SplatterHouse, released in
1988, is
Namco's touching
tribute to
slasher films, and also one of the big Namco games that never made to the
Nintendo, at least in the states. You can thank
NOA's "
family values" game
approval policy at the time. Gameplay is oversized
side scroller fun, lots of
blood and gore. You're
Rick, some poor
sod who makes the mistake of going to
Reanimator's
mansion. A
vacation he says! His
girlfriend gets
kidnapped, and he ends up
killed by demons. He gets resurrected by the "
Hell Mask", which makes Rick look consipcuously like
Jason Voorhees. Instead of killing
dumb kids at
Crystal Lake though, he decides to bust some
undead heads in through seven levels, preferrably with whatever weapons he can, including big freaking
sticks,
axes, and
shotguns.
SplatterHouse was a pretty large arcade hit, both in the US and in Japan, and although Nintendo never did bend to gamers' demands to bring it to the NES in the states, I don't know if they would have liked what did come out Famicom-wise: a super-deformed comical take on the entire game, with bosses including Dracula (apparently in a disco!) and a Giant Ghost Hamster. In 1990 though the game was brought home proper, for NEC's PC Engine (AKA the Turbografx-16). Namco also ported the sequel to the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis in 1992, and then made Splatterhouse III direct-to-console, again for the SEGA 16-bitters. There was also a version of the original for the FM Towns Marty. I guess that's worth noting. If you wanna play it emulated, get the MAME port of your choice.
World Court --- Mirai Ninja