I should mention that I'm playing an english fan translation (courtesy of Spinner 8 and friends) due to the game originally being for the Famicom, but it's not like the game really requires you to know Japanese to play.
[Current OST: Mourning for Rick]
So we immediately start off with a small pink girl crying over a grave. Even misery can be adorable!
(No, it's not)
(This song also doubles as the boss theme and you'll definitely be mourning for Rick when we get to them.)
So a bolt of lightning strikes the grave and out pops a tiny man wearing a hockey mask. Well that was unexpected.
Pink girl is not horrified but instead happy! Hooray.
For those of you unfamiliar with Splatterhouse, these two are supposed to be Rick and Jennifer. They were originally paranormal enthusiasts that wound up going to the eponymous Splatterhouse, leaving Rick to get gutted while Jennifer gets kidnapped. Rick manages to survive thanks to the help of the Terror Mask, a mysterious artifact with its own goals.
There honestly isn't much to the plot aside from "demons kidnapped your girl, rip and tear your way to success" but that's all you need, really.
[Current OST: The Pumpkin King Rises]
Their heartfelt reunion is promptly cockblocked by a giant evil pumpkin. (The vengeful spirit of Halloween, I assume.)
Rick comes back from the dead (albeit not as a zombie, strangely enough) and this is what he wakes up to. Son of a bitch.
Although I do find it peculiar that the main villain was buried right next to Rick the entire time...
[Current OST: Stage Intro]
Every stage has a quirky little intro image and text to give you an idea what you're dealing with.
I do find it funny that the game wants to put us back in the grave after we just got out though. Like come on.
[Current OST: This Will Be Your Grave]
We start our demon-killing romp in a spooky graveyard. Perfect.
This song is arguably the best in the game, not to mention it being the most memorable out of the bunch. It just captures the playful nature of Wanpaku Graffiti reall well.
But oh no, it's a zombie! What do we do?!
We cut them up with our friggin hatchet, of course. Almost every enemy in this game gets cut apart with bits flying everywhere - at the cost of sounding like a psycho, it's real satisfying.
It may be severely toned down from the actual Splatterhouse, but it feels just right.
The numbers in the sky are actually experience - every monster you kill adds a point. Every level up adds a permanent bar to your life meter, so there's actually some purpose in slaughtering everything you see.
The demon dog's head will try to bite you even after you slice it up, so watch out.
Rick's axe can also hit above and below him, but it's not exactly the most precise attack. Sometimes you'll hit, sometimes you'll miss entirely. I dunno what's going on there.
The candy is a small reward you can get from beating enemies sometimes and trust me you're going to need every one you get.
The crosses hop off the graves and try to impale you for some reason. They're not hard to break, but Rick doesn't have that many invincibility frames after he gets hit.
Yeah, the Splatterhouse series is also known for being hard and Wanpaku Graffiti is no exception, although I can't help but feel it's in a "fake difficulty" kind of way sometimes.
Wait a minute. Is this what I think it is?
[Current OST: Disco Dracula]
Oh my god, it is.
The first 'boss' in the game and it's a Thriller Vampire complete with his own troupe of zombie dancers. As far as first impressions go, this is one of the best ones I've seen.
The parody bosses in this game are top notch - it might be one of the reasons why this didn't get shipped to the U.S (seeing as copyright law gutted Monster Party and forced it to remove its references and just become
weird.)
They dance for a bit until Disco Dracula decides he's had enough and starts pelting you with projectiles. You can't really hurt him, but his dancers will try to charge at you.
After slicing apart most of his crew, Disco Dracula throws up a peace sign and sinks back into the stage. At least he's not a sore loser about it.
There was a spooky eye ghost that I swear was taken from Ghosts N' Goblins and a hamburger. The burgers are the best healing item in the game, so grab them at any cost.
We enter this obviously haunted house and come across evil, purple disembodied hands. They're not too much of a nuisance, but it does make me wonder where they came from considering they're about the size of Rick.
Another mini-boss is this shelf filled with possessed books that all want your blood for some reason. The spirit of the tree they were carved from wants vengeance, I suppose.
The next room over we get... a blue girl? A doll? It's hard to tell.
Whatever, she seems cute enough.
Until she pulls an Exorcist and has her head fly off her body.
You have two things to deal with in this fight - the girl's head flying towards you and the chairs hopping up and down. The chairs' trajectory gradually shift to where you are and they can't be destroyed, making this a little more frustrating than it probably needs to be.
[Current OST: Game Over]
In fact, it was so much to deal with that I actually died! You guys don't get to see it after this, but trust me - I saw the game over screen a lot.
Thankfully, the game has midway checkpoints and even a continue option to throw you back where you just died. It's limited to five tries, but there's passwords too.
Let's not mess it up this time, yeah?
[Current OST: Stage Clear]
That went way better. Every time you defeat a boss, you get ten extra points and that's nice.
But wait guys, one of the best things in the game is coming up...
That's where the title of today's chapter comes from. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but damn if it isn't charming
.
The hands will try to throw plates at you, but I'm more concerned by the fact that Rick just took a spike up the bum. That has to
smart.
We purposefully ignore the spider-looking things not only because I don't like spiders but also because they have an annoying projectile they scatter across the floor.
It's not worth it.
In this room we have to deal with a gauntlet of flying knives and evil headless chicken that pop out of a stove. That'd be strange enough on its own, but it's small potatoes to everything else in this game.
To be extra cheeky, I'll just assume the hamburger has chicken meat inside it.
