The Mansion of Hidden Souls is an FMV adventure
game launched for the Sega Saturn in 1994
in Japan and 1995 in the west. This is one
of the most obscure Saturn games launched
in the west. How obscure is it? It’s so
obscure there isn’t even a Wikipedia page
for it.
Anyway, The Mansion of Hidden souls is a sequel
to Mansion of Hidden Souls for the Sega CD.
Yes, this is a sequel, not a remake as most
seem to believe, but then again, who could
blame them? Both games play very similarly
and take place in the same location, even
the names are almost identical, the only difference
being the sequel is called THE Mansion of
Hidden Souls whereas the first game is titled
Mansion of Hidden Souls. Yeah, that's not confusing at all Sega. Hell, even the Wikipedia article for the Sega
CD game, which yes, that version did at least
warrant an article, also wrongfully stated
that the Saturn version is a remake. There’s
also another spiritual sequel of sorts, called
Lunacy in the US and Toriko in Europe, but
that’s a review for another video.
Truth be told, I don’t really know
too much about the first game as I don’t
own a Mega CD, though I wish I did, I mean
hell, I already own several games for it,
I’m just missing the console. But if you want to know more about the first game,
you should definitely check out Jenovi’s
video on it. He was even kind enough to announce
this review ahead of time.
(Seriously folks, you should definitely subscribe to Jenovi)
Huh… whoops! Sorry about that Jenovi.
Anyway, The Mansion of Hidden Souls comes
in one of those early PAL boxes for the Saturn,
so finding a box that hasn’t been ripped
or tattered can be a bit difficult. I can’t
really say I like the boxart, it’s just
a weird mish-mash or mid 90s CGI. Hell, the
character they show on top half isn’t even
the main character, he barely plays a part
in the game.
Inside, we find a manual which provides some
backstory, explains the control scheme and
serves as an integral part to the game’s
Tarot card mechanic, more on that latter.
Overall, I can’t say I like the box art,
but this is one of those rare instances where
you might actually want the manual with you
as you play the game.
Booting up the game, you’re introduced to
the titular mansion which is inhabited by
several souls who have abandoned humanity
and instead chose to live there transformed
into butterflies and creating their own fantasy
worlds.
However a red moon has appeared and this seem
to be affecting the mansion’s power, so
the elder calls onto to the silent main protagonist,
Jun and the talkative Mike to figure out what
is causing the Moon to become red.
The game plays mostly the same as the original
Mansion of Hidden Souls and the mansion is
more or less unchanged between games. If you’ve
never played the original game, this is an
FMV exploration/adventure game in the same
vein as The 7th Guest, the major difference
here being that there aren’t any puzzles,
so I guess you could say this plays more like
a Visual Novel. Your controls are simple but limited, the game runs completely
on FMV cutscenes, so you navigate the mansion
by choosing a set of pre-defined paths and
as you visit rooms, you’ll speak to its
various residents. And that’s really all
you’ll ever do. You can also pick up and
use objects, but there’s only 4 objects
in the entire game and the manual even tells
you what they are, spoiling what little surprise
or detective work there is.
To say that the game looks rough around the
edges is an understatement, the stiff mid-90s
CGI coupled with the Saturn’s low resolution
and grainy video makes this a weird game to
play through, but it does give it a lo-fi
appeal. In the previous game, you never got
to see the residents’ faces, you only ever
saw them in their butterfly form which added to the story’s mystery.
Here however, you always see the faces of
everyone you speak with and it doesn’t look
good. Cathy for example looks more
like a possessed doll than she does a little
girl. I guess that does at least mean it does
add to the creepy factor, even if it does
seem unintentional in this regard.
Speaking of scares, the game seems to have
been marketed as a horror game, but that really
doesn’t apply here, this is more of a mystery
that you’re out to solve, and while the
mood does get eerie, it never goes beyond
that, for one thing, there’s never any sense
of danger. There’s very few instances where
the player can die and they’re all rather
easy to avoid, if anything, it seems that
the only way to die in this game is if you
do it on purpose and even then you might be
able to.
One neat feature that I did like about the
game is how it simulates the passage of time.
As you speak with the various characters or
perform the few actions you’re allowed to,
the rest of the residents will move to different
locations, gain new dialogs or lock their
rooms.
But because the game encourages exploration
and gives you very little direction, you’re
never really sure of where to go next or who
to speak with, so you’ll invariably end
up missing parts of the story because you
chose to speak with one character instead
of the other, which once again, causes the
time to progress and the dialogs to change.
When speaking with the other butterflies,
you’ll sometimes get asked ‘yes’ or
‘no’ questions. If you’re playing on
easy mode, a Saturn controller prompt will
appear telling you the character is waiting
for an answer. If you play on normal no prompt
will appear and if you don’t answer in time,
the story will progress as if you had said
‘no’.
While these choices will sometimes unlock
different dialog trees, these are mostly inconsequential
and the ending will always be the same no
matter what you choose.
With that said, I did like speaking with most
of the residents and if you make the right
choices, you’ll even be treated to their
backstories, which are all rooted in some
tragedy from their past human lives. These
were all pretty interesting if a bit cliché.
Simply put, they never go into a lot of detail
about them, so I always left feeling a little
shortchanged.
Finally, you have the tarot card mechanic.
Basically, one of the characters will give
you a tarot deck which you can pull at anytime.
This allows you to read the personality of
the room and the person who dwells in it.
The problem is, the game never tells you what
each card actually means, instead, you’ll
have to refer to the manual and read each
of the card’s description there.
Now granted, these aren’t necessary to completing
the game and instead only serve to add a little
more information, but it would have been nice
for the game to let you know the meaning behind
these cards.
And that’s pretty much all you do in The
Mansion of Hidden Souls for the Sega Saturn.
I’d like to say that the game is worth experiencing
at least once, but it really isn’t. I’ve
read that you can complete the Sega CD game
on your first playthrough in under 3 hours,
well I completed the sequel in just over an
hour and a half and there was barely any mystery
to it. The mansion is so small and there are
so few characters in it that it’s easy to
know who you should be suspecting and which
characters are just red herrings.
As if that weren’t enough, towards the end,
the plot seems to lose all control and goes
off on a weird tangent that completely shattered
any lingering interest I might have had in
this game.
The game is also getting kind of pricey on
Ebay, with most copies selling for about 30
Pounds, but it’s really not worth the price.
If anything, I think the game’s main appeal
comes from viewing it as a product of its
time. If you really must play an exclusive
FMV adventure / visual novel on your Saturn,
you might as well try Torico instead.
Hey everyone, thank you for watching st1ka’s
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