Original Release: Alibi, 2016, PC
A 2D take on the original Resident Evil that greatly shortens the length but packs it with horny undead
Mansion (PC, Alibi, 2016)
Where to Buy: No longer commercially available, try Internet Archive
Review by: Master-B
While predecessor Parasite in City was more of a free-ranging horny take on survival horror, Mansion specifically riffs on the opening of the original Resident Evil. I say “opening” because believe me you’re not getting anywhere near Disc 2, this is maybe a 30 or 40 minutes of playtime proposition at absolute best.
Our tale begins as the busty Jill stand-in and the stoic Barry stand-in have apparently crashed or something and have to spend the night at a remote mansion. They’re also special agents apparently, and maybe they’re actually investigating the place, but a very choppy machine translation to English makes it hard to fill in the details.
So what happens is Jill Jiggle wanders off to explore the manor a little bit, returns to the lobby to find monsters and Barry missing, and retreats into the depths of the house. Enter the usual Resident Evil pattern of conserving ammo and herbs and finding keys and cranks to open stuff.
Of course the immediately apparent big difference is this all unfolding in 2D now. Combat is simplified as gunplay now hits enemies without having to duck or aim, but you’ll absolutely need those bullets as your backup knife is pretty much useless for anything but landing the final blow on one of the slower and smaller monsters. There is also absolutely no jumping, hiding or avoidance of any kind. There is occasionally a way to go around a problematic monster, but otherwise it’s either kill them off or take advantage of a brief invincibility window after getting grabbed and shaking free to run past them.
And on the subject of getting grabbed, that’s the other big difference you won’t see in a Capcom product. When you get too close to the monsters they grab you and initiate sexo with impressive speed, you have to mongle the arrow keys to escape as your health slowly drains. It’s a tough world for the monsters as they only get “satisfaction” if they finish you off, in the form of a CG to collect in the usual creepy gallery of memories, just pluggin’ away until all your health drains off.
No typewriter ribbons, you can save anytime you want, but it’s still fairly challenging just due to your limited movement options. The “Easy” mode gives you slightly more bullets than you need to just shoot everything in your path, “Normal” mode requires more attempts at stabbing of the weaker enemies to get by, and I didn’t try out the “Hard” mode (unlocked by completing either of the other two fully by rescuing Barry and finding some hidden secret plans before escaping).
It’s an OK core concept and game engine that had potential, it’s just the same story as so many of these hentai games: it feels more like a demo than a finished product. With just three floors of mansion composed of maybe 10 rooms each to Recursive Unlock your way around, it just doesn’t last long. Men of Culture may also be disappointed by censorship and the rather limited sprite animations of the monster get-down. A longer game, more guns and more refinement in the combat (and a better English translation) might have made it a winner, as such it’s more a curiosity piece.
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