My Gregory Horror Show (PS2) impressions

Kiriku

SWEDISH PERFECTION
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I've been working my way through the European version of Gregory Horror Show for PS2. It's a very special game, for sure. If I understand it correctly, it's based on a Japanese (card/)board game that also became a CGI TV show. For some peculiar reason it was released in Europe first and then Japan a few MONTHS later. Peculiar because it's developed in Japan by Capcom, Production Studio 3 to be exact.

Anyway, the game puts you in the role of a boy or a girl (you get to choose). The story begins with your character getting lost in a dark, misty forest at night. You end up at a hotel, where the hotel owner Gregory gives you a room. You realize you're stuck in the hotel, there's no way out. Well OK, there is ONE way. Death appears (he's wearing a hat with the Swedish flag, yey!) and tells you that if you collect the souls of all the guests in the hotel, he will show you the way out.

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And that's where the game starts. What immediately catches your eye is the graphical style. Every character looks to be made out of blocks and covered with very simple and stylized textures. A unique look, similar to the gamecube game Cubivore. Not impressive technically, but the art makes up for it.

So on with the game, what do you actually do to collect these souls?! Well, different things. This is a game about patience, about paying attention, about sneaking around and be smart. You can hide behind pillars, walls and look through keyholes. Time is always moving, just as the characters living in the hotel. In order to catch their souls, you have to achieve different tasks. Sometimes you need to find them a special item, other times it's as simple as putting a banana peel on the hall floor. There are also situations when you need to be in the right place at the right time.

To find out exactly HOW to grab their souls, you need to spy. Look through keyholes to listen to conversations between hotel guests, and you're bound to catch some hot gossip about the character you're currently trying to rob. Then you only need to use your head to put pieces together and find the solution.

About the characters, they are of the "different" kind. There's the owner Gregory who looks like a mouse and has a tendency to read porn novels in the store room. You also got Catherine the nurse, a purple lizard carrying a gigantic syringe. Not to mention the hypochondriac mummy dog with a big sword stuck in his head that he strangely doesn't seem to notice. Bizarre doesn't even cut it. :P

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Once you have attained a soul, the character who once owned will furiously hunt you as soon as they see you. If you leave the room, they'll be right behind you. If they manage to catch you, you'll have to suffer through their "horror show". With no way of escaping you will be tortured in various, original ways. I bet you can't figure out what Nurse Catherine wants to do with you, for example.

These horror shows will drain your life meter drastically. To be more precise, this meter actually represents your sanity. It's constantly dropping as time moves along, but there are ways to regain sanity too. You can read books to remind you of the world outside the hotel, or consume herbs of different colors (Capcom, that's incredibly original!). You can also go to your room and sleep.

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Every character has their own routines during days and nights, and by observing these routines you'll know where to go and when (similar to Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, for example). Your most useful ally is the map though. It will always show where all the characters are, making it possible to plan your routes and avoid upset hotel guests.

The controls are fairly easy to get into. By pressing the square button you can knock on doors, while triangle will make you hide behind corners and peep through keyholes. The inventory system is similar to Resident Evil. You can carry a limited number of items, which can be stored in your own room.

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The game isn't very long, took me perhaps 6-7 hours to complete. It's possible to play through it a second time at higher difficulties, but I'm not sure if that will unlock anything. The game isn't too hard to play, but I felt some of the tasks you have to complete in order to achieve the souls didn't make much sense. Maybe things become more clear if you listen to every conversation...if you have the patience. Although it's not too time-consuming most of the times.

All in all, an entertaining game that feels fresh on many levels. Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy spying on people, putting clues together to solve problems or just to play original games with bizarre horror atmospheres.

7/10 !!
 
Thanks for the impressions. I've been asking forever about that game, but never really get a response. Still looks interesting to me. Love that art style.
 
I dunno, I got it for really cheap and tried it out. But it never clicked with me... just felt boring and slow. Played for a couple of hours and collected the first few souls, but I could never find the save place. Also, I can't stand artificial limits like "you can't go upstairs yet" "why?" "well, because you can't".
 
Thanks for the review... I was bummed when they cancelled the US version of this. But to be honest, I had forgotten about it over the past year with all the other releases and big games since (I think the US version was due to come out last winter before it was cancelled).

So it's funny that you posted your impressions now, because just yesterday I was wandering through Best Buy, and saw the DVD of the show, and remembered the game:

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There's a second volume due next month as well. Maybe Capcom will reconsider bringing it to the US if the DVD's sell okay, but I kind of doubt it (Amazon Sales Rank: 31,579... Not exactly flying off the shelves). Still, one of the reviews at Amazon has me interested in the video, so I think I might try it out, since I doubt I'll ever play the game.

Gregory Horror is a surreal and sometimes disturbing horror-comedy feature that challenges the viewer in every episode. Its short, almost Twilight Zoneish episodes focus on one of the guests at a time, each of which represent a different facet of the viewer's personality or world. There's the Mirror Man, who has lost his own identity and exists only to show others their true self; Cactus Gunman, who challenges the other guests to hallway duels without any idea of why they're fighting; Judgement Boy, who forces guests to make split-second decisions with either their heart or their head; and many more, totaling 48 in all. (Not all are in this first DVD, however.) The stories can be chilling one minute and hilarious the next, and your host Gregory is the thread stringing them all together. I will say that the story begins to develop and pick up in the last half of the series, which culminates in a weird, fulfilling ending that's sure to creep out and satisfy even the stingiest viewer.

Gregory Horror is illustrated in a strange style. It's 3DCG, and each character has a blocky body, almost like they were made out of Legos. The backgrounds don't seem like much at the beginning, but the characters move fluidly, and this is a much more character-driven series than anything else. The different areas in Gregory House also begin to get more complex as the DVD goes on, such as Roulette Boy and Clock Master's rooms. The English dub (this is dub only) is excellent and hard to find fault with, and the music is also evocative and more than serves its purpose.

The extras include promos of the GHS action figures, five episodes of the GHS series "Bloody Karte," (basically, Gregory Hospital) and some trailers for other Geneon series.

In conclusion, Gregory Horror is perfect for fans of black humor, horror in general, quirky Japanese anime, the Twilight Zone/Night Gallery, or for anyone just looking to have a good and somewhat thought-provoking time.
 
OLD, but still a great little game (it was released at half price here in UK), which is about right. A nice original experience I thought, and I loved Judgement Boy.... *resists urge to say it*
 
heavy liquid said:
Maybe Capcom will reconsider bringing it to the US if the DVD's sell okay,
It's not really up to Capcom USA if GHS releases... though I guess they could resubmit it to approval process as a budget release maybe.
 
Defensor said:
Cool, know of a place online that sells it cheap and ships to the US?

I know a few sites where you can buy it, but none of them ships to the US. If you don't manage to find it anywhere and really want it, I could probably pick up a copy for you.
 
heavy liquid said:
Wait.. So the UK version works on a US PS2? There's no region lockout?

I'm not sure myself since I've never tried. Seems like it, based on the responses...although I thought it was like a 60 Hz PAL mode rather than NTSC. Maybe someone who's in the know can straighten things out.
 
No, your PS2 still needs to be modded to play the PAL game. But since it supports 60 Hz, it will play fine without any funky picture.
 
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