SPLATTERHOUSE ARCADE WALKTHROUGH by Rodrigo Shin ( rodrigoshin at hotmail.com ) v.1.20 Disclaimer: this document is an intellectual property of mine and it is forbidden that you copy or publish it in other sites than http://www.gamefaqs.com without my written authorization. Selling this guide is also forbidden. You also admit to be reading this at your own risk, and will not hold the creator of the FAQ responsible should anything sound offensive or displease you. The creator of the FAQ also holds no credibility as to what could be incorrect info, even though he tried his best to compile the content of this file and aims to create an accurate guide for the game. If anything here seems to be inaccurate and/or fake, e-mail the author and he will try to look into it as soon as possible. If you agree to all these conditions, you may proceed and read the FAQ to Splatterhouse. Splatterhouse is (c) 1988 by Namco. Contents ======== 1. Introduction 2. Plot 3. Game System 4. Characters 5. Walkthrough 6. Bestiary 7. Version Differences and Localization Info 8. Common Questions 9. Special Thanks 10. FAQ Version History 11. Afterword and Contact Info 1) Introduction =============== This is one of the most comprehensible guides for Splatterhouse, one of the first horror-themed games ever released. In this guide, I will try to detailedly cover every stage of the game and also go in depth about most of its aspects - including some version differences. Although minorly different at spots, this FAQ also serves for the TG-16/PCE port of 'Splatterhouse'. 2) Plot ======= An odd beast, this one. When 'Splatterhouse' was first released in the Land of the Rising Sun (yeah, that's Japan, folks), the arcade marquee only described it as exactly what you see on the ingame intro of it - a couple is running away seeking shelther from storm, and they walk into a mansion. When the door closes, you hear the scream of the woman... aptly named in the arcade marquee, Rick is our main man, and is out to rescue his girlfriend, Jennifer, from the "Cursed Mansion" they wandered into. Rick happens to be found by a sentient Mask while he's lying out cold somewhere, whose powers amplify Rick's strength dramatically so he can tear just about any monster that wanders around his way. That was the basic setup. In 1990, the game was ported to PC-Engine, and then things were considerably spiced up - we were given the protagonists' full names (Rick Taylor and Jennifer Wills) and that they were parapsychology majors, researching on Dr. West, who were involved in gruesome experiments and eventually died - that's right, according to the PCE manual they spill the beans just like that, whilst the US manual says "West disappeared, the mansion should be deserted". The West Mansion even already had it's alias "Splatterhouse". West was a world-renowned authority on Rick and Jen's field, so they decided to investigate it for a University paper. However, because of a strong storm, they seek shelter in the Mansion. But really - it's not like the storm heavily factored here like it would in the original story. Rick and Jen wanted to investigate the mansion (regardless that with it's fame they should be pretty wary of doing so), so storm or no storm, they'd be going in anyway. To me this is looking more like trying to concile the original story with the new bits, but I digress. 3) Game System ============== a) Overview =========== Basically, Splatterhouse is your average action side-scroller from the late eighties, just filled with gore. Rick can move left and right only, but he can pick weapons laying around to use against the enemies that come his way, and he has a reasonable amount of moves - punch, low kick, and slide kick. The game relies heavily on timing memorization, no less, and that's the ticket for surviving "Splatterhouse". Each time you start a stage, you are given four hearts, and naturally, every time you're hit, you lose one of them. When you clear a stage, you start the next one with an extra heart, maximum being six. b) Button Layout ================ The button layout is as it follows: LEFT, RIGHT - Move DOWN - Crouch (can grab weapons) UP - Look up (can grab weapons) BUTTON A - ATTACK BUTTON B - JUMP DOWN + ATTACK - low kick JUMP, HOLD DIRECTION, DOWN + ATTACK - Sliding Kick, Rick's most damaging standard move c) Difficult Settings and Extra Lives ===================================== On the Arcade's dip switches, you have an option pertaining to "Ranks". The standard Rank is "A", which gives Rick four hearts to start out, and all that. You also have Rank "B" and "C". Rank "B" gives Rick SIX hearts at the start of each life. Rank "C", though, gives you TWO hearts at the start of each life. At its standard, the game gives you an extra life when you reach a score of 30.000 points. It will reward you another one when you get to 70.000 points; and then another one everytime you hit 50.000 points. That can also be changed in the switches to be one extra life first at 50.000 points, then 100.000 points, then every 100.000 points, or no extending lives at all. d) Items ======== Lying around in the ghastly locations of the game are weapons. They standardly deal twice the damage your basic moves deal on an enemy. Here they're listed and what are their effects: CLEAVER - found in Stage I and II, and as you can possibly guess, it has gory results. 2x4 - found in Stage I, II and V. WRENCH - found solely in Stage II. Thrown when used. SHOTGUN - found in Stage III, each packs 8 shells. ROCK - found in Stage III, is thrown when used. HARPOONS - found in Stage IV, are thrown when used. AXE - found in Stage IV. The weapons that aren't thrown when used are dropped if an enemy hits you. No matter, though, because that simply requires you pick it back up. But you can't carry a weapon into another segment of a stage. If you're going up or down a ladder or entering another room, you will lose the current weapon. e) Traps ======== When you thought hordes of the undead couldn't get any worse, here's the bitter truth: the entire game is out to get you. No, seriously. Besides the enemies you face and can put an end to, there are ‘background' traps as well just waiting to catch you offguard. These are: BLADES - Underground blades reach out for Rick. Just memorize where do they come from, and avoiding them should be easy enough. They're found in Stage I. SPIKE BALLS - floating above water level in the water stages. They're found in Stage II, III and V. You will only inevitably find them in Stage II. You just need to jump over them, but as you could expect, enemies and more spike balls coming around will make your life harder. PITS - apparently hunter traps found in the woods, in Stage III. They're apparently riddled with sharp objects, so just jump them over. ROTATORY BLADES - the name says it all; they're found in Stage IV's first section. You should let the auto-scrolling give you some leverage before going