Sweet Home (video game)



In 1989, Capcom published Sweet Home; based on the movie of the same name, this RPG with Adventure Game elements arguably set the stage for the Survival Horror genre. The game often receives credit as one of the inspiring forces behind the original Resident Evil -- the game that ended up coining the genre's name -- and potentially inspiring its English title (at one point in Sweet Home, a character refers to the Mamiya mansion as a "house of residing evil").

The story of the game mirrors the film's: a five-person crew ventures into the long-abandoned mansion of famed artist Mamiya Ichirou, intent on filming a documentary while trying to restore Mamiya's works. Upon entering the mansion, the group discovers that the ghost of Lady Mamiya, Ichirou's wife, haunts the place…and she does not intend to let the intruders escape with their lives. The crew must try to find a way out of the haunted mansion alive -- and lay Lady Mamiya to rest once and for all in the process.

While the game never saw release outside of Japan, you'll have no trouble tracking down its excellent Fan Translation on the Internet.

The Happy Video Game Nerd reviewed this game; you can watch his review on RetrowareTV.

Sweet Home contains examples of the following tropes:

 * Accidental Murder: Lady Mamiya accidentally.
 * Adaptation Distillation: The game arguably does a better job of conveying a horror atmosphere (what with the constant tension of not letting your characters die and the emphasis on teamwork to survive) than the movie it is based on. The film fleshes out the background for the actual characters, however.
 * All There in the Manual: It seems weird that Asuka brought a vacuum cleaner to a haunted house -- however, the film shows that she's a professional art restorer, and the vacuum is a precision item for cleaning neglected works of art.
 * And Then John Was a Zombie:
 * Anyone Can Die
 * Apocalyptic Log: The frescoes.
 * Big Boo's Haunt: The mansion.
 * Bittersweet Ending: The various endings obtained if anyone in your party died.
 * Book Ends: If you saw the film first, you will know that
 * Boss Banter: The heroes and Lady Mamiya trade quips between hitting each other and Mamiya's banter is actually vital to winning the battle.
 * Death Trap: Several, most of which appear as Random Encounters in appropriate areas that can take away HP if not dodged correctly. A couple are automatically triggered at certain points, however, and can be Instant Death Traps.
 * Door to Before
 * Doppelganger:
 * Driven to Suicide:
 * Dronejam: You can't stand on the same square as another player character unless you're forced to. Despite this, you can walk right through Yamamura. This is invoked with mice and cats in the room before the Jade Ring.
 * Everybody Lives: In the game, this is the best ending.
 * Falling Chandelier of Doom: Akiko is almost crushed by one when she sets out to rescue Emi.
 * Family-Unfriendly Death: See Really Dead Montage Cutscene below.
 * In perhaps the most infamous scene in the game and the movie,
 * Even though it happened before the events of the game/movie even take place,
 * Final Death: Any character that dies is dead for good. There's no way to revive a character who's been killed.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero: Kazuo - The leader of the crew of five who are creating his documentary. Has the highest HP in the game and good defense, and uses the Lighter, which deals fire damage in battle and burns flammable objects while exploring.
 * The Lancer: Asuka - An art restorer/reporter. Has low stats in battle and uses the Vacuum, which cleans dirty frescos and removes glass-shards on the floor while exploring. Serves The Lancer role more obviously in the movie, being uncooperative with the group at first.
 * The Medic/The Smart Girl: Akiko - A nurse. Is the weakest character in battle, and uses a Medkit, which cures any bad status aliments.
 * The Big Guy: Taguchi/Taro - The cameraman filming the documentary. Has the highest Defense in the game and good HP, and uses the Camera, which damages bats and ghosts in battle and reveals hints from frescoes while exploring.
 * The Chick: Emi - Kazuo's daughter. Is the fastest character in battle, uses the Key to open locked doors while exploring. However, she is a bit of a Tomboy which shows when she is the only female character able to equip axes.
 * Sixth Ranger:
 * Face Revealing Turn: Done by certain enemies who turn out to be Two-Faced monsters.
 * Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted, unlike in the movie.
