In my opinion this is a very interesting play on the former system, and helps to further differentiate it from the base game. When you reach the limit your life bar is extended by one. What’s also different is that the game incorporates an RPG-like experience point system wherein you gain points for every enemy you defeat. There’s also not nearly as many weapons as before because the only other tool he can find is a shotgun but it’s very rare and has only ten bullets. Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti uses similar gameplay mechanics to the original Splatterhouse it’s a side scroller but instead of punching or kicking Rick by default has an axe at his disposal. The developers had a fantastic sense of humor here, and it even made me laugh. This is offset by Rick’s ability to fart while watching. The craziest sequence however is one where you’re warped to Japan, and forced to sit through a princess doing a traditional dance. With all of the American horror film references I’m shocked this game was never released in English. Even the ‘Diamond Lake’ stage seems like a spoof on Camp Crystal Lake from Friday the 13th, but instead of Jason Voorhees you’ll encounter sharks ala Jaws. There’s also a lady spewing enemies from her chest cavities in an obvious reference to Alien, and more. You’ll face off against a Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’ vampire, as well as a half man half fly (ala The Fly complete with the teleportation pods). One of my favorite aspects of this game are the references to classic horror films. Rick soon sets out to save her, and it’s up to you to guide him through the various stages to finally face off against the pumpkin king at the end and rescue the girl. A second crash of lightning in the adjacent grave and the pumpkin king is brought to life as well who proceeds to wreck the happy reunion by kidnapping Jennifer. Jennifer is weeping over the grave of her lost love Rick when out of nowhere lightning strikes and he’s revived but still wearing his mask. The game opens with a scene in a graveyard. I couldn’t be more happy with the results because this is an awesome game on its own merit. It seems that the developers over at Namco didn’t want to try and release a watered down version of the Arcade classic on the weak Famicom hardware, and so they opted to make it more of a parody. It’s more of a re-imagining, but it’s definitely an odd one. Well, maybe the term ‘port’ isn’t entirely accurate. There were other home ports in Japan, but the most interesting one in my opinion is Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti. Unfortunately the only home port of the first title only ever came out on the TurboGrafx-16 outside of Japan. It was one of the early horror titles that was actually enjoyable, and it was one of the more gruesome releases we had seen to that point. It’s no secret that the original Splatterhouse is one of my favorite games of all time.

Splatterhouse jennifer scene