SEGA CD

Mansion of Hidden Souls

If you're looking for a good scary time with lots of eerie voices and strange sights, then until someone shows up with Seventh Guest for the Sega CD, this ghostly chiller is a thriller.

My only complaint is it's way too short. Hidden Souls could have continued for hours without getting old, but Sega evidently wanted to leave us wanting more. And, boy, do we!

An interesting first-person perspective game with fluid graphics and great sound effects. Move from room to room in a giant mansion, looking for items and other hidden secrets. Fans of this type will be interested.

The controls are simple - just push the joypad in the direction you want to go. The graphics are smooth and detailed, and although the rooms don't look particularly dark or scary, eerie music and mysterious voices help convey a creepy atmosphere. The layout of the house is actually quite similar to Resident Evil (Playstation). The story is interesting, and the puzzles are fair and never frustrating. Mansion of Hidden Souls has little replay value, but it's probably worth playing through once.

Mansion of Hidden Souls is not a long game that will take you weeks to beat. But it's definitely the best alternative to Myst for Sega CD owners. See for yourself. Play Mansion of Hidden Souls.

Mansion of Hidden Souls is a fairly short game, clocking in at anywhere between 4 hours to 40 minutes depending on your skill. Depending on what you're looking for, this will either mean a nice, casual game, or a waste of your time. It's got a great "feel" to it, and some attractive art design underneath the early CG graphics, but it's hardly a must-play, and nowhere near as scary as its marketing implies.

Despite bad press and slow sales, developers in the early to mid 90s continued to pursue full motion video games as a viable genre. Unsuccessful for the most part, there were a few titles among the crap that actually seemed to have some potential. One of them was Vic Tokai's spooky thriller Mansion of Hidden Souls, an on-rails adventure which straddled the line between FMV game and digital comic. It made a decent enough attempt, but lamentably stumbled in more than a few places.

The game is very short and can be won in a single sitting if you were to consult a FAQ walkthrough, and if you don't cheat you can expect a couple of head scratching puzzles that could take quite some time to figure out. Also the game has poor replay value since once the puzzles are solved you could win the game on a second play through in an hour or so. Despite the relatively short experience, I liked Mansion of the Hidden Souls but I wouldn't pay more than 10 bucks for it. I feel the game is more fun for people who enjoy ghost stories than the typical gamer. If you are a fan of ghosts and FMV games then try borrowing someone else's copy or try to find it cheap off of eBay. If you're into this kind of thing you can fun over a short weekend, but don't expect much more than that.

I wipe sweat off my brow as I hug my sis. "I’m so glad you’re safe, retarded sister." I whisper. The horrible night is over. As the sun rises over the horizon, I drop to my knees, and let out a laugh, thankful to alive. Thankful my sis is alive. Thankful that this game was only two hours long. Thankful for everything, really. Sometimes I forget that while I have to play these crappy games, there’s always an end. They can’t go on forever. A tear tracks down my cheek. For now, at least, until the Sega Saturn version, we’ve escaped…THE MANSION…OF HIDDEN SOULS.