 * For Massive Damage: Many enemies take more damage if attacked with specific weapons or objects. While some combinations have a logic (like a camera flash on bats or ghosts and a mallet that shatters evil mirrors) some others are pretty obscure, like using a small lighter on hordes of bloodthirsty worms.
 * Half the Man He Used To Be: The "Zombie" enemy, as well as Kazuo and Taguchi's death scenes.
 * Haunted House
 * Haunted House Historian
 * Helpful Mook: Some enemies in the overworld will not attack you and will give you information.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: does this to
 * Homicide Machines: The incinerator.
 * I Drank What?: The fountain of blood. Nothing's stopping you from drinking it again and again, though.
 * Indy Escape: An Instant Death Trap found early on, complicated by how
 * Infant Immortality:
 * Insurmountable Waist High Fence: Because heaven forbid your characters step over the broken glass on the floor or those freaky looking shadows on the ground, despite easily treading into harmful thorns, rushing water, blood/slime, squirming corpses, or even raging fires.
 * Inventory Management Puzzle: Each character can only hold two items plus a weapon. Dropped items stay where they are forever, to be picked back up as needed, but the tricky part is remembering where you left everything.
 * Each character also has a unique item (see Five-Man Band) that can't be given to anyone else. Replacements/counterparts for these items can be found so that the player won't be completely stuck after losing somebody, but these still take up one of your two item slots.
 * Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: To understand exactly what happened to Ichirou, you have to piece together the various bits of story from the frescos. Do so at your own risk.
 * Let's Play: Deceased Crab has one, which begins here.
 * Lock and Key Puzzle: Both figurative and literal ones. The game did help inspire Resident Evil.
 * Malevolent Architecture: Invoked by Lady Mamiya, as she's the one haunting the mansion, except for one specific part of the mansion:
 * Mama Bear: Both the game and movie show just how screwed up this trope can be.
 * Mook Bouncer: Some areas have wispy blue ghosts flying past you or chasing after you. If they touch an ally, they get taken to another area of the mansion.
 * Some random encounters have an attack that is basically an even more annoying version of this, where the destination is not always the same.
 * Mr. Exposition:.
 * Multiple Endings: There's five endings to the game, and each one is dependent on the number of party members still alive at the end of the game.
 * One-Winged Angel: Lady Mamiya. And it's a rather horrific one too.
 * Plotline Death:
 * Posthumous Character: Kenji, Etsuko, Shogo, Takashi, and all of the undead monsters.
 * Puzzle Boss:
 * Quicksand Sucks: Several sand traps are found in . Anyone who falls in can be rescued with rope, but pulling off a successful rescue takes timing.
 * Really Dead Montage Cutscene: If one of the characters die, a short cutscene plays that drives home their death. Akiko, Asuka and Emi collapse into a spreading pool of blood, while Kazuo and Taguchi become Half The Man They Used To Be.
 * Say My Name
 * Sealed Evil in a Can:
 * Spared by the Adaptation: all die in the movie, but can survive the game depending on how you play.
 * Trope Maker: The game is arguably the precursor to the Survival Horror genre that was popularized/codified almost a decade later by Resident Evil.
 * True Companions: Invoked in the game. You will have to learn to depend on your other characters and not to leave them for dead.
 * Universal Antidote: Akiko's Medkit can cure all of the various Standard Status Effects. This makes some sense with things like poison, but what kind of medkit includes everything needed to dispell curses?
 * The Pills, which are a replacement for the Medkit if Akiko dies, also count.
 * Unwinnable: You can't beat the entire game with only one character alive, although it is possible to defeat the final boss if you're knocked down to one during the final battle.
 * In places where you need to use Wood twice to get to: if you used up all your Wood/didn't know the blue wood is long-lasting/didn't know you can pick wood back up...
 * Also, getting certain characters killed and not having their replacement item acessible can trap you in certain situations. The most obvious example would be by losing emi in the early parts of the game.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:.
 * Was Once a Man: All of the undead enemies are the remains of people who didn't survive their trip to the mansion.