Splatterhouse 3 Details, Little tidbits

Yep, I still have to take the exact numbers, but I think it might in fact be under 3.5 minutes for stage 1. But if you finish the stage THAT fast, not only does the boss not kill Jennifer, but she doesn't even get infected by the Boreworm. She tells you David's on the 3rd floor and then escapes...and since Rick has no need to kill the Giant Boreworm, stage 2 is completely skipped.

You end up in a different version of 'Stage X' which is a bit mazelike, but has more powerups (and enemies) than the normal Stage X, as well, before Rick heads to Stage 3.

Btw, in relation to the clone Rick room from SH3, here's Stage 6 in SH2 which has been mentionned. Mighty familiar:

(Posted Image)

Yes, that's a very similar background design...I always thought the SH2 boss WAS the Evil One, actually...as the 'giant screaming head out of chest' move the SH3 Evil One uses reminds me of the mass o' heads at the end of SH2. ^^

V

Glad to see I'm not alone in that line of thought. The first time I saw the Evil One in SH3, I thought "hey, he looks like a smaller version of the giant crystal guy that chases you in SH2."

IT's a red orb (Life / health powerup)

By saying its maze-like, do you mean that the special Stage X is more than one screen?

How big does the map show it to be, compared to other levels?

Is the music any different from regular Stage X?

IT's a red orb (Life / health powerup)

So it is a heart (take a good look at one next time you see one lying on the ground). Thanks!

Yep, it's like a mini-level in itself connected by doors that appear out of the walls (similar to those in Stage 5). It's fairly large, probably 10-ish rooms (most small tho) filled with mostly 'special' enemies...in other words, Red Bloaters, Hellhounds, Boss 1s, Cloaked Wraiths...enemies that are quite a bit more dangerous than what you'd face in Stage 1 or 2 up to this point. Of course, each drops an item and I think you can score 2 or 3 extra lives. ^^ You basically just head towards the bottom-right of the level and eventually you enter a room with a Grey Hellhound. Killing him ends the stage.

The level has no map (just 'Pause' comes up) and the music...hm, I'm not sure of the 'regular' Stage X music offhand, but this one has the 'haunted room' type music you'd hear in the other stages (like the library with the books flying around).

Rob: Actually, I thought the SH3 Evil One boss was a combo of those two 'things' (SH2: the crystal giant chasing in stage 7-2 and the mass o' heads final boss in 8-3), both being the Evil One in a sense. :)

That makes a lot of sense, it does. Too bad we may never know for sure.

Ooh, lots of commentary available here. Lessee...

The abbatoir: Undoubtedly the goriest room in the entire game. BUCKETS of blood. Reminds me of when you blow up the fleshy balloon thingie at the end of stage 3 in SH2. The dropping corpse is a nice touch too. It was cool enough to show to my mom, who also found it amusing. :lol

The painting: I uncovered that one a long while ago. Still cool today.

The impaled corpse: Heh, poor fella. Though, maybe I did something wrong, but I didn't manage to get a life-up from behind him. Perhaps I was just grabbin' in the wrong places... (no, no innuendo this time around :p )

Rick phantasm: Heh, amusing. I would also believe it to be a warning from the Evil One. It would have been cool to fight it, though. Y'know, just as a little throwback to the mirror room from SH1.

REALLY FUCKING SCARY JENNIFER: *shudder* That first pic is inhuman, and the second one... it's like she's screaming right at you. Much scarier than when the bogus Jenny mutated in SH1. Still the scariest damn thing in the series to me.

... which I should also show to me mum. Aye. :evil

Stage 5 architecture: I wouldn't not believe that the backgrounds were intended to be similar. The Evil One just has a thing for skulls, apparently.

Short Stage X: The music that plays in the abriged stage X is, in my opinion, the most eerie and disturbing tune in the game... namely, the one that plays in the cutscenes of stage 2. And... the one that plays with the aforementioned (all in caps) REALLY FUCKING SCARY JENNIFER. *jeeblies*

Large Stage X: I actually got to there once, by taking the shortest path mentioned in the FAQ over at GameFAQs (and linked to on West Mansion). It involves using yellow warp doors to get there, if I recall accurately. Also, it's probably a good idea to set the difficulty to "Easy" so the monsters fall faster, if you just want to check out the big Stage X for curiosity's sake. It does feature monsters way ahead of the dfficulty (Nikki mentioned the big ones, particularly those GODDAMN cloaked bastards... ooh, those guys suck). Pretty neat.

And one more thing... it's not the most interesting room in the game, but I was wondering what's with the 'garage' in stage 1. It's detatched from the rest of the map, and is reached by taking (I think) either one of the yellow doors. What's with the big truck? Did Rick used to drive that thing around in his spare time?

I'm gonna go get a picture of it. It's been a while since I've been there, hopefully I can remember how to get there.

And here it is. First, the location:

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You just get to it by taking the yellow door immediately to the left of it. What's in there? A couple monsters and an extra life.

(Posted Image)

The question about the truck is good, but what I want to know, is, how does Rick and Jennifer afford to live in a 3-story mansion - especially when raising David as their son?

The truck in the garage and the size of the house make me wonder what lifestyle Rick and his wife live (Weren't they senior students studying under Doctor West in the Story to SH1?).

Well well, if we're gonna talk about the more in depth aspects of the goings on in SH3 what better place than here?

My theory is, and has been for a while: I like to believe either two things, first of all: that one, either Rick was already buff like you see him in the games ( as the game only give you info that that mask gives rick its ' power ' not muscles ) and he is as he is, OR, two) THe mask gave rick these rippling muscles and after the first run in with the mask, Rick kept the muscles after the mask went away.

