Splatterhouse

Splatterhouse is in essence a trilogy of roughly 2D horror action platformers and beat'em ups, but it also has one spinoff title and a remake version of which I am unable to play it at the moment. The series established and is renowned for introducing the parental advisory warning for consoles, and it's also one of the earliest recognizable horror franchises, although it still remains relatively obscure.

You play as a guy with a cursed mask trying to rescure your girlfriend from all kinds of demonic creatures, including a poltergeist, a double chainsawed sacked man and a huge deformed head. As it is an arcade port, this version is also short for arcade standards, and features little gameplay mechanics, but they are fun enough.

It also has side scrolling segments and memorable scenes such as when you discover your girlfriend and the poltergeist activity room. Splatterhouse is notable for being one of the earliest known scary and gory horror video games, and it remains fun and moderately challenging with unlimited forgiving continues.

Solid sequel which is more of the same, but it's slightly longer, more difficult and has more bosses than the first part. It's another 2D action platformer in a horror setting, although it's officially listed as an beat em'up, it's not traditional in the sense that movement is more limited here and there are no health bars for enemies.

Now this is more of an actual beat em'up game. The dialogue has writing errors and the cut-scenes have more realistic renders but I really liked the gory effects, especially how you are able to punch the faces and guts of enemies further in until they are defeated and sometimes explode into pools of blood.

As you clear out rooms, you are able to proceed taking your own path until you find the destination marked by the red X. You are also able to transform yourself into a stronger possessed masked version of yourself.

In this mode, you are quite stronger, and you have access over the nr.1 broken move in the game, which is where from your upper body some kinds of flesh arms explode outwards guaranteeing pretty much damage to the whole screen unless the enemies block it. Plus it's powerful as hell.

The whole Splatterhouse trilogy is pretty solid, horrific and short, but you can't go wrong with any of them in my opinion.

This spinoff for the Famicom is a "cutified" version of the series, taking a comical parodying approach towards the genre, referencing horror movies such as The Fly and being fun in general. This time, you carry a machete all the time, and the controls are swift and responsive. You are also able to build up your health meter which is a nice touch, but continues seem to be limited this time. Despite being cute, it also still has horror in effect.

As I said before, I am unable to play the reboot version at the moment. It wasn't received that well anyway. As it stands, Splatterhouse won't be coming back any time soon, but that's okay, because there are fortunately other series even to this day that continue to represent the genre.

You might wonder where the ratings for the games are. Well, they are all equally good to me, so they all get a 6.5.