Roberta Williams' Phantasmagoria

aka: Phantasm, Phantasmagoria, Phantasmagoria de Roberta Williams
Moby ID: 1164
Windows Specs
Buy on SEGA Saturn
$125.76 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$9.99 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

A writer named Adrienne Delaney has just moved into an old mansion with her photographer husband Donald. Shortly after moving in, Adrienne begins to experience horrifying nightmares and have odd encounters inside the creepy old abode. Furthermore, the house is having a severe effect on her husband, changing him for the worse. Adrienne must discover the secret of the house before the unknown force consumes her husband, and unravel the terrible events that have happened in the past.

Phantasmagoria is an adventure game that places heavy emphasis on full motion video for exposition and cutscenes at various junctures to advance the storyline. Adrienne is represented as a digitized character roaming around pre-rendered settings in the house. She inspects various rooms, finds items, adds them to her inventory, finds places to use the items, and triggers advancements in the plot.

Puzzle-solving element is present, though reduced compared to most other adventure games made by Sierra. There are seven chapters in the game, as well as a status screen that tracks the player's progress within the chapter. If the player happens to get stuck in the game, a talking skull icon who identifies himself as the hintkeeper can supply the player with hints on request. It is possible to start playing the game from any chapter.

Spellings

  • ファンタズム - Japanese spelling
  • 幽魂 1 - Taiwanese spelling
  • 로베르타 윌리엄즈의 판타스마고리아 - Korean spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

158 People (147 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 66% (based on 32 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 118 ratings with 12 reviews)

FMV meets Survival Horror

The Good
Adrienne Delaney and her husband Donald have justed moved into a large mansion. Adrienne hopes that the gothic setting will help her to write a novel, while Donald is hoping to test his skills as a photographer. Alas, supernatural forces get in the way.

If you played an adventure game before, then you should have no trouble picking up this game's basic mechanics. The player takes control of Adrienne as she interacts with various Nonplayable Characters (NPC) and picks up just about everything that is not nailed down, in order to solve various puzzles.

Gameplay mechanics are simple and user-friendly. The game also looks great. Phantasmagoria takes advantage of the CD-ROM medium to offer up extensive Full Motion Video.

Thanks to Blue Screen technology and CGI, the game's characters and locations are certainly more realistic then adventure games designed with traditional, cartoon-style graphics. What about the atmosphere and the overall story?

Well, you will certainly feel alone in the mansion. The loneliness is helped by the fact that Donald is noticeably absent, only to become steadily more erratic and violent as the game progresses.

As the story unfolds, you learn that the mansion is indeed haunted, with the past lives of its former residents weaving a tangled web of jealousy, betrayal, murder and demonic meddling.

This game is certainly not for children or people who get offended easily. By the time you complete the game, you will have seen quite a bit of blood, gore and what can only be described as extreme domestic abuse.

This last point is one reason why the game is controversial. The main antagonist had a nasty habit of abusing and eventually murdering his wives.

The heroine in the game becomes the victim of domestic abuse herself through her husband. The most infamous scene is where the heroine is essentially raped by her husband.

I think that the intention was to deal with the problem of domestic abuse without being exploitative. It succeeds in doing so, mostly.

The Bad
Phantasmagoria is a game that has not aged particularly well. The graphics will not impress modern gamers, and, even by the standards of 1996, the quality of the Full Motion Video is sometimes medicore.

One of the NPCs in the game is developmentally disabled, and it's cringy to watch. Even though I suspect the designers felt that they were being progressive for featuring a disabled character.

Domestic abuse is a serious social problem and while I commend the designers of the game for wanting to deal with real-life problems, it's cringy to watch.

Especially when you consider the fact that after the heroine is raped by her own husband, she does not respond like a person that was abused in such a manner.

She does not call the police and she seems more annoyed and shocked about the rape than anything else.

Last, but not least, is one of those adventure games where it is possible to make the game unwinnable. In the last chapter of the game, if you fail to collect one of two religious artifacts, you will not be able to defeat the final boss.

This can be frustrating because the game does not make it clear that you need one of these artifacts and, near the end of the game you cannot go back and pick up one of these items. So, after playing the game for several hours, you may find yourself unable to complete the game because you are missing one item.

