The Mansion of Hidden Souls Review - St1ka's retro corner - Sega saturn

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 retro corner. If you enjoyed the video, be sure to like, comment, subscribe and share this video, all that fun social media stuff. And be sure to hit, that notification bell icon to know when a new video is out. Anyway, I hope you have a great day. Bye!