Many people enjoy Capcom's horror game series, Resident Evil. But few understand that many elements in their games and even the name in its entirety were influenced by a Japanese only Famicom (NES) game they made by the name of Sweet Home. So what is this game, Why was it made, and what was it like? Well hopefully I will answer all of those questions here. Please note that I do not own the pictures used in this article.
In 1989 Sweet Home was released in Japan. It was not only a Famicom(NES) game, but also was a movie by the same name and premise. The spoiler free summary of the story involves a small filming crew going to the mansion of a deceased artist to document and preserve his frescos/murals. But they soon discover that the house is very haunted and unravel the tragic story of the artist's wife and the tragic events that prevented her soul from passing on. The movie had cutting edge visual effects for the time and the game was equally advanced for the time, utilizing all of the space available on a NES cartridge.
The game was a horror RPG. Like Resident Evil, the game had limited healing items that are the only source of healing in the game, involved intense inventory management that required using items to solve puzzles with only 2 item slots per character with 5 characters (10 item slots). In fact the original Resident Evils' slow door creaking open animations that were used for loading screens actually were originally done in Sweet Home just to look cool and build tension. The game also featured 5 characters whom could be individually controlled or grouped up in parties of up to 3 people. Some puzzles involved splitting your groups far apart to solve puzzles (much like how resident evil had 2 characters who's stories constantly separated and then converged).
You may even be surprised to find that the only reason Resident Evil came to be was due to the technical Limitations of the PlayStation 1. Sweet Home pushed the limits of the Famicom (NES) with a large mansion to explore, many enemy models & items, and 5 playable characters that could be individually controlled or grouped up to play in parties of up to 3. Sweet Home was originally planned to get a PS1 remake but all of these features were too much to fit into a graphically stunning 3D modeled PS1 game. So instead of scrapping the project named Resident Evil (named after a diary entry in the Sweet Home game, found on a balcony that described the manor you explore as Residence filled with Evil), they instead used the assets they made so far and explored new script options. Thus Resident Evil as we know it was born.
This origin story was lost to many U.S. fans of the series who's only access to the original game are fan translated versions of the game on emulation sites or unofficial reproduction cartridges. The movie that it released alongside is also only available from fans adding English subtitles to online reproductions. Hopefully this article provided some food for thought, taught you a bit more about the history about horror games.
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