The Mansion of Hidden Souls (Saturn) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Sega's 1995 horror-themed interactive movie/FMV adventure game for the Sega Saturn, The Mansion of Hidden Souls.

This video presents the game in its original aspect ratio. On the Sega Saturn it ran in a 16:9 pillarboxed frame: I merely cropped the black borders.

Because the game shares a nearly identical name with its Sega CD predecessor, Mansion of Hidden Souls (note the lack of the word "the") many people assume this game as an upgraded "remaster." Let me assure you: the Saturn one is most certainly not the same game. It shares the same basic setting - the titular mansion - but a number of things have changed.

Instead of a brother trying to save his sister-turned-butterfly, The Mansion of Hidden Souls now places us in control of someone who has been summoned to the mansion by the elder on the night of a blood-red full moon. You have the special ability to see the butterfly souls of those that inhabit the mansion, and these souls thrive off of the mansion's apparently willingness to grant all of their wishes. The elder fears that the moon is an omen, though, and that something sinister lurks behind the mansion's intentions. You've got to figure things out and stop the mansion, and its inhabitants, from disappearing, because if mansion is destroyed, the hopes and dreams of mankind will be destroyed with it.

Yeah, it's a bit convoluted and odd.

The game play mechanics are identical to the Sega CD's Mansion of Hidden Souls - you move around pre-rendered FMV paths, exploring the mansion, picking up items, and speaking with its inhabitants. Instead of speaking with butterflies the entire time, there are now "people" to be found - or rather, their "souls" show themselves as disembodied heads that float about when they speak to you. I certainly understood why they'd try to make the mansion feel a bit more "occupied" than it previously did, but they're all pretty ugly and goofy-looking, often making them difficult to take seriously.

The puzzles still revolve around object-manipulation and visiting areas at the right time, so if you appreciated the laid-back pacing and relative lack of challenge of the original, you'll find more to like in this adventure. There's a weird tarot card mechanic included this time, but I never really found a use for it outside of being able to see a new card when you go to a new room.

The graphics and sound have seen a MASSIVE upgrade - this is a true generational leap over what was possible on the Sega CD. The video is now higher resolution and running at a far higher color depth - compression artifacts are still visible, but everything is much clearer and easier to make out. It also runs at a significantly higher framerate, so you aren't as likely to feel nauseated by the choppy movement that plagued the visuals in the (albeit impressive for the time) 1993 Sega CD original.

The sound fares pretty well, too. The effects and voices are all clearer, and the music suits it quite well. Those voice actors do bring it down a bit though. Oddly enough, the quality of the acting seems to have gone in this sequel - aren't things supposed to improve?

Despite the checklist of improvements made, though, I can't say that I prefer this game over Mansion of Hidden Souls. This one lacks something... soul, maybe. The story's premise holds a lot more potential than the original tale of brother and sister torn asunder, but its execution lacks any of the poignancy or gravitas that carried the tone of the original. Things definitely pick up in the latter-half of the game (and they veer waaaaaay off into "what were they smoking?" territory - seriously, that ending defies description) - well, at least until it becomes a Sailor Moon episode in the final "encounter" (which I loved for how utterly bizarre it was), but the game has a hard time finding its feet initially, and never quite hits the heights that the earlier game did.

Regardless, if you liked the original, you'll probably like this one too. The narrative isn't as successful, but if you like the style of play, you probably can overlook that for the huge improvements made to the presentation.

I would've loved to have seen a "remaster" of the Sega CD game released on the Saturn with the updated graphics (hopefully without those floating heads... so corny). But then, I also would have loved to have seen a sequel to this one - to somehow resolve the mystery of the "mansion." Who knows? It might happen one day.

"A Mansion of Hidden Souls," anybody?
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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