October Together Retro: Golden Age of Survival Horror

[pierrot]

I LOVED Fatal Frame II on the Wii. Seriously, everyone needs to meet Chitose at some point. She is great. Also the lady who throws herself down the tower, and the banshee in the river. Great times. Some of those hallways make the RE1 dog hallway look like Pee-wee's place. The last part of the game was a little terrifying, too.

*Creepy, not scary. It's extremely rare for a horror game to actually "scare" me, which is a problem I have with this gaming genre.

I find this to generally be a distinguishing characteristic between Eastern and Western horror in general. I tend to not care for a lot of Western horror, because it often focuses more on gore, and shock. I don't find The Ring (JP) to be scary at all, but it's consistently a little chilling. Ju-on 2, on the other hand strikes a pretty nice balance, for me, and can be scary, while also being supremely freaky. In terms of video games, Fatal Frame II hit that Ju-on 2, sweet spot, for me.

[Exhuminator]

Eastern and Western horror in general. I tend to not care for a lot of Western horror

From an artistic or intrigue point of view, agreed. I'll take yōkai or yūrei themed stuff any day over boring ass zombies and western monster tropes. So in that regard I find Fatal Frame interesting.

[Xeogred]

oh, I forgot to mention that I am NOT okay with this change of dialogue:

Hehe, I mean they still kept the joke in.

As you know, I got the platinum for this earlier this year, yet there's still plenty of secret things to discover like alternate cutscenes and situations. I used to forget that Barry saves Jill for a free shotgun.

Ever seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8_oDxQ9lzo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi70UIFJthM

Endless replay value.
No flaw exists in REmake.
It is perfect.

[noiseredux]

Amazing! Never knew that existed.

[pierrot]

Kind of a random thought, but I was looking at the list of games in the OP: Is Grabbed by the Ghoulies a survival horror game?


I'm going to be trying to finish Emerald Dragon before I start on survival horror, but I have a number of games lined up that I'm going to hopefully get through at least a few of. They are:

Deep Fear
Enemy Zero
D2
Blue Stinger
Dino Crisis
Siren

I also have Clock Tower: Ghost Head, and Clock Tower 3, but I don't know if I really want to play them out of sequence with the first two. Probably doesn't matter since it seems like there's not much of a connection between those ones, and the first two games, though. I'll likely tackle these games in the same order they're listed. I'm feeling charitable toward Deep Fear recently, for some reason. Maybe, just maybe it's not quite as bad as I remember it being. We'll see.

It's not exactly relevant to this thread, but I might also try to squeeze in Kagero, and Kagero II for this month, but that just might be my wishful thinking.

[Ack]

There are several games in the list I put up that I consider "kid-friendly" horror games. Grabbed by the Ghoulies is one of those, though it's perhaps one to be wary of; Game Informer once called it one of the worst horror games ever made.

[alienjesus]

I've played Grabbed By The Ghoulies. It's very average, but it looks lovely.

I would struggle to class is as survival horror though. It's a beat 'em up.

[pierrot]

Ah, I see. What were the other ones you were including for a more all-audiences appeal, Ack?

[alienjesus]

I think Luigi's Mansion has a lot of things in common with Grabbed By the Ghoulies in being a kid-friendly 'horror' game set in a big mansion, but I also think it has a stronger argument for beign inspired by the likes of Resident Evil with it's mild puzzle elements and the need to find keys to unlock new rooms. It'd be a good choice for people who want a spooky but kid friendly game to play.

[Ack]

Ah, I see. What were the other ones you were including for a more all-audiences appeal, Ack?

Ghost Vibration and The Haunted Mansion are two others, while Ghosthunter is an action game that borrows heavily from survival horror games and in some places was just flat out creepier. Luigi's Mansion would be another good choice that I didn't think of when putting together the list.

Basically, I know there are some folks on here who are wary of the violence and gore, and I also know some of the folks on here have kids. I wanted to be able to provide some options to help introduce them to horror gaming for their children or for those who can't handle even the big names like Resident Evil.

Shoot, I'm even in the midst of playing The Haunted Mansion right now, and while in some ways it's a poor man's Luigi's Mansion, there are elements of it that I appreciate and think are well done in a horror game. There are a lot of puzzles, some of which include elements of danger and quick thinking which both surprise and entertain me. I'll be writing more about it soon.