Hey! That isn't a house! It's a Facility of the Dead. Get your story straight.

This is the one, that out of all the HOTD games, you really had to play in an arcade to get. The very drab and muted color scheme and the frankly way too fucking long boss fights will just irritate you and make you wonder if this one is any good at all. IT IS!! I swear.

Pumping the shotgun to reload is so much more satisfying than shooting off the screen, and if you have a flair for the dramatic at your local arcade, you can make a real scene out of it too. The civilian rescues being replaced with rescuing your partner is also a great change of pace that makes it feel more like a co-operative experience. If you're playing single player though, it makes it seem like G is just Moe by Helplessness, which is pretty funny.

Enemies animate as beautifully as ever, the gore is chunkier and feels just as visceral, the big zombie in particular having some very satisfying chunks taken out of his belly with shots. The actual monster designs this time are really lacking a lot of pop, as they are mostly just HotD 2's cast again with more brown filters applied. It's a very drab looking game from top to bottom, the plastic gun in your hand being the most colorful thing you're going to see.

As I alluded to earlier, I hate the boss fights in this thing. They are the longest fucking bosses of all time. I swear I remember when I was a kid having to fight the Wheel of Fate for like 10 fucking minutes, and if you lost all your lives, having to fight through the same long-ass game AGAIN just to get another crack at it. All these endurance tests and none of them are even close to exhilarating as the Magician.

Obviously you are not going to see this hanging around an arcade anymore, because you are barely going to SEE an arcade, but I would say this is worth a run with a friend, as there is stuff to like here, I just don't think the series ever reaches the heights of HotD2 ever again from this point on, so the last GOOD House of the Dead game being so visually bland and uninspired is a serious bummer.

It seems like every long lasting RPG series has that one entry with a reputation for being one of the most meticulously crafted mechanical objects but also having some unique failing(s) in its storytelling, whether it's Fire Emblem Engage having maps that will be circlejerked for decades to come at the cost of some of the worst prose and cutscene presentation in an RPG or SMT IV: Apocalypse having a cast of party members so annoying that the option to kill them is a significant portion of its playerbase's unironic reason for loving it. Final Fantasy 5 serves this role for its respective series, as a game with a well crafted job/skill system (Random side note: I think it is extremely funny how the job system being seen as "too complex" is a major reason the game initially wasn't released overseas when in hindsight, it's incredibly tame in comparison to the level of systems bloat in the average 2020s AAA release) but also its goofier story that would seem out of place when put next to the other two SNES Final Fantasy narratives. However, this piece is not going to go over the game as a mechanical object, or really anything about it that's already near universally loved (Gilgamesh my beloved). When it comes to how I use this website, I operate by a rule that I only dedicate extended writing pieces to things that I haven't seen said and the positive qualities of FF5's gameplay have been said countless times by hardcore fans of the series. Rather, this is a piece dedicated to why the story resonated with me in a way that, while nowhere near the heights of what this legendary series has accomplished at its best, is still significantly more than what most would give it credit for.
To me, Final Fantasy V is a game about humanity's mistreatment of the environment. The game's inciting incident is the wind crystal shattering as a result of the inventor Cid creating a device to amplify the elemental crystals' power for the sake of increased productivity. This reason for the crystals' destruction is best exemplified by Karnak, a town whose use of the fire crystal for the sake of unnecessary opulence is visualized through the excess of flames within it, not serving any practical function beyond a flashy showing of the wealth its rulers live in. The destruction of all four of these crystals results in the return of main antagonist Exdeath, whose existence similarly ties into the general idea of the environment being mistreated both in terms of his origins as several evil spirits dumped within a tree as a failed solution to the problems caused by an evil sorcerer's quest for ultimate power and in terms of his sealing in Bartz's world 30 years ago by the Warriors of Dawn being a similar failed attempt at short term solution for a long term problem.
And around halfway through the game, the consequences of this collective disregard for the environment begin to show. Exdeath burns down the Forest of Moore in which he initially hailed from and obtains the crystals of the Warriors of Dawn's world, which are destroyed shortly after, resulting in the two worlds being merged together. This new merged world has a melancholy feel to it, conveyed through the lower energy overworld theme, visual imagery like the once active quicksand surrounding the pyramid dungeon becoming lifeless or the Forest of Moore's desperate attempt to cling to life, and the constant threat of whole stretches of land and their inhabitants being completely consumed by the void, which even causes you to go through the aforementioned pyramid dungeon with only three party members due to the presumed death of the fourth. In a stretch of a game that was no doubt the blueprint for the next entry in the series' biggest twist, it seems like humanity has doomed itself to destruction by its own hand.
However, by the endgame stretch, you should have mastered quite a few jobs on each of your four party members and been able to combine the best attributes of these mastered jobs to create a freelancer (or mime for the truly Gogopilled) that can't truly fit within the narrow roles of the old society. In my playthrough of the game, Bartz and Faris combined the stat boosts and counterattacking ability of a monk with the weapons and equipment of knights, Lenna transferred over the stat boosts from her brief stint as a berserker to her usual role as a support mage, and Crylle became a mime with both black and white magic as well as the HP +30% gained from her time as a monk. The ludonarrative purpose of the game's job class system is to be the radical transforming of societal roles necessary to prevent an environmental crisis and these new roles are what ultimately allow our four heroes to stop Exdeath once and for all.
Is Final Fantasy V making a truly radical political statement here? No, it's ultimately just another drop in the vast ocean of cheesy/defanged 90s environmentalist messages and its environmentalism especially comes off as milquetoast when you literally play as an ecoterrorist two games later. But with the various environmental crises our planet deals with only worsening three decades after game's release, it takes on a new meaning as representing both the impossible odds that humanity must overcome and a symbol of hope that we can pull through regardless. I long for the day where Bartz and friends can master the Marxist job class.

