Splatterhouse 3

About Splatterhouse 3

Splatterhouse 3 (1993) is Namco's gory Genesis beat 'em up in which Rick dons the Terror Mask a third time to save his family from monsters in their mansion, racing timers that change the story.

Splatterhouse 3 in Depth

About five years after Splatterhouse 2, Rick and Jennifer have married and had a son, David, and Rick has made a fortune on Wall Street and bought a mansion in Connecticut, leaving the Terror Mask behind. But the Mask senses an ancient energy and speaks to him again, and Rick must put it on once more to fight the monsters that have invaded his home, beginning with saving Jennifer from an entity known as the Evil One. Unlike the earlier side-scrollers, its six levels, many set in the mansion, are explored non-linearly across rooms, often with backtracking, guided by a map of each level.

Each level has a time limit; running out does not end the game but changes the plot, leading to four possible endings. In the second level, for example, Rick must defeat a boreworm planted inside Jennifer before time runs out, or she is devoured from within. New is a Power Meter filled by Eldritch Orbs found in levels or dropped by enemies, which lets Rick transform into a hulking, more monstrous form with the Mask fused to his head, far stronger and able to launch pieces of flesh from his chest at nearby monsters, and to fling weapons rather than swing them. Weapons such as baseball bats and cleavers, extra lives, health items and passwords also appear.

Making Splatterhouse 3

Now Production developed it and Namco published it for the Sega Genesis in 1993 as the sequel to Splatterhouse 2, its graphic violence and gore earning an MA-13 rating in North America. Fangoria's Russ Ceccola wrote that the series' appeal was its bloody violence, "explicit and gross, but in an over-the-top way", and that the new map, time limits and multiple endings still boiled down to "cartoon violence taken to the extreme". AllGame's Geoffrey Douglas Smith called it "a fun and gory ride with plenty of enemies to pummel and a solid game engine".