in head first and jumping over it when it should be safe - these blades come in pairs. SLIPPERY FLOOR - wood planks over piles of pale gore in Stage V. As expected, Rick moves much faster if you keep at it, and if you try to change directions he will lag around a bit until he does so. If you fall on the gory floor, you will lose health. PURPLE MIST - this one is present in every single stage of the game. Lock the game's autoscrolling for long enough (like, around 10 seconds) and you will see the beginnings of this formless evil slowly clawing at you. Namco's way of telling the player "on with it!" is not some finger pointing forwards saying "Go!". No, sir, this eerie fucker, purple hued with lighting running across it, DAMAGES you at its touch. Of course, during boss battles where the arena is locked, it is not present, but it gives its spotlight to... BLUE ORB - linger far too much in areas where the Purple Mist shouldn't be able to appear, and this lovely little spinning ethereal orb will chase you through the screen. If that wasn't enough, the longer you take, the more orbs appear. 4) Characters ============= a. RICK TAYLOR The main hero of the game, Rick wanders in on the Mansion with his girlfriend, Jennifer Wills. They're quickly surprised by the Mansion's inhabitants, and Rick's dragged out to the Mansion's "Annex", a series of catacombs, and left for dead, when the Terror (Hell) Mask finds him and attaches itself to his face, giving him the power needed to fight his way back into the Mansion and rescue Jennifer. b. JENNIFER WILLS Rick's girlfriend. Unlike Rick, who was knocked out immediately when they set foot on the Mansion, she was apparently abducted... but to what end? c. DR. WEST Apparently, as you'd put it, "the hack to blame for this mess". Although West has passed on, his grisly experiments linger on the West Estate, as our heroes found out a bit too late... d. TERROR MASK A legendary Mask said to contain the spirits of the dead. It empowers Rick and allows him to seek an escape from the Mansion and its surroundings, but what is it truly after? 5. WALKTHROUGH ============== a) Stage Overview ================== (Stage descriptions taken from the PC-Engine Manual) STAGE I "Dungeon where the enchained dead and strange living creatures wander about. A razor-sharp blade thrusts up from the ground." As you start the game, you'll notice that indeed, dead people torn up really bad are all around in the background. There's nothing you can do for them - hell, the enchained corpses will puke pools of venom that damage you, even, and you can't stop them - so go about your way killing the Deadmen that show up in your way. They're the game's most brittle enemies, so one punch is enough to do them in. Eventually, you will find your first weapon, the Cleaver, and witness the effects it has on our merry little demons (namely: decapitation). The blades from underground are likely to pop up your way just a little after you got the cleaver, so be on the look out for it - a noise will let you know they're closeby. Bats will also appear, but a single punch / cleaver swing will take care of them as well. Eventually, you will find a 2x4 laying around; you might want to pick it to see how differently will the Deadmen die - and its reach is a bit longer than the Cleaver's, as well. On the very last room in this floor, you will be met with your first "Top-Heavy", an enemy with higher endurance and more aggressive behavior than the Deadmen. When their body perishes, the head detaches and lunges for you. The 2x4 is handy there because of its reach and because it will make the head lunge downwards, instead of upwards. Just look out, because soon enough another Top Heavy will present itself from the left of the room. When it's done, walk to the stairs and Rick will automatically climb them up. Body Eater Room (BEBOSS) --------------- The name makes it sound bad, but it's even worse. Amidst the piles of gore in the room stands a lone hanged corpse, completely inert. After a heavy sting starts the tune played in the room, soon enough the shrieks of leech-like creatures will echo through it, and they will lunge from their fleshy hideouts after fresh blood - namely you. The best strategy is to keep yourself in the rightmost corner of the room, punching and kicking any Body Eater that comes your way. There will be some coming out of the gore piles at the right edge itself, so if you see some ‘bubbles' protruding from where you're near, be ready to punch it anytime. As the song dies down, the Body Eaters (if any surviving) will retreat - so be ready not to be suckerleeched by the last Body Eater the room has... and no prizes for guessing WHERE is it hiding. STAGE II "A damp underground road is guarded by sludge monsters. Pressing on you reach a room where a Poltergeist phenomena starts." Before you get to said damp underground road, you'll find yourself in a torture chamber of sorts - if you thought the first level wasn't bad enough. More deformed corpses wail in the background, impaled or chained, and some will puke pools of poison like the chained corpses from the previous stage. You will catch your first glimpse of a Green Deadman soon enough - it's a stronger Deadman, that takes twice the hits to die. If you have the cleaver, though (the Green Deadman may be faster than you picking it up), same difference: one strike and its head goes out flying. Eventually you will reach a point where there is a wrench in the ground; you can pick it and hit a Top-Heavy from afar when you see that it is approaching, and then pick the Cleaver back up from the ground. The rest of the corridor consists of Hanging Dead dropping from the ceiling; with the cleaver they're easily disposed of, without it they take two hits to die, and if they're feeling happy enough, they will also vomit poison towards you. While they come up and down from the ceiling, another Top Heavy and more Deadmen will make sure the room is lively. When that's all done, Rick descends to the underground waterway. Be sure to pick the 2x4 as soon as you come by it; the Water Dead will show up soon enough. Hit them with the 2x4 and they'll be gone in one shot. If you don't happen to have it, you'll have to do a flying kick or a sliding kick, because their punching range outclasses Rick's by a long shot. The spiked balls floating on the water also appear, and there will be a spot where the timing to evade them is rather tricky, because both will come from opposite directions. The trick is to jump over ahead one of them, and then jump the other one when tt approaches. Be on guard though, because sooner than you can say "Cthulhu Fhtagn, Cthulhu Fhtagn, Iaeeh, Iaeeh", more Water Dead will appear. But once that's done, that's a straightforward path until the Poltergeist Room. Poltergeist Room (PRBOSS) ---------------- An entire room possessed by a Poltergeist sets out to assault Rick. Candles, cans, whiskey bottles, all