Rick conquers his fear of chickens and that should be about it -
[The screen shakes violently]
Oh.
Yeah, you fall a long way down and there's even... skeletons impaled against the wall with stakes? Yeah, even for a "cutesy" game they're still not gonna pull any punches regarding background gore.
Falling to the bottom takes you to the sewers, appropriately enough. Rick's freaking out because a plank of wood conked him on the head, teehee.
[Current OST: Sewer]
It's not a very complex song but it does give the feeling of this place being forlorn. Seriously though, why does both this game and Monster Party have sewer levels?
I've never heard anybody liking sewer levels in my life.
The main gimmick of this level is that you're trudging through sludge and these eels jump out at you. I think they look pretty gross, but they can also attack you from behind.
These's also these cute little pink rats that would like nothing better than to chew your face off, so don't give them the chance.
I'm just glad this level doesn't overstay its welcome.
[Strong air pushes Rick back]
Wait a minute, what? What's happening?
Oh, it's just a huge green rat... that's also an Airbender apparently, due to them constantly forcing us back. I'm not gonna lie, this is arguably the most annoying boss in the game because not only do you have to deal with the air pushing you, there's also the little rats he throws out.
Combine this with your axe's unreliable range and you have a recipe for disaster.
Thank goodness they only gave the boss one hit, otherwise that'd be too much for me. It's the small mercies that stop it from going into unforgivable boss design.
So... we cut him in half and he turns into a tiny mouse? This game is weird, man.
You can let him go or hit him again for a fatality. I went with the latter because christ you have no idea how much this guy bothered me.
You leave the level yourself by hopping up these stairs that bear a striking resemblance to the wall in Double Dragon 1.
Devil Town, huh? Are we sure this wasn't actually made in October? I mean we have candy, pumpkins and monsters. If we weren't on a mission to save our girl, I'd swear we were going trick-or-treating.
Anyway, the "Devil Town" is a messed-up neighborhood with cracks in the pavement and hamburgers lying on the ground.
I'm always curious what happens to these places before we got here, though. Was it always like this or did Pumpking the King of Ghosts come along and mess it up too?
Your main enemies from now on are these pumpkinheads that shoot out tiny versions of themselves. One swipe turns them into pumpkin pie, but they can get annoying if you don't get rid of them fast.
There's also some red cockroaches that fly into you and I don't like that, no sir.
Entering a house here takes you to this room where there are
flying chainsaws, including one that's cutting through the floor. You'd think anyone would give up here and go home, but...
Rick's axe is somehow strong enough to slice apart chainsaws in one swipe.
Metal.
When you destroy the flying ones, the one in the ground pops out of existence too. Convenient!
Oh no. This is not going to be pretty.
Damn! They actually went there.
This whole scene is one massive Alien spoof, except she has like sixty alien spiders inside of her chest or something. The ones on the ceiling drop down and move super fast while the ones on the ground just waddle towards you.
I mean, surviving through it is worth it because you get a lot of EXP, but that was a real test of endurance.
Wait, her chest isn't torn open anymore? What's happening now?
... Oh. She was just asleep? What, did the monsters only rip open her shirt?
Granted, this is a parody game of sorts and I'd rather take this over her entire chest bursting open.
[Bell SFX]
Walking down the street takes you to the local church. Given how this is Devil Town, I assume we'll have a wicked time here.
[Current OST: Black Mass]
... Huh. Is this like the first church for zombies? It's kind of a mess with all the cans strewn about, but it still looks nice.
An interesting thing to note is that a lot of the concepts in this game barring the outright parody stuff were used in the original Splatterhouse, like this church level... Except you fought rotting floating heads that surrounded an upside down cross in that one.
I don't even know what to say to that.
When you reach the end of the church, you get this lovely set-up that totally isn't ominous, no sir.
This fine fellow does his best job to enlighten us of the dark arts by summoning little rainbow bat things. Sorry, but I'll pass.
Oh, I don't think he liked my answer to that.
Yeah, he straight up turns into a rainbow ram demon after you kill enough of the bats. Like...
alright, then. I see your gambit.
He charges at you and jumps from time to time, but it's actually very easy to stunlock him after every hit. Sure, I'm not quite used to the game to pull that off consistently, but still.
When you beat him, he goes up the altar and explodes into a million pieces. Suck it, Satan.
I have to admit, the rainbow colors and the fact he turned into a goat were super cool... even if he didn't last that long.
But wait, there's more! Yeah, you'd think after a gauntlet like the alien spiders and the spectacle of the goat demon boss that we'd be done with Level 3, but no. It keeps going.
... That guy in the teleporter has the face of a winner. I mean, just look at him.
[The pods flash between white and red]
This is a reference to The Fly, isn't it? Oh well, at least we're not fighting a living shish ke-bab this time.
Not gonna lie, his face as the Fly Man reminds me of Handsome Squidward.
Just a little bit. I mean, it'd still be pretty terrifying to see either of these on a fly's body.
Fly Man will drop smaller flies to bug you, but they give you experience as opposed to the green rats in the sewer. They're not too tough, but occasionally Fly Man himself will drop down in melee range.
Sounds simple, but it did wear on me after a while.
You slice him in half and ruin his beautiful face. A crying shame, but trust me that this isn't the last we'll see of him...
After you defeat him, you have a choice to go in the teleporter (don't worry, you won't be mangled into a disgusting bug-human hybrid) or leave to the right.
Hmmmmmm.
Well, next time on Wanpaku Graffiti, we not only make our choice but see what kind of horrors the Pumpkin King has in store for us.
See you then.
