Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (1989)

 

Developer: Now Production

Publisher: Namco

One Player

First released on: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

 

Splatterhouse, when Namco released the game for the arcades in 1988, brought a gory horror movie tribute to video game patrons that caught on, getting sequels that came onto the Mega Drive/Genesis back in the day for Sega. The 2010 remake was lamented from fans of the original game as a production that struggled and was compromised trying to bring this franchise to the seventh generation of games consoles. There is, in-between this, the sole Nintendo release, bringing the hockey mask Jason Voorhees tribute to Mario’s world in a game, my first in the franchise, that never got a Western release until the Namco Museum Archive Vol. 1 (2020). It is a parody of its own franchise by its own developers, and the best comparison is Castlevania’s Kid Dracula (1990), bizarrely another NES game, a parody of its franchise which still plays itself serious game play wise, and only available in the West in a decades later compilation worked upon by M2, the acclaimed Japanese developer whose goal to preserve old video games as accurately as possible is to be applauded. Kid Dracula is a hoot for another time, where abruptly a boss battle in New York turns into a quiz about American culture, but Wanpaku Graffiti, where the title translates as Splatterhouse: “Naughty“ Graffiti, has the first boss, a vampire in a cemetery, reenact the Michael Jackson Thriller music video with a few zombies.

The game is very simple, with a jump and an attack, entire intuitive as a game. Barring an annoying section with orange bats which can pick you up and drop you back a few screen backs in the final level, this is difficult with however a sense that it is not unfair about it. The personality is fully here from the get-go, opening with our lead Rick from the original franchise, as his girlfriend Linda cries over his grave at night, resurrected with the cursed (hockey) mask from the first game already on and immediately needing to rescue her from an evil Pumpkin King. Somehow this involves eventually having to jump over pink Jaws clones at a Camp Crystal Lake parody, fending off sentient chainsaws, fighting a parody of the Jeff Goldblum Fly transmogrification mutation, and end up in a Church which seems serene until you reach the Satanic ritual at the alter. It is a chirpy, playful game but you can see this being a headache to release in the West when Castlevania games were censored in details, as it is cute but has a perverse and sick sense of humour. Despite the fact, for example, you have a candy power up for one point of health restoration, and a burger for a large amount of health, the sole other power up is a shotgun for 10 rounds to get rid of pumpkins and other obstacles, which would have not flied in the day in Western cartridge releases, but works in hindsight with its playfully parodical tone.

This is not forgetting the two secret levels, where if you find them you travel to Japan, batting off yokai umbrellas on top of an ancient Japanese castle, and ancient Egypt, where you collect two gems that unlock the proper epilogues and enjoy some prolonged dancing animation from two women who greet you with these gifts, the game for the NES clearly wanting to show how good their animation was. It is not surprising as, even referencing a cult slasher film like The Burning (1981) for a boss, this is a game made by horror fans who created something with a vibrant mood and sumptuous colourful sprites. Even if Level 2 is in a sewer, it involves fighting giant green mouse and fits the tone. The bosses in general are great, who you can figure out with patience, where even the mini-bosses are memorable. There is a sentient oven with its knives flying at you and headless chickens; a creepy doll with chairs after you; a really sick humored parody of Alien (1979) where spiders burst at of a young girl’s stomach only, after the fight, for her to be seemingly okay, rubbing her tummy and heading off; and a menagerie of others where the Pumpkin King near the end is the more conventional of the lot.

The joke is felt fully, with a huge spoiler, as this is one of a few games from this time, from Altered Beast (1988) to the first NES Castlevania games, where it is explicit  that the game you are playing is the premise of a movie being filmed, pulling back the curtain with a punch line and a supernatural addition. Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti is a really fun game, among those I have tried that have begun to open up the 8 bit generation as still relevant and striking in their own visual splendor. This is, as a short game, memorable through every level. With a password system to help back in the day alongside the modern save state system for the first modern Western re-release, it also never feels unfair, matching what is a game which never has a moment which feels generic, and always stands out per its seven levels. That does not factor in how this has a cool little touch I think was ahead of its time, where if you do not die at all, you can reach a number of enemies slain, including the bosses, and increase your health bar when you reach the total; this continues as the number to reach increases when completed to fill again and increase your health, which is significantly to your advantage for some of the more trickier moments, like dodging lightning bolt firing clocks, to the bosses.  This is of course the one-off game in this franchise, which kept in the adult violent area of video games; thanks to this, they are more intriguing than they were already, but with the irony that I wished we also got a sequel to the parody. Just to imagine, in the 16-bit era with this style on the SNES or the Mega Drive, how goofier and funnier this series would have gotten is tantalizing for me, and would have been hilarious alongside the ultra-gory sequels to Splatterhouse still continue as they did back in the early nineties.