#riverhillsoft

OverBlood 2

The original OverBlood was a fairly short, experimental attempt at doing this new “survival horror” thing in the style of early 3D adventure games. It had a simple story it told with some limited cinematic flair and had very bare bones gameplay and mechanics. It wasn’t something many remembered for flattering reasons, its lasting legacy being funny, out of context lines and a grown man crying to the heavens over his little robot friend being broken with dramatic strings cue in the score. Very goofy, and little else, its one notable accomplishment being a survival horror game made up almost entirely of 3D areas instead of relying on image backgrounds. OverBlood 2, released just two years later, was an environmentalist epic inspired by Final Fantasy VII, used a style of gameplay that up to that point only existed in obscure western PC games like System Shock while mixed in the foundations of their adventure game roots, and still found time to swerve into flashy anime nonsense in the final act. There is at least an hour of cutscenes in this game, if not more. You can visit shops to buy bazookas, go to the random store that sells a 30,000 credits costing Japanese katana with Stalin decorated window glass, and hang out at a movie theater to learn about in-game lore. Also, there is a cyborg dinosaur and it is remarkably unimportant. Things had changed.

The year is 1952. One of the world's most renowned archaeologists, Doctor Hauzer, has gone missing. As regular interviewer of his, journalist Adams Adler decides to go look for his whereabouts. But just as he begins to investigate the old Doctor's mansion, dead bodies and booby traps present themselves... as well as signs of the Doctor may have gone mad. Developed by Riverhillsoft for the Panasonic 3DO, this often overlooked Japan exclusive title is curious. On one hand, this game tries to give a twist to the formula set by Alone in the Dark, being able to boast of some impressive features for the time of it's release like fully 3D environments with a dynamic camera system that can go from fixed camera angles to a top down view or even a proper first person mode(something Keichiro Toyama admited to draw inspiration from when making the original Silent Hill).

On the other hand, ambition doesn't necessarily translate to quality. This game has no combat to speak of. What we get as a replacement is a lot of trial and error embeded in the puzzle solving, lots of instant death traps and even some awkward platforming. Not that Alone in the Dark lacked insta-death traps, but it balanced the act between figuring out the dangers of the mansion with exploration and combat. This game just linearly drives you through a mansion and has you bite the dust over and over until you figure out your way through the aroubd half an hour of game at your disposal. So, on top of everything else the game is also very short while running like molasses.

Much as I can seemingly pile on what the game fails to achieve, for what its worth the game swung for the fences. It's one of the earliest titles to use something comparable to Cel shading in order to have properly emoting facial animations, and that gives Adler a sense of charisma Carnby never had. Is it succesful? Not entirely, but the attempt was admirable and a massive learning experience.

Seriously, for all the flaws of their games Riverhillsoft were an absolute maverick of a developer. There's more than a few things Resident Evil learned from this game, and some features they failed to implement like full 3D environments (even if they ended up creating a much more refined template to build upon).

All things considered, I wonder if this game falling through the cracks and staying in Japan is just a matter of the 3DO completely failing to gain any traction: lots of reviewers back then had positive things to say about it so it wasn't a poor reception.

Though I also suspect copyright was at play. The one music track that plays through 90% of the game (and I'm not exaggerating with that percentage) uses the Jason Vorhees sound effect, while the intro movie is begging for a lawsuit from Tim Burton and Danny Elfman over the Beetlejuice theme.

‘Burai: Hachigyoku no Yuushi Densetsu’ [ブライ八玉の勇士伝説]  

[MEGA-CD] [JAPAN] [MAGAZINE] [1992]

Beep! MegaDrive, October 1992

"Navarro Jean" aka "Nabaro Jean"