At a time when Nintendo sold family fun under cellophane, SEGA, via its Mega Drive, established itself as the more adult alternative, more “cool”, almost more “metal” would say some. Splatterhouse 2with his masked hero reminiscent of Jason Voorhees, his disgusting bestiary and his level design worthy of a trip to hell in hell, cocked all the boxes of the game prohibited that we were going under the coat in the playgrounds. A guilty pleasure that has become cult.
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In Splatterhouse 2we played Rick, a survivor returned from the beyond to save his beloved Jennifer, abducted by demonic forces. To do this, as he had already done in the Splatterhouse Released in arcade in 1988, he again put on the Terror Mask, a supernatural entity which transformed it into an overpowered brute. The pitch, already seen a thousand times, was only a pretext for a surge of pixelated violence, very juicy guts and enemies with a repulsive design.
Technically, the Beat’em Up designed by Namco was nothing like a masterpiece. His starry gameplay, modeled on the first opus, was limited to lateral and in -depth trips, punches and some weapons of makeshift. However, in his very counting, he retained visceral efficiency. The impact punch, gloomy music, changing sets (oozing organic walls, crypts, swamps), everything helped create a sticky, disturbing, which was taking the guts.
What strikes by replaying it today is the sincerity of the game. At a time when video game horror was often boiled down to skeletons seen 1000 times or cartoony witches, Splatterhouse 2 aimed at a teenage audience eager for hemoglobin and revolt towards well-thought. An audience fed at the Magazine Cult Fangoria, to the films of the trauma as Toxic Avengerand with too creepy VHS jackets to be true, observed for hours in video clubs.
Dr. Splatterhouse
For a long time banned from video game memory, Splatterhouse 2 ended up being rehabilitated, notably thanks to the wave of retro reissues and enthusiastic emulation enthusiasts. He was rediscovered not for his playful qualities (which remain questionable), but for what it represents: a moment of rocking where video games started to claim its ability to shock, to disturb, to explore darker territories.
The aesthetics of the game, a hybrid between the grotesque and the unhealthy, also found a new resonance in the era of the horrors of the horrors as Lone Survivor or Faith : The Unholy Trinity. It is no coincidence that Splatterhouse was relaunched (without much success) in 2010 on PS3 and Xbox 360, proof that his aura persisted in the collective imagination. The return of the mask, however, failed to find the magic of the slobber sprouting and the blows so enjoyable of the 16 -bit version. Behind his guts and howls, Splatterhouse 2 remains above all the witness of an era when the video game finally dared to cross the red lines of morality without a safeguard, where the adolescent imaginary was deployed without filter, between gore, pulp and primary transgression.
Note, that the completely crazy soundtrack of the game, composed by Eiko Kaneda, was reissued in vinyl in 2021 in a splendid edition. A little chiptune wonder that will perfectly illustrate your Halloween evenings.
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