I convinced my mom to buy us a Turbografx-16 when I was a kid. I remember that Electronic Boutique (or Babbage's - we had both in the galleria, and my memory is fuzzy) had put the console on deep clearance to make way for the much more popular Genesis and Super Nintendo consoles. At any rate, looking back there were really two games that had sold me on wanting this dying system - Bonk's Adventure and Splatterhouse. The former looked absolutely beautiful in screenshots with its bright colors and adorable art style. The latter looked like the bloodiest damn game I had ever seen. And remember, I would have already played Mortal Kombat at this point.
Unfortunately, we bought our TG16 console along with a handful of games on such deep discount that other budget-minded gamers seemed to run the well dry rather quickly. Return trips to the mall over the subsequent months saw even fewer games available. My guess is that we ended up with less than a dozen games for the system before all the stock was gone. My mom was so annoyed with me that she said she'd never buy another console for me and my siblings again. And she stuck with that. The next console to come into her house would be the Playstation that I bought with my own hard-saved money a few years later. And the sad irony to all of this - we never did end up with copies of Bonk's Adventure nor Splatterhouse for that system. Though I did eventually play both over the years on other platforms. Splatterhouse became a game and series that I grew to really adore. Subjectively, the original arcade is actually kind of janky and extremely brutal. But I still have a real soft spot for it. The two Genesis sequels mixed things up considerably and went in a beat-em-up direction. The 2010 reboot is... actually kind of awesome. I mean it has its fair share of flaws, but I'd still actually love to see a re-release on modern consoles to give it another go. Sometime around 2007-2008 I read through HG101's article on the Splatterhouse series which was actually penned by Rob Strangman. Rob had previously run The West Mansion - a website devoted to Splatterhouse, and later he was able to condense and rewrite all of this information into HG101's book, The Guide To Retro Horror. Anyway, it was this article that clued me in that there was actually a Famicom game called Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti that had never left Japan. And it looked incredible. I have fond memories of discovering this game and playing a "new" Splatterhouse years after the series had all but gone dormant. Wanpaku Graffiti is to Splatterhouse as Parodius is to Gradius, or Kid Dracula is to Castlevania. First of all, it's an 8-bit take on a 16-bit series. And so all of the graphics had to be demade. The result is a super cute, super-deformed take on the series with incredible music and an absolute overflow of references to horror movies of the 70s and 80s. If you're the sort of gamer who grew up reading Fangoria as well, you owe it to yourself to play this game. Here's a rundown of what you'll encounter is Wanpaku Graffiti, though I promise you I'm only barely scratching the surface here: Driscola - The first boss you'll encounter is a vampire who enters a stage via a trapdoor. He does the "Thriller" dance while you dodge zombies and then he vanishes back through the trapdoor. You don't actually fight Driscola. It's a really surreal way to start the game, and I love it because it sets the tone for how bonkers this game even is. Haunted Bookcase - Yep. The next boss you'll fight is something you can buy from Ikea. A bunch of books will attack you. This is in a stage that takes place within the woods. A cabin in the woods actually. It is most certainly modeled after The Evil Dead, which is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Regan - Oh yeah, we'll need an Exorcist reference in here if we're making a horror game. Obvious! Poltergeist - Now things get really bizarre. This stage takes place in a house with the boss battle in the kitchen. Butcher knives fly at you while chickens hop out of an oven. It's... weird. Kaiser Mouse - I don't know if I get the reference. Is it supposed to be Willard? Maybe. But this is a sewer level and the boss is annoying. It's a huge mouse that spits smaller ones that march toward you. You only have to hit the big one once to kill it, but there's a strong wind that makes it impossible to jump, and any hit sends you back to the edge of the screen. Face Spiders - This is the best. So a girl's stomach rips open and basically face huggers from Alien flood the room. After you defeat them, she gets up and walks away jauntily. I am a huge fan of the Alien franchise so this one always gets a smile from me. Pagan - I don't know - general HP Lovecraft-ish level? The boss is a wizard who turns into a glowing ram. It's a neat visual effect anyway. Diptera - Amazing. This boss is literally Jeff Goldblum from Cronenberg's version of The Fly. There's not enough Cronenberg in games. I've always thought that. The Utensil Phantom - Even more amazing! This level is called Diamond Lake, clearly a reference to Friday The 13th. And yet to boss is Cropsy from The Burning! I love this. I've you've never seen The Burning, you owe it to yourself. Released the same year as Friday The 13th, it's an equally incredible summer camp slasher that's based on the Cropsy urban legend and has both George Costanza and a very crush-worthy girl who reminds me of my wife and I don't think ever acted again. Lycanthrope - I mean you have to have a werewolf. When he glows with a shield it makes me think this was maybe an Altered Beast reference? I'm not sure. But this dude is tough with some crazy projectiles. Pumpkin King - The final battle is actually really easy compared to all that came before it. He's a big jack-o-lantern with some rather predictable attack patterns. The difficulty by the way is fairly up there. It's not an arcade game, so compared to the original that it's riffing on, it's much easier as there's no quarters to eat. That said, it offers only one life and four continues. So you're expected to get through large chunks of the game without continuing, lest you be forced to repeat all of any level that you die on. It's not impossible, but certainly demanding. I won't pretend I didn't use the rewind function on the PS4 release of Namco Arcade Archives Volume 1, though. Anyway, once you defeat the Pumpkin King it's revealed that this whole game was just a movie! So yeah, it's a parody of a game that was an homage to horror movies that's now a game that's really a movie with a ton of horror movie parodies in it. I don't know if that even makes sense, but it is what it is. Having said all that, I've played all the Splatterhouse games many times and what I keep coming back to every time is that Wanpaku Graffiti is probably my favorite in the entire series. It's cute, it's fun and it's absolutely oozing charm. Highly recommended.
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