of these will either materialize or fall from the room while it frantically shakes. No big deal: stay on the rightmost corner of the screen, and just wait for everything to drop. Once two blue cans flash around in the middle of te room, a reasonable time after the phenomena started, a can should pop up right above Rick's head. Move away from it, and watch out: it's the chair's turn to be possessed. It'll erratically jump across the room; just time your punches well enough not to be hit until it's destroyed. Then one of the knives stashed in the closet will diagonally pursuit you; just hit it. Yeah, Rick punches down a knife. Chuck Norris would be proud (oh, man, that's sooo 2006, but anyway). After three hits the knife goes down, and two more show up. Same deal, you just need to position yourself carefully. The biggest danger there is finding yourself in an angle where the knives can actually hit you but your attacks won't. If you managed to be closeby to a knocked knife before it raises again, you can stay close to it and just punch it or kick it before it raises completely - it'll register a hit and you can't be damaged then. After that, the painting springs out of the wall. You can keep yourself in the middle and then start pummelling it; it will bounce off the walls with each hit, and after enough hits the painting will drop to the floor, the spirit driven away. Just make sure you don't stay under the chandelier after the spirit is gone. You wouldn't want to go through the entire boss yet again (yes, it's an one hit kill). If you weren't right at its center but still get hit by it, you'll lose just one heart in the health meter. STAGE III "Rick advances further into a forest. While it incessantly downpours, among the the rain Rick finds a gun, and someone awaits him..." Right at the start, you'll be greeted with the true staple and love of any horror-setting protagonist: the Shotgun. This baby packs some serious damage, and any regular enemy hit by it will die on the spot. Coming through your way there will be some Deadmen and Green Deadmen, but you might notice that after splattering them their remains will not disappear this time. Soon enough zombified dogs, the Evil Dogs, will enter the screen. If you just leave them be, they'll chew on the remains of the Deadmen and they won't bother with you at all - but if you touch them while they're feeding, you're still damaged either way. Likewise, hit them while they're feeding and they'll charge at you. Advancing a bit, you'll find what looks like an overgrown fetus crawling around a bridge in the woods, the "Nobu" enemy. You can just kick it twice before it has the chance to show you its "O" face and vomit poison your way. Also when crossing the bridge, be mindful of the little shadows; if you're caught, a gigantic water hand will throw you in a river below crowded with Water Deads. And since you left the current screen, you'll also lose the shotgun. No matter, after going through the Water Dead river if that happens, you will find a rock near a pit. Pick the rock, scroll the screen a bit further to see a Hanging Dead, and throw the rock at it. Now you can pick the Shotgun again. It's also good to keep in mind that you can spare ammo by always using low kicks. Right after the first Hanging Dead, there's a tree, and below it, hidden by the screen, there's another rock, if you want to keep track of it to use it on another Hanging Dead that will soon show itself up. It's a bit of a pain to keep on equipping/unequipping the shotgun (just so the shotgun doesn't scroll out of view and you lose it), but if you want to preserve ammo, it's there. After a bit more of Deadmen, Crows, and Hanging Dead, you'll get another Shotgun and face that "someone waiting for Rick". Biggy Man (BMBOSS) --------- Chainsaw for hands. Bag in the head. Pulsating flesh on the body. If you think "Splatterhouse", Biggy Man is never far behind. The easiest way to take Biggy Man out is to keep carrying on the Shotgun from the beginning of the stage, and then juggle it alongside the second one given just before he shows up. That way you have 16 rounds of shotgun shells, and he needs 12 to go down. You can afford to miss four times in the worst case scenario. Now if you died and can't bring two shotguns with you, you can bring one rock with you - two could also be possible, although it makes the juggling EVEN MORE strenuous. These are 10 hits on the Biggy, though. If you need to go bare-handed against the goliath, sliding kicks are for sure your best friend. They're the most damaging move in Rick's repertoire after all, and they have a great reach to hit enemies. You can try some low kicks as well, but Biggy flails his arms around so even if you're crouched he will more than likely end up hitting you. Not to mention, Biggy needs 12 hits to die, delivered by weapons - and each weapon deals damage equivalent to a sliding kick. In other words, if you want to beat the Big Man with only your default kick and punching, he can take 24 hits. Slide, my children. Slide like there's no tomorrow. Either way, now that Biggy is out of your way, you're back in the Mansion. STAGE IV "To repel the intruders, traps like the rotary blade are set. Beyond there is the mirror room, where a demon dwels inside the mirror. It's said the demon living inside the mirror reflects a figure from the World of the Dead." Ominous, huh? As the stage starts you'll be met with some harpoons right in your face, and the usual Deadmen will come at it. Take no prisioners and make good use of the harpoons. There's a hole still at the beginning; fall on it and you have to endure a Body Eater CORRIDOR, if the room wasn't bad enough. If a Deadman falls in the hole, though, they won't be bugging you anymore (makes sense). Eventually the second and last Nobu of the game will also show up, but once more all you have to do is dispatch with low kicks. Soon enough you'll see the rotary blades, so no need to rush in - let the scroll show plain and clear what's ahead, then time your jumps. Some bats will try to bug in during this segment, but one hit and they're gone. After that you have the mirror room. When Rick's fully reflected, a copy of him, aptly called "Mirror Rick", will break through the glass and you have to fend it off. One of the best ways to deal with it is stay your ground when it does come out, hit it with a punch (twice, if possible), walk up to it and the crouch and deliver low kicks; the Mirror Rick will most likely keep punching the air, hoping you stand up. In the worst case scenario, it will use its flying kick, or the sliding kick proper. You can't counter the sliding kick; if it uses the flying kick, crouch immediately and you may luck out on buggy hit detection so he'll pass right over your head and you can hit him then. You will face two more until you leave this room, which leads us to... the Chapel. Evil Cross (ECBOSS) ---------- Organ music