History Videogame / SplatterHouse

* LighterAndSofter: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatterhouse:_Wanpaku_Graffiti Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti.]] [[note]]And in case you're wondering, yeah, it's awesome.[[/note]]

* {{Fanservice}}: In the 2010 remake each stage has four pieces of a photograph. Finding them all of then will reward you with a picture of [[MsFanservice Jennifer]] either dressed, half dressed or completely naked.

* {{Fanservice}}: In the 2010 remake, one of the collectible items is pictures of Jennifer either dressed, half dressed or just plain naked.

* CreepyCoolCrosses: A boss in the first game is a floating inverted cross. This was replaced [[{{Bowdlerise}} with a more generic-looking floating monster head]] in the American [=TurboGrafx=]-16 release.

** ManaMeter: The POW Meter, which is used for your Mutant Rick form. The 2010 has the Necro Meter, which is used for your Splatter Moves and Berserk mode.

* AllThereInTheManual: In the 2010 remake, the corpse that crumbles to dust after Rick knocks over the sarcophagus it resides in actually has a backstory, only accessible in [[DummiedOut dialogue in the game files]]; the corpse was formerly a conquistador named Francisco Miguel Cortez, whose ship crashed on an island with an Aztec temple. As his men died or became Corrupted, he took refuge in the temple, and eventually found the sarcophagus with the Terror Mask in it. Afterwards, he was sealed in the sarcophagus himself, and [[AndIMustScream completely left unable to die]] thanks to the Mask.

** Mirror Rick becomes an actual boss in the remake, as opposed to a generic enemy that Rick has to fight. He would have had actual lines too, but they were DummiedOut (he intended to KillAndReplace Rick).

* MonsterClown: The 2010 remake has Clown Corrupted as enemies "Phase Seven: Scream Park". [[DummiedOut Cut Dialogue]] also reveals that Rick is afraid of clowns, which the Terror Mask, of course, has fun with.

[[caption-width-right:322:"MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME IS ''HAUNTED''?!?!"]]

[[caption-width-right:322:"MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME ''[[VideoGame/Splatterhouse SPLATTERHOUSE]]'' IS HAUNTED?!?!"]]

[[caption-width-right:322:"MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME ''[[SPLATTERHOUSE]]'' IS HAUNTED?!?!"]]

[[caption-width-right:322:"MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME ''SPLATTERHOUSE'' IS HAUNTED?!?!"]]

[[caption-width-right:322:"Show him why we call it ''Splatterhouse''."]]

** A third of the fun in the games is to spot all references to famous horror movies (just for starters, ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', ''Franchise/EvilDead'', ''Film/TheDeadlySpawn'' and ''Film/{{Poltergeist}}''). The Famicom spinoff ''Wanpaku Graffiti'' went ballistic on this, including references to (and parodies of) ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'', ''Film/TheFly1986'', ''Music/{{Thriller}}'' and many more.

''Splatterhouse'' is series of BeatEmUp games created by Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment. Players control the protagonist Rick Taylor as he fights against diabolical supernatural forces in a struggle to save the woman he loves (and, in ''Splatterhouse 3'', his son). Rick has a constant companion throughout this freak show of demented demons: the Terror Mask, an ancient artifact that confers great and terrible powers upon anyone who wears it--and seems to have a [[ArtifactOfDoom mind of]] [[SuperpoweredEvilSide its own]].

** In the first game, [[spoiler:Rick is unable to save Jennifer as she turns into a monster and has to be killed. After killing Hell Chaos (implied to be the remnants of Dr. West), the Terror Mask breaks and Rick escapes the burning mansion alone with the mask rebuilding itself behind him and laughing evilly.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Thanks to a StableTimeLoop, [[spoiler: Rick was the reason Dr. West made a deal with The Corrupted in the first place.]]

* YourCheatingHeart: In the remake, [[spoiler:the Terror Mask reveals that Rick once got drunk at a party and slept with one of his college classmates.]] It uses this to advance the possibility that anyone can have an out-of-character moment, even the Mask itself.

* ArcWords: "She doesn't have to die." in the reboot. Said only twice, but in a very significant context. To motivate him to wear the Terror Mask, it tells Rick those words, and [[spoiler:when Dr. West monologues in a later level, he says that he heard a voice tell him that sentence, motivating him to try and bring his wife Lenora back to life, with the Terror Mask's voice slightly overlapping his when he says those words.]]

** [[spoiler:In the first game, Rick is unable to save Jennifer as she turns into a monster and has to be killed. After killing Hell Chaos (implied to be the remnants of Dr. West), the Terror Mask breaks and Rick escapes the burning mansion alone with the mask rebuilding itself behind him and laughing evilly.]]
** [[spoiler:In the third game: If Rick fails to save either his son, Jennifer or both, with the Terror Mask promising that it will come back to haunt him.]]
-->'''Rick:''' "[[TearJerker Alone. All alone...]]"

* AlienBlood: ''Demon'' blood in this case -- while plain ol' red is pretty prevalent as well, quite a few of the enemies have blood of various other colors. Strangely enough, it seems that backgrounds in all three games are allowed to be as red as possible, but blood from enemies has to be another color if it's freshly spilled (such as a low-level mook in part 3 with bloody red stumps where its head and hands should be, but still bleeds green). Even then, it's not a strictly enforced rule, as a boss in part 2 explodes into a crimson spray that even runs down the screen.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: The original trilogy. Rick went through utter hell in his life via wandering through an abomination-filled haunted house, being forced to kill his girlfriend, [[ToHellAndBack went to literal Hell to save his girlfriend's soul from demons]], racing against time when said demons and their leader invade his new home and family and prevent them from being killed or turned into mindless beast, and [[spoiler:wreck his own mask for manipulating him so it could take over the world.]] By the end of it, [[spoiler:Rick is able to resume his newly built family in peace, with no more forces of evil attempting to ruin both the world and his personal life.]]

* GainaxEnding: In ''Wanpaku Graffiti''.

** The third game taking a GenreShift to more of a brawler, however, came with the difficulty of getting the good ending. Not only was pretty much every boss fight a DamageSpongeBoss, even if you tapped into the Terror Mask's SuperMode, but the story-imposed TimedMission in almost every stage meant you had to reach the boss ''and'' defeat them under the time limit or else Rick's family would meet a horrible fate in some way or another. And these time limits were ''tight'' to boot, forcing the player to exploit the game mechanics and enemy AI in every way possible.