The fact this isn't a mainstay in every arcade in America is proof that this country is full of fucking shit.

Borderline perfect. The amount of style on display with this game feels a little underappreciated. The iconic voice bellowing "THE HOUSE...OF THE DEAD" over Dracula's Castle organ music. The incredibly varied and inspired monster designs, all moving and animating just beautifully, dismembering in ways that surely had to have blown your fucking mind in 1996. The way every sound-effect is perfected, from the gunshot to headshot to "RE-RE-RELOAD!" I have to blame preservation as to why this game is not a stone-cold classic like House Of The Dead 2 rightfully is.

Playing this thing is such a fucking hassle that I can understand why you might not even bother. The Saturn version is a very watered-down version, having to push a LOT of polygons on the ill-equipped Saturn. The PC version is a headache to get running in any year after 2007. The remake is...oooouuugh the fucking remake.

Your best option to play this beautiful little game is to get it running on MAME, which is tricky since MAME is a total pain in the fucking ass to get working and nobody is going to care enough to do it.

So, let's say you get ALL OF THAT up and running, and you are finally able to play The House...of the Dead.

It's a 30 minute long rail shooter.

This is why it needs to be back in physical arcades!! The experience is neutered by the headache required to play it along with the fact it is such a short game by design. If I ever got rich, I guarantee you my first wasteful rich guy purchase is a cabinet of House Of The Dead and inviting everyone over to play it.

It's just a tragedy that the hideous remake is now people's image of the game, with just some of the most ghastly visuals I've ever seen. The original has such a great color palette, it looks a very distinct way, very sharp and direct. It's impossible to replicate with modern day slop graphics.

I also think we need to appreciate the Magician more. That might be one of the best monster designs I've ever seen. He looks noble and elegant yet beastly. He stands dignified and it is absolutely believable he would be some mad genius's crowning jewel.

I think this game is stellar. The music is more brilliance from Sega's music department and creates the perfect symphony for one of the best light-gun games ever made. It's just a shame you can't play it in its original form in any way that is convenient.

Look, I'll keep it real: I don't think it gets better than this. Playing this at an arcade is sublime, playing it at home is sublime. There is not a bad time to be playing House Of The Dead 2. Play it at Grandma's house, who gives a fuck!

I don't want to say that House Of The Dead 2 improves on its predecessor in every meaningful way, as I think both are functionally perfect at what they are setting out to do. It feels being needlessly nitpicky to try and denigrate one versus the other. I will say though that going from a fantastic gothic mansion to a beautifully rendered gothic European city is what gives this series that extra bit of spice. The locales are just incredible looking, the unnamed city clearly being Venice, Italy with a thick layer of grime applied to it. It's a visually very striking game, one of the earliest games I remember seeing and it absolutely struck a chord with me.

The monster designs are still the same level of high detailed grotesqueness that HotD1 showcased. I gotta say though, they outdid themselves with some of these guys. The "Bob" zombies who appear to have an executioner's hood stitched to their necks. The "Patrick" zombies in military fatigues with a pained look on their face. My absolute favorite, the "Ken" variant of the Kaegos, with a sick metal mask and pair of claws. Sega's ability to design the most entertaining group of guys to blow apart limb from limb is some auteur shit. This is an art game just by how cool all these fucking dudes are. The way they challenge the player's aiming is also more dynamic this time around. Randys hop around madly and can move from each side of the screen in an instant, Gregory uses a giant sword that can block your shots, requiring you to carefully hit him during openings. Gregory specifically comes before a boss based around that exact strategy! Cool stuff! There is also a greater variety of enemies who throw stuff at you, often in pairs, so you have to juggle priorities while shooting. For a game that by its very nature doesn't have a lot of depth, enemy design is absolutely trying to test the player as much as it can.