starts and disembodied heads (complete with otherwordly moaning if the game has its mojo going) fill the screen when you're in the Chapel. Soon enough you'll see that the disembodied heads materializing all circle around an inverted cross. That's rather likely the most METAL sentence known to man. Regardless, you will find an axe to help your little slaughter here, so that should make things easier, even if the boss, compared to Biggy Man, is already way easier on the player. Each disembodied head has its movement pattern when it's not attached to Evil Cross, so it becomes a matter of knowing where will they go so you're not hit. Also, when they are astray from the cross and start fading away you can still kill them, but they won't hit you anymore. This is a good place to farm for score and possibly an extra life since the Nightmares (these lovely disembodied heads) grant you around 500 points for each killed, but be mindful of the blue orbs of doom if you stay in here for too long. After you hit the Evil Cross six times with the axe, it will be destroyed and you will advance to Stage V. STAGE V "Rick has been restlessly fighting for his lover Jennifer. Here, two people who love each other are reunited, however..." ...y'know, that "Enter Stage" picture isn't helping matters either. The stage starts out with an assembly of poltergeist possessed chairs and a 2x4 to allow you to vent your hatred for spiritually animated furniture. Give ‘em all you got, and so soon as they're done you'll be done with this room too. Now things get slippery (Ha HA! Double Entendré!). Literally. You have a slippery wooden floor, with your everyday gore pile between each plank. Needless to say, land on the pale flesh and you lose health. You have to ultimately balance your movements, which can be tricky because there are "Woodies" (Biggy Man, Woodies... in the days of rudimentary 'safe-browsing' tools this document would have been a victim of these for sure), which are basically reanimated severed arms which taunt you by flipping you the bird and then at occasions manage to jump from their habitat (the piles of gore). So sometimes you need to get rid of them AND manage a way not to fall from the wooden planks into the gore piles... headache. In the inbetween from one and another, you will face pairs of Top-Heavies, but nothing you ain't seen before. So soon as you finish this floor, though, you're presented branching pathways: a stair leading down, and one leading up. I'll call the upwards path 2nd Floor, the downwards one, Basement. You can change your pathway even during those, no less... 2nd Floor - Painting Hallway (1st Corridor) In this hallway filled with eerie paintings you will find anime-styled ghosts carrying skulls around, the 'Jokers'. Jump and kick them before they can drop the skull on your head. There's a painting with a face on it with its eyes closed; the face will also rip itself off from the painting and charge at you (gee, wonder who didn't see that coming). There are many holes before the end of this corridor; if you will fall on them you'll find yourself in the first corridor of the Basement path, and continue from there. Going to the end of this corridor, though, presents you another stair going down and a room to continue going further. If you pick the stair, you will find yourself in the Basement's Master Dead room, otherwise you'll be in this floor's 2nd Corridor. - Mirror Room (2nd Corridor) Mirror Ricks return! The pattern is the same from Stage IV, and there are three of them to be dealt with here as well. No branching pathways either - kill them and go right. - Body Eaters (3rd Corridor) Yet another Body Eater hallway. Wee. There's not much of strategy here - try to keep track of the Body Eaters before they leap out of the flesh piles, and hit them as soon as they're about to. You need to have your timing right in order to be able to get by without much loss to your health; you'll need every last of it for what's to come. Basement - Water Hallway (1st Basement Floor) Plenty of Water Deads and spiked balls in a small underground pool. The spiked balls this time are faster than the ones you saw in Stage II, and the Water Dead show up in no small amount. It's about three times trickier to get the timing down to a T compared to Stage II's segment, but doable without getting hit. So soon as you're out of the pool, you'll find another stair leading down which leads to the Master Dead Room. - Master Dead room (2nd Floor) More putrid gore in the backgrounds, and some living dead that honor that name aesthetically: they are the "Revival Dead". There's a boney one and one without half of its head. The boney ones are fast, whereas the mutilated ones are lethargic. Regardless, two hits will do them in. But that's not all - a scarecrow figure will be around to make sure your life is hell; it's able to revive (get it? Get it?) these zombies by chanting uninteligible words and raising its arms. It floats around the screen and can be a pain to hit, and what's more, its pattern is seemingly random - there will be times where you'd rather focus your strength on knocking down the Revival Dead and wait for Master Dead (our scarecrow necromancer) to drop out of the figure altogether than to bring him down with gusto. Ultimately it's up to the player, but it should be of note that more Revival Deads join in the fray than just the two at the beginning of the fight. After you get through Master Dead and his crew of zombies, you can go down yet again... or go up. If you do go up, you'll find yourself in the 3rd Corridor of the 2nd Floor, the Body Eater corridor, if you go down, you'll go to the Evil Dog Cages in the 3rd Basement Floor. - Evil Dog Cages (3rd Floor) Deadmen, Evil Dogs and Jokers. Give preferrence to hitting a Deadman with a straight punch in the middle of its head; they'll collapse in place, so you can walk further and leave the Evil Dogs, which majorly come from the left side of the screen, to chew on its remains while you advance. Upon sighting any Joker, just jump and kick them. That's pretty much it for this room, which has a lone stairway leading you to the final room in the stage. BRANCHING PATH FUN: RUDIMENTARY ASCII MAP! Painting Hallway > Mirror Room > Body Eaters > Boss Room ^ | | ^ ^ Woody Hallway --^ | | | | v v | | | Water Hallway | | | v v | | Master Dead Room ---------------------^ | v | Evil Dog Cages---------------------------------^ After all this branching path fun, we're brought to Stage V's boss. Jennifer (DJBOSS) -------- Yep, for real. As what seems to be widely regarded at least in the country this game originated as an "action gamer trauma", Rick makes it to a room that's considerably well kept when you think of the entire house, and Jennifer is laid on a couch, surrounded by Green Deadmen and a Top Heavy, who calls them all off upon your arrival, and then leaves the screen itself. Jennifer gets up and says, "Oh, my