If you do beat the game, you are treated to a fairly short ending. Frankly, I was really expecting a better ending. It ends up a rather depressing note too.

The Bottom Line
Phantasmagoria is a classic Sierra adventure game that combines Full Motion Video with Survival Horror elements.

Windows · by Edward TJ Brown (118) · 2018

A memorable Horror Story, that has stuck in my mind since 1995.

The Good
The haunted house setting is fabulous. Playing this game in the dark is asking for fright!! With the proper sound system and monitor this game will scare you!

The Bad
Uh? Adrienne didn't change her clothes?

The Bottom Line
If you want a good scare and have a good computer, good surround sound speakers, a good monitor, well turn off the lights, sit in a room alone and prepare for fright night!

Windows · by Eric Ridenour (2) · 2000

A Campy Movie Adventure

The Good
I thought this game was a massive cornball. No really, that is good!

Phantasmagoria was one of the first true movie-based adventures. It tried to be a frightening, high budget computer horror adventure. Did it fail? It wasn't scary that's for sure. But, so what? It was a fun ride. Short, gory, technically impressive, and somewhat fun. Yeah, somewhat.

You can beat it in about 3 hours too, if you really try. So, if you hate it you can get comfort from knowing it'll be over really soon!

7 CDs. Wow. I think that's still an unbeaten record too.

The Bad
I thought the portrayal of the main character was pretty pathetic. I'm all for female heroines but why do they need to be portrayed as bimbo's without brains going braless? This was especially odd to me considering the writer of the story and major influence during development was a woman, Roberta Williams. I suppose the point was to make it sorta similar to all those bad C-level '70s and '80s horror flicks. Whatever.

The Bottom Line
An old-skool movie based adventure title which tries to fit with the campy hollywood-bimbo-chick-horror-movie-with-gory-nonsense theme. It's a fun time to whip through this in a night with some friends.

Windows · by Deleted (33) · 2002

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Trivia

Absinthe

In the bar on the first floor there is a bottle of absinthe. As the game progresses, the bottle goes from full to nearly empty before it is removed from the bar altogether. Someone is drinking it.

Actors

Victoria Morsell, who plays Adrienne, and David Homb, who plays Don, started dating a week after they began filming together. The picture that sits on the night stand in the character's bedroom found a new home in the couple's living room after the game was finished.

Opening Theme

The opening theme for the game is called Consumite Furore, which translates to "Expend Your Rage," and was written by Mark Seibert based on an English text by Roberta Williams. The words in English and Latin are, respectively :

Come into this talisman || O Spirit of Darkness || Mighty Asteroth, I command you || And fill this stone with your rage || Fill it with your sulphurous powers|| Expend your angers on it || Those powers I will assume || I command you.

Venite in fascinum || O spiritus tenebrarum || Magne Asterothe, te iubeo || Et implete hunc lapidem vestro furore || Implete eum viribus sulfuratis vestris || Consumite eum iris vestris || Istas vires adsumem || Iubeo te.

Development

The game was finished by the latter part of 1994, and was ready for release, however Sierra chose to call back some of the cast and crew members for two additional sessions of filming. Filming initially took an additional month and, three months later, was resumed for another couple of weeks.

References

  • The original title for the game was going to be Scary Tales but the name was changed to its current title during production. There is a directory for temporary files that the game installs called SCARY in honor of the early title.
  • The office of Bob Thompkins, Adrianne's sleazy real estate agent, is decorated with posters of girls from another Sierra adventure game, Leisure Suit Larry 6.

Release(s)

  • Due to strict censorship policies, Phantasmagoria was banned in Australia.
  • The German version of the game was banned in Germany on March 31st, 1998.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1996 – Biggest Disappointment in 1995

Information also contributed by MrBucket, phlux, Straw Hubert and Zovni.

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  • MobyGames ID: 1164
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Derrick 'Knight' Steele.

SEGA Saturn added by roushimsx. Windows 3.x added by MAT. Macintosh added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Ajan, roushimsx, formercontrib, ケヴィン, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Cantillon, lee jun ho, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance, ZeTomes.

Game added March 27, 2000. Last modified February 21, 2024.