The violence in this bad boy is pretty graphic though. Was this a problem back in the day? This was such an established arcade cabinet to me I never thought about how gruesome it was. I can imagine someone's mom turning pale and fainting at the sight of the legendary Booger Monster as my friends and I christened him.

Bosses are a pretty vast upgrade across the board without question. There are more of them and they are actually challenging this time. I was going to go into depth about them, but I think they are all pretty much perfect. The way their weakspots aren't always visible means you no longer have total pushovers like Chariot was in the first game. Hierophant's chest flaps means you have to actually time your shots and can't just unload on him. Strength has very slim windows you can get a shot in on his head, and he scared the SHIT out of me as a kid because of that. The Magician, my beloved, returns, because honestly when you have a boss with THAT design and THAT banging theme, you really ought to bring him back. I'm glad they did! He rocks! The final boss, the Emperor, is actually a bit underwhelming in comparison to everyone else. He isn't quite as visually stunning, his theme is pretty average in comparison, but his pre-fight speech about hating mankind is pretty fucking awesome. Classic House of the Dead shit. The boss fights being framed with G's Files showing the weakpoints against taped pictures is another great aesthetic choice for a series that lives and dies on its visual flair.

I also think the rescues require more dynamic actions from the player. Remember, I'm using dynamic VERY lightly, as the main actions you take in this game are "shooting" and "not shooting." But a lot of the survivors will be positioned just awkwardly enough you'll have to place your shots carefully, or use trigger discipline that they don't get clipped by your shots. The amount this game requires you to carefully not shoot civilians, you have to imagine this is banned in every police academy in the country.

I should talk about the voice acting, actually. I'm gonna be honest, it might be that I have heard it so much in my life that I can recite it word-for-word, but I think it's mostly just funny bad. I don't think it's ASTONISHINGLY bad like Resident Evil 1. That game didn't sound like it was recorded by physical humans. I can tell actual people voiced James and Gary, very funny people, but people nonetheless. I don't know, it's still entertaining! But you be the judge.

Which is easy to do since you can actually play this pretty easily! It's on the dreamcast, PC, xbox with HOTD3 and wii, and while none of those versions are exactly READILY available, it's still a vast improvement over HotD1 only being playable via a putrid remake that looks like a 2010 shooter. Realistically, there should be a law that this has to be in every arcade or else it's not a legitimate business, but until then, play it anyway you can! It's fun! Play it with friends!

i don't want to be too harsh on this as it was made by such a small team and has so much passion but i could not stand actually playing this on a moment to moment basis by the ending. Link's Awakening and similar titles are great to take inspiration from but this ends up playing as a version of those with rancid gameplay elements at times.

lots of little issues that came together to do a lot of damage to my experience with the game as time went by. invincibility frames when taking damage feel extremely brief (enough so that taking damage during some of the later encounters is never a single thing so much as a string of hits) while enemies felt like it took ages, labyrinthine map design with tons of areas that lead to nothing, miserable platforming mechanics, and so forth. the game only took me a little over three hours to finish and the fatigue i had with it felt like i had played for triple that. not a good sign tbh.

absolutely loved the art design and soundtrack at least. the strange world of the game kept me going more than anything, i think.

Anodyne 2 looks like it has potential to click with me more so here's hoping.

fans love to make erroneous arguments about how detractors dislike the game cos it's different, but the problem has always been that those differences amount to nothing of substance. if they're not completely insignificant they're fakeouts or walked back, if they're not fakeouts or walked back they're jj abrams mystery box bullshit to keep the online dustcloud with arms and legs kicking and howling about The Implications for another four years. this is a game more concerned with how to capture will they/won't they Engagement than its own thematic core; an impressively meticulous effort moored in goopy fanservice and speculation bait

control freak energy from top to bottom, sanitized to an extent that you'd think square report directly to the health department, and guided by one of the medium's most overbearing directorial hands. all slick and shiny bombast and spectacle, perfect skin, compilation pilled navel gazing, and endlessly wrested control. thirty long hours of red light green light meandering thru kidzbop cover acts of familiar events and environments before shunting all responsibility for unpacking anything it might have to say onto the next game

big win for folks who wanted tifa to be a noodle armed simp and sephiroth to have the presence of yakuza kiwami majima