darling...", and then falls to her knees, starts trembling and the next thing you know she's mutated into a demon twice Rick's size with saggy flesh exposed everywhere and an evil laugh. Jennifer will first lunge at you with a large leap; it may be your first instinct to counter it with a flying kick, but actually just wait for her to get in range of your punch and hit her. Then she'll drop to the opposite side of the screen she was jumping towards; walk away immediatelly, because Jennifer's one weapon are extendable nails that hurt. Bad. And that have ludicrous reach. She'll lunge for you with a smaller leap this time, but just do the same thing; wait for her to be in-range and then hit her. After around 6 hits, Jennifer will turn back to her human form... and ask you to kill her. Not that it matters: she mutates yet again almost immediatelly. The pattern remains the same. After another six hits, she'll once again revert but mutate back - but this time it's her last stand, which means she'll get considerably tricky. She will leap for you as usual, but then after the first hit, you'll see she'll only do RATHER small leaps instead of jumping around now. She'll be skipping around, not jumping, towards you, and so soon as the nails are within reach, she will whip them out - and odds are, you get hit. So you have to be rather cautious; hit her and IMMEDIATELY walk away. When she seems to be in the middle of a small leap and is within range, punch her again, then walk away as far as possible. Repeat until she's defeated. If you didn't get hit even once and you have 4 hearts (or more) remaining, you might as well go kamikaze if you're not in the mood for strategy. When she turns back into demon for the last time, hit her the first time, then go away and hit her with a sliding kick. This will leave you right in her face open for any attacks, but with 3 hits to go, she needs only two more to die (the sliding kick does the double the damage). All you have to do is take advantage of your temporary invincibility. If you want, you can mess Jennifer's pattern up to have a "hard mode" if you feel you want more of a challenge. After delivering her 5 hits, instead of hitting her yet again with a punch or kick, hit her with the SLIDING Kick. Now this most assuredly will take one heart out of you. Jennifer WON'T turn back to human form, and will advance to her next attack pattern. You can do the same for the second pattern: instead of hitting her with a standard punch/kick, hit her with the slide. You'll see she'll promptly start skipping towards you, instead of jumping. There's no upside to this, besides gloating that you deliberately made the boss harder and beat her - if you don't die anyway. No less, when that is done, it's time for one of the most irritating stages of the game: "the Womb". STAGE VI "The monsters are all born within this womb cave. The root of all evil, it has to be destroyed to the best of one's abilities, or else the nightmare might go on forever." After getting the bloody deed done in Stage V, a Top Heavy seemingly taunted Rick and then, apparently, descended upon a fleshy hole surrounded by gore (so much for a well kept room). Rick follows in pursuit, and now you're inside a womb cave that for all intents and purposes seems very much alive - if anything for the fact it spawns "Obas", larvae-like monsters said to be the first stage of a Deadman. They first float around in ovaries, and if they land, they will grab Rick if they're not dealt with immediatelly. Once they do, you have to shake them off by wiggling the D-Pad like it's nobody's business. If you're lucky, you can shake them off without taking damage, though that's a bit rare. It doesn't help that the stage is rather busy. By the time one of these buggers is trying to leech the life out of you or whatever is it they do, more than likely more eggs have hatched, and they come from either the top of the screen or the bottom, and they float around with hard to predict patterns before landing - and naturally, the eggs do damage to you as well. This is more a test of endurance than anything else; after around 1 minute and 6 seconds in (there seems to be no checkpoints whatsoever), you should be met with a fleshy pillar with a giant heart beating on it. "Mother" sends you her regards - and its unholy spawn as added bonus. Mother (MBOSS) ------ Honestly, there's not much to do here. Mother's a terribly enduring boss, so she can take a LOT of punishment. You can slide-kick her without getting damaged, but the hatchlings don't stop coming just because you've reached a boss screen. So you have to be mindful of taking care of the Obas as well as bringing Mother down, and if you dedicate yourself solely to slide kicking her so she goes down faster, you'll soon have a demon daycare center in your hands before you even know it. No less, pummel Mother and its offspring relentlessly and in enough time it should go down - but not without a bang, or should I say, burst. Mother will start blinking and let out a last shriek, different from the screams it lets out when hit, and that's your cue to get the hell away from it, because it'll release a torrent of gore when it dies. It's not an instant kill, but if you have only one heart left, odds are you don't want to deal with the little hatchlings all over again. STAGE VII "And, to the conclusion - Stage VII-" Yeah, rather descriptive, huh? From the getgo you will see that the surroundings of the Mansion are all set ablaze. Fire logs will also come, either dropping from the top of the screen or just scrolling by. Demons writhing while in flames, the Fire Dead, also make their appearance. You can't hit ANYTHING in flames, so all you can do is avoid them. It might be a little tricky at first, but you can exploit the scrolling to your advantage. Any new hazard that shows up, either fire logs or the Fire Dead, are triggered by Rick's current position in the stage. If instead of pressing on without stopping you go around slowly and methodically, you can isolate each of these instead of having them thrown at you together. Having health stashed for what's to come certainly won't hurt. Hell Chaos (FBOSS) ---------- Rick's path ends when he finds a wooden cross in the ground. The Mask releases energy on it, and with a monstrous scream, a giant head with apparently molten skin raises from the ground, throwing rocks all around the screen when it does so (it looks less impressive than it sounds). You might want to pummel the bugger so soon as its head shows up in the screen, but that might leave you open to be hit by the falling rocks (ol' Hell Chaos didn't throw them in the air for no reason). The rocks fall at a lethargic pace, but you can avoid them if you're around the center of the screen, while Hell Chaos always shows up at the edges of the screen, either left or right. Once the rocks ended falling, walk up to it and start pummelling it. Its' giant, fleshy