Why am I talking about this then? Because I'd like to believe that, even though he was a ghost-hunter in training, he had other hobbies, and perhaps one of them was either fixing up old vehicles...or...as the picture suggests....like to, err...carrly lots of barrels filled with blood around in an old pick up.

So, if I have my facts correct, the game ( manual rather ) says he takes a swing at Wall Street, which could explain why he owns such a huge mansion, not unlike the West Mansion....And can also lead us to one sound conclusion....

The evil one fucking hates Connecticut

A. You are correct about Wall Street:

B. :rollin

A. You are correct about Wall Street:

B. :rollin

which manual?

The U.S. Splatterhouse 3 manual. The one I just quoted, and you just requoted.

I had to idea the storyline behind the Splatterhouse series was so intricate... very interesting... possibly allegorical as well... I like it... ;)

Myself, I don't know myself, but my own idea was that Rick's mansion (very large and new from his success on Wall Street) merged with the West Mansion, making it gigantic. Simplistic, but I thought that up on the spur of the moment about three days ago.

Yeah the story behind SH, especially through the manuals in 2 and 3 ( 2 being a letter from a friend to Dr.West about finding the mask or something, and all its eerie properties and the evil it attracted ) has that certain quality...

Its like a quality where, they explain enough to get you pumped, but tie it off so that you have to start drawing your own plot...Thats why, in stage 3 on SH3, when it says " david has escaped from the mosters into his room " and then " a monster's had appears behind david as he plays " I was able to draw the conclusion....David has mild autism and extreme ADD...so much so, that he fuckin FORGETS he is being chased by the legions of the EVIL ONE, and starts playin with some toys in his room....Kids... /sigh Gimme so fuckin coffee flavored coffee, and pull up those damn pants!

:rollin

:lol

Yes, I'm glad we can see similar (unintentional?) humor in the games!

:rollin

Leary reference! Nate wins the prize! :rollin :rollin :rollin

... lamentably, I have no prize to spare. Maybe except for a flying knife to the face, but who wants that? :p

Man, I never figured this topic would evolve into such detail! Usually, I tend not to give too much of a damn over video game plots, but the atmosphere makes up a large part of Splatterhouse's unique flavor, and the background behind Rick's tragic nightmares are rather fascinating. It's worthy enough to be made into a highly stylized B-movie!

The ghost piano girl and the bloody slashed portrait were the only two I saw.

There's actually two different multi-room Strange Zones-one for beating level one with 3:00 or more left on the timer (this one has brown cavern walls and 9 rooms-3 rows of three that connect at the halfpoints) and another for beating level two with 3:00 or more left on the timer (also 9 rooms, 3 rows of three with a slightly different layout-black cavern walls this time). Obviously, it's impossible to get both in the same game (since if you get level one, Jennifer escapes from the mansion, doesn't get infected by the Boreworm, and you bypass level two). 3:00 left on the timer or more on level one is also the cutoff point for Jennifer escaping the mansion and bypassing level 2.

It's also impossible to get to the Strange Zone after level two if you let Jennifer die in level one, no matter how fast you clear it (and you also get the cool cutscene during the level where the Evil One taunts Rick about letting her die).

Also, in my copy, the 'impaled corpse' in the spike room doesn't have a heart powerup. I'm playing the actual cart and have tried it on all four difficulty levels, and it never shows. Maybe it only shows up on the emulation version?

Are you playing the US or Japanese version?

Regarding Stage X: I may have to pull my copy out and check, but I think I have a slip of paper in there with passwords for more than just the two known Stage Xs. IIRC, way back when I had access to a Game Genie for a brief time and used it to (somehow) find the different Stage Xs.

Are you playing the US or Japanese version?

Regarding Stage X: I may have to pull my copy out and check, but I think I have a slip of paper in there with passwords for more than just the two known Stage Xs. IIRC, way back when I had access to a Game Genie for a brief time and used it to (somehow) find the different Stage Xs.

Right now, I'm playing the US version (until my wife ships my J-version).

I believe altogether there are six different Strange Zones. There are the two multi room ones and the four single room ones-one each preceding levels two through five. The single room ones all use the same room, but with different enemies. The first three use different colored 'Fat Dead Men', and the last one 'Hell Hounds'.

I've still got a password tree I created for 3 that covers all the different branching storylines along with the different levels of Strange Zones for each. It seems that the only levels you can get the 'big' Strange Zones are preceding two and three. Having over three minutes left on the timer in subsequent rounds only gets you the regular Strange Zone.

After all this time, new hidden details have surfaced. Albert Sautter clued me in to the origin of the bizarre painting on the first floor - not the one that gets slashed, the other one. I also stumbled across another weird room while getting a map screenshot for the painting room.

Check 'em out!

I always felt that if I was able to hack into the hex code of the SH games that I could find some things that were programmed, but not released into the final version of the games. The same goes into finding all of the graphics in the arcade version.

Neat list of things.

I noticed thatpainting back in 1993 when the game was released. I read numerous books about art and immediately recognized that piece :)

Oh, I think I've actually seen that painting before! Being a bit of a Greek/Roman mythology geek, I always found it scary that Cronus/Saturn ate his children... and whaddya know, it's in game form. :ph43r:

In the first room in level 4 (basement) where there are corpses everywhere (third room on the left from the start if I'm not mistaken), there's a power up hidden behind a twiching corpse on the lower right of the screen. Don't remember which kind though.