Sweet Home (computer game)
| Sweet home | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Original title | ス ウ ィ ー ト ホ ー ム | ||
| transcription | Suwīto hōmu | ||
| Studio |
 Capcom
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| Publisher |
Capcom
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
December 15, 1989 |
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| platform | Famicom | ||
| genre | RPG / survival horror | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Famicom controller | ||
| medium | 320 kilobit plug-in module | ||
| language | Japanese , English | ||
| Age rating |
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Sweet Home ( Japanese スウィートホーム ; Suwito Homu to German symbolically "Home Sweet Home") is a Japanese computer role-playing game of survival horror - genres that for the Famicom - console developed and on 15 December 1989 Capcom was released in Japan . Although a version has now been translated into English by fans , the game has never been released outside of Japan. The producer was Juzo Itami , the music was composed by Junko Tamiya . Sweet Home is considered the forerunner of the later, well-known Resident Evil game series .
Game content
As mentioned at the beginning, the game can be assigned to survival horror . The player has the task of getting all of his pieces safely through the game if possible.
graphic
Is played on the Famicom - console consuming relatively in a colored 8-bit graphics. For a role-playing game of the time, Sweet Home was designed with an unusually large amount of detail .
Features
As a typical role-playing game, Sweet Home offers several game characters , which the player can rename and which have individual properties. For example, the photographer Ryō can take pictures of the frescoes and enemies (whereby the light from the flashlight cube harms various enemies), while the nurse Akiko can heal combatants with the help of her first aid kit.
Sweet Home already contains game elements that became famous in Resident Evil . For example the “door sequence” in which a door or a garden gate is opened from the first person perspective . These cutscenes are meant to add tension. The various dungeons, on the other hand, are explored from a bird's eye view . The feature of numerous riddles and puzzles whose solutions advance the player is also already available . For example, certain frescoes have to be cleaned of dirty varnish using a vacuum cleaner so that your painting and the notes hidden in it become visible.
A special feature of Sweet Home are the numerous traps that are hidden in the house. These include quicksand , collapsing floors, and poltergeist activities such as flying furniture. Open floor openings have to be bridged by items such as wooden panels and in some rooms it is pitch black, which makes orientation difficult. In addition, ghosts and demons cross various rooms and carry off individual crew members to distant areas of the house, so that the player has to laboriously bring his characters back together.
Combat system
The fights are fought from a first-person perspective and are turn-based. Knives, swords and axes are available as weapons . During the fight a double menu window appears, which shows the character names and health points ( HP ) on the right side and the options "Attack", "Prayer" (comparable to the magic function of other role-playing games), "Tool", "Shout" on the left. (you can call the rest of the team for support) and offer to "escape". Only when an action has been selected for all combatants will they be carried out one by one in the same order. If a character dies, he cannot be revived. The overall battle system of Sweet Home is very similar to that of Dragon Quest .
action
A famous late artist named Ichirō Mamiya is said to have hidden several priceless frescoes in his villa . An adventure team , consisting of the five treasure hunters Kazuo, Taro, Akiko, Asuka and Emi, wants to find these paintings, publish them and thereby cover themselves with some fame. However, when the team enters the mansion, the ghost of a woman surprises, threatens, and forcibly detains them. The shocked adventurers eventually split into two groups to explore the mansion and find an exit. The team soon discovered that the building was teeming with various monsters (such as zombies and Hitodamas ) and that the villa was in danger of collapsing. During the investigations, the adventurers gradually reveal the secrets about the property and the ghost woman. It turns out to be the soul of the late wife, Lady Mamiya . She had committed suicide 30 years ago after her young son fell into the stove and burned to death. Apparently Ichirou was to blame for this (he had not checked the stove before lighting it). Before her death, Lady Mamiya had gone mad and kidnapped and killed many children so that her little son would "no longer be alone". Now her confused and angry spirit is trapped in the house. The team struggles through to Mamiya and faces her in the final fight.
Receptions
Similarities Between Game and Film
Almost simultaneously, the Game Release 1989, the same horror film "appeared Sweet Home " by Kiyoshi Kurosawa . To this day, there has been disagreement about which came out first, as only the year of release, not the exact day and / or month, was given for the film. In addition, the commercials were composed of screenshots from the game and film, so that both products practically advertised each other. In terms of the participating protagonists and the storyline, the game and the film are very similar, the only difference being that Lady Mamiya's son died in the film due to the negligence of his mother, while in the game it was the father's fault. In addition, most of the crew members die in the course of the film, but in the game all participants can oppose the spirit of Lady Mamiya.
Similarities to Resident Evil
As already mentioned, Sweet Home is the spiritual and in-game precursor to Resident Evil . In fact, the latter was intended as a direct sequel to Sweet Home . But then Capcom lost the licensing rights to Sweet Home . Therefore Resident Evil was developed as an independent game series and published in Japan under the name Biohazard . The fact that Sweet Home and Resident Evil come from the same pen can be seen in Resident Evil I. by the numerous game elements that have been adopted almost 1: 1 from Sweet Home . As mentioned before, one of the most famous features in Resident Evil and Sweet Home is the so-called "door sequence". Another adaptation is the beginning of the game: As in “Sweet Home”, the player also sees in Resident Evil I how the protagonists have to cross a gloomy forest to get to a mansion as a setting. And in both computer games, the mansion is populated by vicious creatures . Also noteworthy are the similarities with regard to item management : as in Sweet Home , the player in Resident Evil has to change his equipment again and again because his inventory is limited. Last but not least, the feature of darkened rooms should be mentioned, which also occurs in Resident Evil . The player must first turn on the lights or light candles in order to move around accurately and avoid possible traps or monsters.
Soundtracks to the game
As is common in Japanese gaming culture, a soundtrack album was released for Sweet Home in 1989. The arrangement contained on it comes from the music producer Yōko Shimomura, who is very well known in Japan . This has also been used for other games, such as Street Fighter II . and Captain Commando , music tracks and albums. The individual soundtracks in the game itself come from Junkō Tamiya .
Awards
Since Sweet Home was never officially marketed outside of Japan, there are next to no awards or accolades. However, the game was voted into the list of the 11 best survival horror video games by UGO Networks .
literature
- Bernard Perron, Clive Barker: Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 0-7864-4197-6 , pages 35 & 58.
- Jay McRoy: Japanese Horror Cinema . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (UK) 2005, ISBN 0-7486-1994-1 , page 3.
- Colette Balmain: Introduction to Japanese Horror Film . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh (UK) 2008, ISBN 0-7486-2475-9 .
Web links
- Fan site with background information on the game (English)
- Sweet Home on GameFAQs (English)
- Sweet Home on MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Colette Balmain: Introduction to Japanese Horror Film . Pp. 113, 128 & 133.
- ↑ Jay McRoy: Japanese Horror Cinema . P. 3.
- ↑ Marty Sliva: Before Resident Evil, there was Sweet Home. Article on 1up.com (English); accessed on October 3, 2012.
- ↑ Yoko Shimomura on vgmdb.net (Japanese, English); accessed on October 3, 2012.
- ↑ Sweet Home - Placement on UGO Networks ( Memento of the original from July 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English); accessed on October 4, 2012.
