I still had some leftover credit in my Wii Shop channel account, so I decided to use it on a game that would be perfect for the Halloween season: Splatterhouse for TurboGrafx-16. This Virtual Console version costs 600 points, which is equivalent to $6.00 U.S.
Splatterhouse is a 2D, side-scrolling action game in which you play as a big guy wearing a hockey mask–clearly inspired by Jason of Friday the 13th. You start out with punches and kicks as your only attacks, but you can also acquire other weapons such as a two-by-four or shotgun. You’ll fight all sorts of zombies, demons, and other monsters created in the research lab of the mansion. One detail I like is that your health is measured in hearts at the bottom of the screen. But they’re not the traditional heart symbols you’d see in a Zelda game, they’re actual hearts.
The game is rated T for teens, as it is a bit gory and gruesome–at least by 16-bit standards. Chained-up corpses may vomit onto the ground, while other bodies will hang down from ropes around their necks. You’ll have to attack them, which causes their guts to spill out and their bodies to disintegrate. Still, the graphics are very dated and not realistic, so it doesn’t come anywhere near the gore seen in many games of today.
Here’s a gameplay video showing the first two levels of the game: