As I get older, I find I have no interest in playing the cutesy/silly games that are everywhere on retro consoles (obviously, they were targeted towards kids). But I also don’t have the patience for survival horror games like the resident evil or silent hill series. I’m just looking for a fun spooky game that I can jump into and start playing.
So what are your favorite action-oriented games featuring skeletons and bats and horror movie monsters that aren’t actually trying to scare you? Any platform, any year. I’m looking for games whose entire theme is spooky, not just a single haunted house or graveyard level.
Not action oriented, but just wanted to give Maniac Mansion a shout out…
You’re right, Maniac Mansion definitely has the vibe I’m looking for but there’s no way I’ve got the patience for a point-and-click game.
Also Shadowgate & The Uninvited from the NES era
Monster Party
I play the crap out of this game when I was a kid. What an absolute fever dream. You find bosses that are already dead, angry tempura shrimp, you want some zombies dance… You turn into a monster for some reason… Trees have faces. It’s wild. Highly recommend.
Well that looks perfect, thanks!
Fun, spooky, action-oriented*, skeletons, bats: Temple of Apshai from 1983 on the Commodore 64. About two minutes fifteen seconds into the video you’ll see and hear its unique spooky atmosphere.
*for a role-playing game of this vintage, anyway.
Can’t go wrong with Castlevania, Devil’s Crush also comes to mind as my favorite pinball game. I don’t know why spooky games have OSTs that go so hard, but I’m glad they do!
I only just played Symphony of the Night this last winter and was treated to an unforgettable experience. Then felt the same way all over again the next month when my wife picked up Hollow Knight. Both highly recommended.
Oh boy, if you haven’t played Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, then you’ve got another treat to look forward to!
Since Konami doesn’t make many games anymore, the director of Symphony took a lot of the big names involved in making it and made his own studio. They crowdfunded Ritual of the Night as a spiritual successor to Symphony. It’s a modern SoTN done right by the people who made the original.
I will say that it does have some of the same jank in its blood though, with stuff like overpowered rare item drops and some requirements for the true ending practically requiring a guide. It also hides the fastest movement ability (think the wolf dash in Symphony) in a side challenge in literally the final area of the castle before the true final boss, which is kind of shitty.
But if you enjoyed Symphony, warts and all, you’ll probably love it.
I’m around 35 hours in, just about to get the true ending on normal difficulty. There’s something like three more characters I can play through with, a classic (Castlevania 1) mode, a built in randomizer mode, and a Simon’s Quest style classic mode 2 dlc that I’m probably going to play through before I call it done, so good value for the price too.
Yeah, that’s on the list too! Thanks for the writeup.
With you one hundred percent – Devil’s Crush features one of the best and longest tunes on the Turbografx-16!
Alien 3 on snes
Splatterhouse:
Decap Attack:
Ghosts N Goblins series;
Don’t know if this would count, but there’s the difficult game of Fester’s Quest on NES. Aliens invade, monsters (possibly aliens, I don’t remember) take over the town/sewers, and Fester of the Adam’s family has to stop them.
It’s been a while since I last played. Only knew it existed when one day mid-2010s my brother got it from either a pawn shop or thrift store. Definitely a game I sucked at and never got far in at all.
the difficult game of Fester’s Quest on NES
Fun fact, the European release is vastly easier due to the simple fact that you can shoot through walls!
All enemies and bosses take less hits for them to be killed. The projectiles fired from the gun can go through walls and obstacles.
https://tcrf.net/Fester's_Quest
It still makes me angry for what we got in the US! 😤😅
I really liked Haunting Starring Polterguy.
Holy cow I thought I was the only person that played that. Excellent game.
In a similar vein, Ghost Master. Some of the levels are fiddly but it’s a ton of fun.
Ooooo. Zombies ate my neighbours! Absolutely a gem to play with your best friend. Good memories of that.
Level password VXBB for level ~30ish is forever burned into my memory.
Dude, nice. I totally forgot about the codes. Oooof. Fav weapon… Hmm… damnit, I liked chucking the 6-pack. It sucks I don’t recall fine details. I know the mummy levels throughout drove me nuts. I wanna play… Music was fantastic.
I’m going to keep adding more items as I think of them in case others might be interested in this type of game.
There’s a free game on steam called Nightmare Kart which started out as a Bloodborne Mario Kart but the developer was getting too much attention so he removed all the explicit Bloodborne references that might get him sued and released the game as a vaguely Bloodborne-ish kart racing game. It features PS1 style graphics.
Also, for anyone into arcade (MAME) games, there’s a horror-themed beat 'em up called Night Slashers which is pretty fun.
Apparently this game is getting a remake on steam, called Night Slashers: Remake. I actually had no idea this game was being made until I googled for the arcade game’s cover art just now.
Have you ever played Sweet Home for the NES? It’s like Luigi’s mansion crossed with Final Fantasy themed after a Japanese horror movie.
I’ve never even heard of this! Looks like it’s a turn-based RPG though. Those are typically pretty rough on the NES. Do you like the game?
I have fond memories of playing it, but I never beat it and never even really understood how to beat it.
Ghost Manor for the 2600 is a fun game with lots of atmosphere. However it’s also pretty simple and will only occupy you for 10-20 minutes. It sure was a blast when I was a little kid, though.
There’s also Monster Bash, the 1982 Sega arcade game.
What’s the middle game?
Just to throw another item into the list, there’s a VirtualBoy game called Jack Bros which should perfectly fit my criteria:
Unfortunately, the game is really boring (in my opinion). You just wander around a maze collecting keys so that you can… move onto the next maze to collect more keys. You have a basic attack but the range is so short that it isn’t exactly fun. I had really high hopes when I learned of its existence too…
