If you go at this game with realistic expectations, you might actually have a blast with it
The Good:
- Story: This is where the game truly shines in my opinion, if there is one reason why you'll want to keep playing it; it's because of the story. Really it's expected in such a violent game to find an interesting story, but trust me it's there. It's hard to explain exactly why the story is good without giving anything away, but let's just say that dr. West might be a more complex character than he initially appears to be.
-Humour: Once again it was unexpected to find humour in a game like this, but it is very welcomed. The relationship between Rick and the mask is simply hilarious. Rick kills army of monsters under the mask's influence all in the hopes that he will save Jenny and in the middle of the bloodbath the mask can't stop himself from cracking up jokes and making fun or Rick. The mask also frequently breaks the fourth wall but rather than dragging you away from the experience it pulls you in even more. One example of this is that when you die the mask will say different comments, one of them being: Will hurry up and press continue already! The humour really gives a charm to the game and gives the moments that are supposed to be serious a bit more credibility
-The classics: While I never actually played the original Splatterhouse or any of its sequels, it's nice to see that has you progress through the game you unlock the previous title in the series, this game contains the other three Splatterhouses that were released during the snes era which pretty cool for fans of retro gaming.
-The atmosphere: Last but not least, despite the graphics being average compared to most other games of recent years the setting and the monsters creates a very strong atmosphere that adds to the experience. Every location you visit feels unique and despite being such a gory game it's actually very colourful (a change from the ever gray filled FPS's of our day and age) The various trips you take through west's mansion never feels exactly the same because the developers made a good effort to make you explore different parts of the house each time, or if you have to revisit locations later on in the story they are drastically altered. And while the mansion is pretty interesting in itself the other stages are where the atmosphere is truly created, the meat house the carnival, the lab everything feels unique despite having similar looking enemies ....
Which brings us to...
The Bad:
- The camera: Oh god, the camera! I have never seen such an unresponsive camera before. Frankly you don't really need to move the camera around if you always leave it right behind rick you in theory should be fine.... that is in theory sometimes there are just so many enemies on screen at once that it becomes vital to move the camera around, and believe me no matter how much enemies there are on screen you'll wish you never moved the second analog stick the very moment the camera starts moving. Not only does it spin around in an erratic manner but it doesn't focus on anything, and if you keep moving Rick as the camera enters this erratic state you will most probably lost sight of him. As if it wasn't bad enough not only do you lose where you character is on screen, but the camera doesn't refocus after you moved it, you have to replace it manually by re-rotating the 2nd analog stick, and with the warzone around you, you don't really have the time to refocus the unresponsive camera
- Loading times: The loading times takes pretty much forever, loading between different levels, loading after each time you die ( and you will die a lot in the middle levels) the only quick loading time is the loading time you get once you quit the game. While this in itself wouldn't be too horrible, there are various other aspects of the game that simply make it unbearable.
- No invisible walls: No how can that be a bad point you ask? Well basically there a lot of locations in the game where you have to get really close to a ledge and since there are no invisible walls to prevent you from falling to your doom you will die... a lot. Most of the time it's not even part of the level design the path you have to take is clearly highlighted for you, but if for some reason you go to close to the edge instead of going to the path that is plainly apparent you will fall and then enjoy a very long loading screen. To explain my point in a clearer way I will give an example of a boss fight where I died by being pushed of the edge by the boss, not throw or rammed of the edge, in fact it wasn't even pushed of the edge, he punched as he did multiple times before in the boss fight but this time I just so happened to be standing a bit closer to the edge of the circular stage, and since there was no invisible walls I went flying to my doom. This wouldn't be annoying if you could get back into the action right away but as I've stated twice already the loading times are about 30 seconds each time you die.
- Repetition, repetition: At first I was only going to say repetition of Cut-scenes (or really quick time events) where you kill the various monsters you encounter, but the truth is aside from the bosses in this game the other enemies aren't very varied, you have little enemies that takes about two hits to kill and then a stronger variation that can kill you in about two swipes if you aren't careful and an even stronger variation that moves in an erratic manner and has larger heath. Then you have big enemies that can grab you and that are stronger that the first type of enemies they have many variation but the only notable ones are fire breathing clowns that have more health, a weird furry variation that can spit webbings and that lunges at you, and a version that you can't hit without a weapon or a charged strong attack. And then the final normal enemy is kind of a mix between the two previous ones stronger that the small enemy weaker than the big enemy that's about all there is to know about this one.... it has two notable variations one that moves around quickly and that is incredibly hard to grab and another one that can explode. There are also 5 mini bosses that are re-used very often, they have palettes swaps but the only create esthetical changes. The 1st one is a minotaurish creature that has a tentacle as one its arms it can boost the strength of its fellow monsters and can whiplash you but no really a big treat. Then there is an octopus monster that never attacks you but who constantly revives its pals making it a primary target whenever it's there. Then there is a big half slug half human monster, that has a big mace like tumour as one of its arms, it doesn't do much aside from swinging the arm around repeatedly (more resistant than the minotaur however) then you have giant dog like monster that only appears in the later levels and that is really a pain because he attacks almost constantly has huge amount of health and it regenerates whenever you aren't attacking him. The last mini-boss is a snake like creature that has a very predictable pattern and isn't really much of a concern. Now that actually sounds like enough enemies right? well yes and no because by the 6th level you've pretty much met every one of them and learned their patterns by heart, meaning the way they attack, the way to dodge them, and even (one of the two) quick time event needed to kill them if you choose to finish them off that way. Each monster aside from the mini-bosses has two different quick time events that you can do to kill them but you will have done it so much near the end of the game that you will only need to look at the animation for about a second to figure out what you need to do next)
- Collision detection: Some platform that seem jumpable but that actually aren't some platforms that are but that lag so much you think they actually don't, Rick's feet don't seem to stick to the ground at all most of the time looking like they are floating in mid-air (not really affecting gameplay but is annoying to watch) and sometimes there will be so many enemies on screen that triggering the quick time events will be impossible because the game has too much to process at the same time (this mainly concerns survival mode)
Now I know I made it seem like this game is pretty horrible, and to be fair it's not all that great, but there is definitely some promise under all the lags, and mechanic problems, and if you go in with realistic expectations with this game it might actually grow on you, and you might have fun playing it like I did
Bottom line: It certainly isn't a game to everyone's taste, but if you like gore, horror and like games for their story then give it a try.... jus don't expect to be blown away by it