hands might come for you; they won't hit you when they are merely looming over Rick, but when they close their palms and try to drag him from the playfield, jump to avoid getting hit. If you time it correctly, you don't even need to jump on the opposite direction - you can jump just where you are, and you will evade the hand no problem. Both hands come up at it and you'll be able to tell Hell Chaos is closer to dying when they speed up their pace. There are even times where they'll try to grab Rick at the same time, but no panic; you just need to get the timing right just so when they do try to grab him, you jump at the right moment so you are clear from getting hit by both. If you can evade the hands and the rocks, Hell Chaos can be a cakewalk (sometimes the rocks pattern won't help, since it's random). After you hit it enough times, the head will submerge yet again, show up in another end of the screen, throw the rocks up, all that. Hell Chaos does this around five times, so getting his pattern down is the trick here more than endurance. If you think you have hit him enough times before he goes under again, you can cap him off with a sliding kick - it might him twice or just once (if it hits him just once, my guess is that you'll do an extra point of damage than you would have if you just stuck to kicking and punching), but you will get no damage whatsoever. But only do that if you're sure that two (at most) sliding hits will do him in. Sooner or later, Hell Chaos will let out a ghoulish scream and a spirit in agony will show up; with a shriek, it'll start releasing souls around the screen until it fades away - and then it's over. Enjoy the ending. 6. Bestiary =========== Listed below are all the enemies you will face during the stages. Mostly descriptive, strategies where appliable are found here. If you're looking for boss strategies, these are contained within the stage walkthroughs. If there's a different death animation caused by a weapon, these are listed as well. Deadman (found in Stage I, II, IV, V) Called "inferior experiment bodies", likely because of their poor endurance (at least against Mask-powered-Rick anyway). One hit will do them in. In Stage IV they show more agressive behavior like jumping, but they do it very scarcely to even be a threat. Deaths: decapitation (cleaver); burst against wall (2x4); exploded (shotgun); impaled (harpoons); eaten (Evil Dog) Score: 100 points. Green Deadman (found in Stage II, III, IV, V) More resistent than the standard Deadman, but still weak. Deaths: same of the standard Deadman, though not all the weapons show up in the same areas they do) Score: 200 points. Bats (found in Stage I, II, IV) Common vampire bats. Are killed with a single hit. Score: 300 points. Top Heavy (found in Stage I, II, IV, V) Upper-class experiment body with a mushroom-based head. The body may be destroyed, but the head will then charge at the agressor. If you use a sliding kick or the 2x4, when the Top Heavy's body dies, the head will be on the floor and will lunge upwards; by other means, the head will lunge downwards instead. Although the Top Heavy seldomly attacks it has a great range for its nail punch, so if you're unarmed, a sliding kick or low kicks are usually best for dealing with it. It's interesting to notice that there's apparently a sense of hierarchy between the Top Heavy and the Deadmen, as in Stage II you can see it ordering the Deadman against Rick in the torture chamber; and in Stage V it calls them off when Rick arrives at the boss room. Score: 500 for the body, 300 for the head. Hanging Dead (found in Stage I, II, III) A decomposed corpse, hanged by the neck with a rope. Ocasionally vomits venom and comes down from holes in the ceiling in Stage II. When it's going up and down, it won't do anything; if they're hit while they're doing that and they don't die, they will shift to venom-vomiting mode. Two hits will do them in. Deaths: the cleaver just make it look slightly different when it decomposes in a pile of green blood, like it was indeed cut. Nothing else. Score: 300 points. Body Eater (found in Stage I, IV, V) A huge leech which stays in lumps of flesh assumed to be a nest. When someone alive is detected, they attack it in group in order to feed upon them. Their threat relies in numbers more than anything. One hit will do them in. They serve as Stage 1's "boss". Strategy is found at (BEBOSS). Score: 300 points Crow (found in Stage III) A crow that flies in a straight line. It's absent from the PC-E/TG16 ports. Killed with a single hit. Score: 300 points Water Dead (found in Stage II, III, V) Experiment body to live in places such as the sewer. Has a great range for it's punches. Takes a single hit to kill. Deaths: splatters against the wall when hit by the 2x4. Score: 200 points Water Hand (found in Stage III) The spirit which wanders about on the bridge. When it touches Rick, it drags him and drops him to the river where Water Deads expect him. Can not be killed. Evil Dog (found in Stage III, V) An undead stray dog (apparently a result of manipulation of West's, since they say the dog is 'made a zombie' or 'converted to zombie'). Their favorite meal is a Deadman, ironically, so if you knock one down they'll come out to feed at its corpse. But if you attack them while they are feeding they will get angry and charge at you. They take two hits to be killed. Deaths: looks slightly different when killed with the Shotgun, like all of its blood bursts out with its skin from the body. Score: 300 points Nobu / 'Knob' (Stage III, IV) It has the appearance of an overgrown deformed fetus and is very lethargic. If you leave it alone, however, it will display fangs on top of its head and vomit pools of poison your way. Takes two hits to die. It's absent from the PCE port in Stage III. Deaths: you can decapitate the fang head by shooting it with the Shotgun or hitting it with a Harpoon. Score: 300 points Mirror Rick (Stage IV, V) An inhabitant from the World of the Dead that lingers on the mirror, and comes out when Rick is fully reflected. They take three hits to die, and there are six in total in the game. You inevitably get to face three. Score: 3000 points Nightmare Countless severed heads floating around Evil Cross. They'll keep respawning until the Evil Cross itself is destroyed. Each head has its movement pattern when they are not circling the cross; the human head lacking an eye with pale skin will attack by going to the lower edges of the left screen, for instance. One hit kills them. Score: 500 points Picture Ghost (Stage V) Found in the painting hallway in Stage V, a grudgeful spirit confined in a masterpiece. It'll charge at Rick, ripping itself from the painting. Takes only one hit to be killed. Score: 300 points Woody (Stage V) A severed arm with will, that taunts Rick with it's finger and jumps at him to try to bar his progress. Killed with one hit. Score: 200 points Joker (Stage V) Ghost