly spreading source in Splatterhouse, whether it comes from your enemies wounds or your graphic injuries sustained from attacks, it's impossible not relish in the pools of blood that surround you. Blood and gore will get everywhere; it will cover the screen, the floor surface, you and even your enemies, but despite the exaggerated amount of the liquid, it's gratifying to see it squirting from an enemies wound once you've unleashed a horrifically brutal Splatterkill on them, and overall you won't be able to deny the intense amount of flesh and bone that cruelly get revealed as the game progresses into more outrageous violence and sadism. You can even see the sweat on Rick's muscular appearance as he terrorizes enemies and makes them pay for even daring to stand up against him and if the graphics were a little bit sharper and all round excellent without needing cell shading to add an effect, the acts of violence you commit may have been more difficult to stomach. But credit to the graphical department nonetheless for the art design despite some rare framerate problems and presentational issues.
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SOUND - 4/5
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A heavy metal soundtrack is faintly audible in the background while tearing hell-beasts limb from limb, and the strong theme is suitable for the mature nature of Splatterhouse's visceral content. Each attack brings about a deafening sense of impact (augmented nicely with the controller vibrations) and the gruesomely revolting blood squirting effects make the tearing flesh and the wrenching of guts even more believable than actually witnessing it. The occasional cheesy voice acting actually suit's the game more than a serious tone you expect elsewhere in video games and the actors are instrumental in giving the characters some personality, especially the volatile Terror Mask portrayed by Jim Cummings. Unfortunately there are some audio inconsistencies throughout Splatterhouse that tend to be more noticeable when action and dialogue get combined over the top of each other, where instances of volume issues make one or the other less audible than it should and ultimately hamper some scenes slightly.
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CONTROLS - 2/5
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Splatterhouse doesn't even try and discreetly hide the common flaws that mostly fall into this category and the presentation of each one can't be disguised no matter how much gore is thrown in. The game's Achilles heel is by far platforming sequences, whether that's from the third-person perspective or from a side view that could possibly bring about a nostalgic feel for gaming veterans derived from the very first game back in 1988, it's an implementation that just doesn't work. Awful platforming elements during the side-scrolling sections make you feel uneasy every time you must nail a jump over a hole, and the clumsy movement controls also can't disguise just how bad the attempt at variation in gameplay truly is. Since you never feel in control and comfortable with the mechanic, failing often isn't your fault, and to add insult to injury the checkpoints are unforgiving with respawns split up with long load times. At some points you aren't given any hints where to jump to, or that the ground underneath you is unstable, and so many cheap deaths will be the result of an unfortunate game design error that could so easily have been avoided with more care over the finished product and a simple or better implied hint somewhere in the environment or at least on the screen. The finicky camera is a common issue too, making certain spaces difficult to get the right view. Controlling the camera isn't always voluntary, since some areas allow you to take control of the camera angle, whilst more tighter rooms and corridors leave you unavailable to control what you see which can cause some minor problems and struggles if enemies make unexpected appearances out of nowhere, or from an area obscured the uncontrollable camera.
The control configurations are simple to memorise, and the common 'square for light attack' and 'triangle for heavy attack' is implemented exceptionally here so that you can generate combos easily and accessibly for the course of the adventure. The quick-time events are choreographed well enough so that every animation corresponds effectively with the function you were asked to press, and so that when you're stretching an enemies jaw, pulling them in half and even crushing their skull, the game makes you feel as close as possible to actually committing the atrocity with your bare hands, and you can really feel the power being exhibited.
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ATMOSPHERE - 3/5
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While Splatterhouse can be arguably given the genre subheading of 'horror', it's more or less for the actual violence itself which is no doubt horrific, rather than the subject of inducing fear into you as the gamer. But some of the environments are really good (most notably the two mentioned above) and these create a great fighting arena for the blood to spread and the limbs to be torn.
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ENEMY AI - 2/5
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Your demonic and supernatural style enemies are grouped together and named The Corrupted - whether they are born from the horrible genius of Dr. West or the dark energy of the abyss, there are cacophonies of monsters standing in Rick's way. Undead denizens of our world corrupted by the leaking energy from rifts torn between two worlds and atrocities from experiments gone wrong with occasional, gigantic building-sized bosses and indescribable beasts that all await dispatching after putting up a relentless fight to the death. Rick is having a nightmare that he can't wake up from, and he will encounter some truly memorable enemy designs that are both demented and vile to see close-up. Whenever a new enemy type is introduced, you just can't help but look forward to inflicting the savage Splatterkill upon them. There are small enemies, mini-boss enemies, and then massive bosses at the end of certain levels, and while the variety is acceptably good, enemies tend to lumber towards you with the same attack patterns that soon get predictable and easy to avoid once you know what's coming.
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LENGTH - 2/5
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Completing Splatterhouse's 12 awesomely named chapters will take approximately 7 hours, and if you're keen on exploration be sure to look out for pieces of torn photographs left as breadcrumbs by Jennifer which piece together to make up nude poses, hence the reason they're worthwhile and mostly out in plain sight. By progressing in the game you'll also begin to unlock passages of Dr. West's research journal detailing the origins behind his madness for anyone interested in some narrated storytelling behind the history of the game and the antagonist.
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REPLAY VALUE - 3/5
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Survival Arena mode extends the brilliant gorefest action, combining some secret objectives to complete whilst you take on 20 waves of varied enemies within 6 different arenas which reflect on levels from story mode. Boxes of weapons and necro energy will be provided as you progress, and your fastest time of completion will determine what rank you achieve, so there is some competitive battles to fury over if you want trophies or more of the same frantic action.
Overall, Splatterhouse is shockingly violent and ridiculously bloody, but in a good way with good intentions to stand out in the crowd of other violent games, and it certainly succeeds with doing that. Heads will burst, flesh will tear and bones will crunch throughout this extremely sadistic and gruesome Beat-'Em-Up game where blood is the primary source to succeed and improve at every given opportunity. No matter how repetitive the combat gets throughout the course of the game, Splatterhouse proves that excessive blood and gore can work in a game's favour, and the powerful moves are intensely satisfying each time they're successfully done. Towards the end, the game tends to just throw loads of enemies into the survival mix, lacking in variety of cinematic events which also possesses into the creativity of the levels which is a disappointment if you enjoyed the game up to that point. But the gratifying gameplay and interesting story make Splatterhouse an enjoyable remake despite the edgy flaws that hold it back considerably, and unleashing Rick's array of Splatter-tastic moves is always a sadistic pleasure where the sheer volume of blood is always pleasing viewing on the eye.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 7.5/10
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Good Points: Gruesome sound effects, Some good art design, Extremely brutal and gory flesh-tearing action, Revoltingly sadistic Splatterkills, Graphic injury detail from damage, So much blood that can be spilt and collected via many vicious melee weapons and even dismembered limbs, Demented and vile enemy designs, Story has some interesting moments, Diverse and entertaining boss fights, Trophy and combo move titles are suitably awesome.
Bad Points: Audio and volume inconsistencies, Bad platforming elements result in cheap deaths, Finicky camera in certain spaces, Long load times.