Next in the Virtua month of Virtua SPEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWKIESOUR! This time we have something new and horribly gory! Please enjoy!
Over the years of posting reviews on this site, there has been one title that has gotten a constant mention throughout. This was not on purpose, but on a small glance at my past articles. It has shown up on multiple top 10 lists and gotten held up as one of the examples of railshooters done correctly. It has been compared to many of its genre and come out looking very favorable, at least in this subjective reviewer's opinion. This subjective reviewer's opinion also seems to gravitate toward keeping the graphics blocky, sketchy and blurry as they were upon their implimentation to the Saturn or Arcade cabinets.
Guess what, sports fans, this is a very good example of just that. The House of the Dead was remade for modern consoles in April of 2022 and you can count it among the remakes that did its best. It is by no means a terrible remake, nor does it look "bad". The graphics actually look quite detailed, but there is something wrong with them. The movements of the zombies and something about the movements of the screen seem so unattached. It's like they tried to keep the blocky, slow movements of the original port while implimenting them with new, polished graphics and the mixture is like a 1970's movie played on Bluray. It looks off.
That's pretty much all there is to say about what is really wrong with this port. It seems so out of place. Like they told every single original actor of a movie to wear a full body suit of themselves, with new cameras and equipment. It doesn't wholly affect the gameplay, though. You can shoot zombies and have fun, and there are some nice darker tones to the game.
There are good things here. I found myself really enjoying shooting things in the background and either finding a secret or just destroying something randomly. They did a very good job detailing the game with breakable stuff. That enhances the game and gives you a good sense of satisfaction. They also added a few more little items that improve the difficulty. Like, with the first villain, the Hangedman. He's also known as "That annoying bat dude that flies around and maybe sics a giant headless armor suit on you". A long title, I know. Instead of just shooting him in this version, though, he has a weakspot on his chest. Since he's slightly larger and more detailed, this actually worked.
There were little tidbits here and there that made this game more fun. I loved how they made the blade jumper guys much darker and blend in more with the shadows. It made me feel observant when I spotted them and attacked them very early. There's good, grotesque violence to be had here and the game is far more accessible than it was.
Is this game worth buying now? Yes, very much so. It is not a bad port at all, it simply has its off points and, as always, I am of a mind that the original is just a more fulfilling experience. That being said, the ambience, the higher graphics and the gameplay all have their ups and downs, but overall, it comes out ahead. What would have made this game far more edible is if, like in Nights Into Dreams Remake, they included the original game in its entirety. They didn't do that, but they did add a whole bunch of extra game features.
The problem I had with these extra features was that Horde Mode could not be played without erasing your save game. That was a very strange decision on their part because it meant I had to beat the entire game to actually test it out. If that were the case, they may as well have made it an unlockable feature. Either way, it's your standard basic affair of minigames and none of them are especially noteworthy. They're not great, but good for a distraction.
It's easier, obviously, because it doesn't have limited continues. That is actually a good thing, because the finite deaths did limit the original game in many ways. This is especially true whenever they were not getting paid for their labors in our hard earned quarters. Either way, this game is worth getting, playing and enjoying but it is not exactly worth celebrating. If this is your only way to play this game, you could do far worse. It is a game they built from the ground up. Though I question the use of Unity, I will not get into that. Just know that it is a new game from the Saturn and we should be grateful that we're still getting some classics to this day from our old friend of yesterday. Kill zombies, but play nice and drink water.