of a beautiful girl that drops a skull on Rick's head. She'll giggle if Rick's hit. One hit sends them back to the beyond. Score: 500 points Revival Dead (Stage V) Zombies. They will keep coming back as long as Master Dead is around to raise them. Take two hits to go down. They come in fast and slow types. Score: 100 points each time they're knocked down Master Dead (Stage V) A dead spirit which leads and raises the Revival Dead to attack Rick through necromancy. It takes around six hits to die and floats around the screen. Score: 500 points Egg Oba (Stage VI) Obas in incubatory state. It floats around and when it lands, the Oba is fully born. Killed with a single hit. Score: 200 points Oba (Stage VI) Larva of Deadmen. It attaches itself to Rick doing damage. Killed with a single hit as well. Score: 300 points Fire Dead (Stage VII) Demons writhing in agony, set ablaze in Stage VII. They can't be killed. Boss Characters Poltergeist (Candle, Knife, Chair, Empty Can, Whiskey Bottle, Picture and Chandelier) Various furniture is manipulated by an evil spirit's will, and it obstinately attacks anyone alive. Strategy: search for (PRBOSS) Score: Candle, Can, Bottle - 100 points; Chair - 300 points; Knife: 1000 points; Picture - 3000 points Biggy Man A giant "remodeled" by Dr. West, who imbedded a chainsaw to both his hands. To conceal his horrible appearance, the bag is worn. Strategy: (BMBOSS) Score: 5000 points Evil Cross A holy symbol possessed by an evil spirit, in turn becoming wicked. It is surrounded by disembodied heads called "Nightmare". Changed to a demonic floating blue head called "Evil Sleep" in the Turbografx version. Strategy: (ECBOSS) Score: 5000 points Jennifer Rick's beautiful girlfriend. She is "remodeled"/mutated by the monsters in the Mansion to a hideous monster whose nails can extend. Strategy: (DJBOSS) Score: 6000 points Mother The heart of the Mansion. It limitlessly produces Egg Obas. Strategy: (MBOSS) Score: 6000 points (not sure - it appears the onscreen Obas factor too) Hell Chaos The mysterious form the Mask possessed. A giant creature that crawls in the underground of the Mansion. It uses it's gigantic hands and throws rocks to damage Rick. Strategy: (FBOSS) Score: 100000 points 7. Version Differences and Localization Info ============================================ From the Arcade to the PC-Engine, there is the usual - a graphical downgrade, removal of some enemies (like Nobu and the crow), the cleaver was removed from Stage I as almost all of the background humans in agony; instead of an Axe, you find a Golden Cleaver in the Chapel when fighting the Evil Cross. The "Enter Stage" themes were reduced to just two, which keep altercating from stage to stage. A specific theme to the Body Eaters infested room was also removed; instead a looping version of the Body Eater room from Stage I plays. Biggy Man simply depixelates when he's killed, as well as Jennifer. The intro and ending were also cut down in size compared to the Arcade counterpart. The PC-Engine port also added most of plot bits and details that would be followed upon by the sequels, whilst the Arcade version is just terribly vague - that was touched upon in the plot section anyway, but as it goes, all of the named enemies here were taken from the PC-Engine and the PC port manuals of Splatterhouse. Some are obviously different from the Turbografx-16 manuals, where further changes were applied; Rick's mask was redesigned and painted red, possibly to avoid legal troubles because of the likeness to Jason Vorhees; the Evil Cross was swapped over with a demonic blue head called "Evil Sleep"; the Chapel was redesigned so that everything that threw you back to religious imagery was removed (rendering the ‘cutscene' after you destroy the Evil Cross quite senseless, even moreso than it already were uncut, since it lacks Jennifer's scream at the end) and the cross at the end of Stage VII became a tombstone. As far as naming difference goes, here's a handy table. Whatever isn't mentioned didn't have a western counterpart in the manual. JAPANESE NAMES | WESTERN NAMES ============================================================================= Hell Mask | Terror Mask Deadman | Red Walking Zombies Green Deadman | Green Walking Zombies Top Heavy | Large-headed Demon Hanging Dead | Hanging Corpses Body Eater | Crawling Red Slime Water Dead | Sludge Monsters Nobu / Knob | Crawling Slug Piggyman | Biggy Man Woody | Crawling Hand Oba | Newborn Monsters Fire Dead | Fire Demons Hell Chaos | Demonic leader 8. Common Questions =================== A FAQ within a FAQ, if you will. These are the most commonly asked questions about Splatterhouse I know of, so here they go. Note: this wasn't exactly a spoiler-free walkthrough, but if you just tackled Splatterhouse and now feel like giving a try to the other games in the series, and don't want to find stuff out beforehand, you'd better stop reading here then. Q: Did Splatterhouse really begin the era of rating systems for videogames? A: Not the Arcade. The Turbografx port came with a disclaimer of sorts talking about the nature of the game, since horror-themed games with high amounts of gore weren't frequent when Splatterhouse was released. Splatterhouse 3 for the Genesis would come with a "MA-13" rating that Sega itself implemented for its games. The Arcade wasn't so fortunate, as the recurring history with many that tried the actual cabinet in the US is that the game would simply vanish without warning from whichever locations it could be found. Almost banned, without a trace, if you will. Q: What is that thing the Mask possessed at the end of the game? Is it Dr. West? A: From what we're all been able to gathered from the Japanese side of things... no. West was added in the PCE port (and kept within the TG16 version). In Splatterhouse Part 2 (the japanese version of the sequel for the Genesis), you do come face-to-face with West, who is now a zombie himself. Hell Chaos is merely called a "giant creature that crawled in the underground of the mansion" in the PC manual for Splatterhouse, since the PC-E manual didn't even so much as include a screenshot for Stage VII. It sounds sloppy, I know, what with that if you account that West's likely inspiration for namesake, Herbert West from H.P. Lovecraft's "ReAnimator" was beheaded and all at the end of the tale, and the final boss just so happens to be a giant head. The US Continuity, though, abolished all mentions of a "Dr. West" in Splatterhouse 2, replacing it in the manual with "Dr. Mueller". What to make of that all is ultimately up to the fans, but as the story progressed for the sequel, West was included in Part 2 as far as the original storyline went. Ultimately, as someone said, the only thing we know for sure that thing is... is that it's Hell Chaos. Q: How many ports did this game receive? A: Three. First you had the PC-Engine/TG16 port in 1990, from its original release in 1988. In 1992, the game was released for the FM-Towns Marty, a popular Japanese computer. Needless to say, this one didn't get released in the West either. In 2003 an official port for the PC was released with the game being rather faithful to the Arcade, as is with the FM-Towns version. The uncut Arcade version is now also slated to be bundled in with the remake of Splatterhouse, scheduled for release on the PS3 and X-Box 360 alongside the two sequels as unlockables. Q: If "Mother" was spawning the monsters in the Mansion (at least the Deadmen), then what did West really do? What's the nature of these creatures even? A: We'll sooner learn the meaning of life before this one, I'm afraid. West is seen raising demons in the PC-Engine manual, down to test tubes and everything. The Deadmen, Top-Heavy and Water Dead are also regarded as ‘experimental bodies'. The Evil Dogs are also said to have been transformed into zombies. So if the Deadmen are ‘experimental bodies' but they have their own breeding quarters, does it mean West created Mother as well? As for the nature of the monsters, that is doubly puzzling, seeing as how a Top Heavy assaulted Rick and left him for dead, while a Deadman dragged Jennifer around... while the writhing corpses in Stage I show that there was no discrimination going around there. West himself did these? Did his creations do it? While the Deadmen seem ‘apathic' in a manner of speaking, the Top Heavies maybe could be up with the torturing of human beings found in the catacombs. Or the Body Eaters... It's interesting to note that far as I checked on the japanese materials (simply because they catalogue the intended plot way better than its western counterparts), the Body Eaters weren't apparently ever alluded to West, which makes a lot sense given a certain boss in Splatterhouse 3; that same boss cements as almost granted that West was summoning creatures from beyond besides just experimenting on them or whatnot. One of Splatterhouse 2's bosses, the "Deadman Fat", is a cannibalistic version of the Deadmen. While the Deadmen are said to be West's experiments, Deadman Fat continues to appear in Splatterhouse 3, long after West is out of the picture for good, and as part of the ‘Wicked God clan' Rick fights in that game. As for what the Deadmen and Top-Heavies truly are, nothing so far as hinted that despite being called ‘zombies' whenever something was localized, they are of Romero fashion (namely, bite-happy undead). West's creations aren't even really ‘dead', per se; as you can see in the text descripting Stage I, it talks about the ‘dead' (the mutilated humans in the background) and ‘strange living creatures' sauntering around the dungeon. That slots itself in nicely with Splatterhouse 2, which shows that West is using an Altar to conjure souls from the World of the Dead to give life to his experiments. But that just makes Mother sticks out all the more then if you go out there. Of course, when the game was nothing more than Rick and his gal Jennifer winding up in a cursed mansion, most (if not all) of that would be moot... Q: What set the mansion ablaze? Mother's destruction? A: I've never seen official word on this, only theorizing, but as it goes, "all signs point to yes". It has also been theorized that during the downpour, while Rick fought his way through Mother, the mansion was hit by lightning and everything else was set aflame. That's not too farfetched - you can hear thunderbolts roaring in the battle against Hell Chaos - but since Splatterhouse isn't dealing just with SCIENCE but well into the supernatural, it would seem, alright, that destroying 'the root of all evil' caused the creatures and the Mansion to flare up. Q: Why are you calling "Captain Mozarella" Hell Chaos? A: That's the character's official name, pretty much. Whatever was used to name the enemies and so on in this guide was compiled from official materials. "Captain Mozarella" was a name made on the fly by the person who did the OST rip going around the Internet. Before the name surfaced as Hell Chaos, several others were around, like Dead Head, Mutated Head, and so on. In the end, it's all up to the player's preferrence what to call the enemies. Q: Does the ending song have a name? A: Apparently it didn't for the first 10+ years it even existed. In "The Complete Sounds of Katamari", though, from the Katamari Damacy series, Namco included a song called "Sento nel Core", its subtitle being "Arrange Version from Splatterhouse". It is exactly what you think it is; the ending theme, with an orchestral arrange. Most of the song's lyrics were borrowed from an existing song called - you guessed it - "Sento nel Core", but that has no relation to Splatterhouse whatsoever. The lyrics are as follows: (unknown opening verse) Sento nel core, certo dolore (2x) Che la mia pace turbando va (2x) Splende una face che l’alma accende se non è amore, amor sarà se non è amore, amor sarà. Sento Nel Core, certo dolore Che la mia pace turbando va A translation is alongside these lengths: I feel in my heart a certain sorrow Which goes on disturbing my peace; There shines a torch which inflames my soul: If it is not love, love it'll be. (repeated verses omitted) 9. Special Thanks ================= Many thanks go out to Rob Strangman of "West Mansion", of which the japanese Resources were used to compile the info found on this guide, and the overall support found at the site's native forum, "The Third Moon". If you feel like chiming in on some of the discussion points brought in "Common Questions", that's definitely the place you want to be. The West Mansion homepage can be found here: http://splatterhouse.kontek.net/ Special thanks to Namco as well for creating a screwed-up and incredibly fun to play trilogy that helped pave the way for horror gaming at its beginning. 10. FAQ Version History ======================= 1.00 - Initial release (May 29, 2010). 1.20 - Second release, corrected some wrong info at spots and added the score for each defeated enemy, alongside the information for the switches in the Arcade version and how they impact difficulty, down to Extending Lives, and the bit about making Jennifer's pattern harder in her section. (June 1, 2010) 11. Afterword and Contact Info ============================== Thanks for reading through the Splatterhouse FAQ. I hope you all find it useful and that it adds to your fun in the game, and, best case scenario, gets you past a place you got stuck. If there is anything that you would like to chime in for the guide, feel free to. Below follows the contact info: E-mail: rodrigoshin at hotmail.com Please put "Splatterhouse FAQ" in the Subject line, as I receive massive doses of Spam daily and mostly erases any single unknown e-mail that arrives (such as the ones with the subject saying "hi" or "wassup", which are mostly pr0n spam). You can also find me around in the West Mansion forums, The Third Moon, too. -END OF FILE-