In the mid to late ‘90s, it seemed like there was a trend to start making video games more like films as a way of evolving the medium. By this time technology was starting to catch up with ambition, letting people borrow more from film in an attempt to tell stories.
Over on consoles I remembered being blown away by games like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII, with their epic cutscenes and cinematic plot twists. But prior to that, spurred by the invention of the CD, was a wave of games that tried to emulate movies by including full motion video, providing a level of fidelity unheard of for the time. Games like Sewer Shark, 7th Guest, and Night Trap were all making waves, for better or for worse, but the one that grabbed me most was Phantasmagoria. I remembered going over to my friend’s house to play it, at probably way too young of an age, but aside from that I couldn’t recall many details. Now that the game is 30 years old, I thought it would be fun to revisit it and see how it holds up.
Phantasmagoria was the brainchild of Sierra On-Line game designer Roberta Williams, well-known for her work creating the King’s Quest series, who had waited for eight years for technology to catch up to her vision for a horror title. She wrote a 550-page script for the game, with heavy influence from Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe, and assembled a cast of 25 actors to bring it to life. Originally the game was expected to cost around $800,000 before the budget ballooned to $4.5 million, $1.5 million of which was for the studio Sierra built to film the game. Released on a whopping seven discs, it made $12 million the weekend of release, becoming one of the highest selling games of the year.
But that financial success doesn’t mean it was universally well-received. Many cited it as featuring the worst parts of the FMV adventure genre, with cheesy acting and overly simple puzzles being some of the bigger complaints. Aside from the criticism about the game’s quality, there was controversy over the level of violence presented, particularly since it utilized live-action actors in the game. Not only are there some gruesome deaths throughout, but there is one rape scene, which led to several retailers declining to carry the game on their shelves.
The story feels like your classic Stephen King novel, particularly drawing from The Shining in many ways, complete with a writer protagonist. Adrienne and her husband Don move into a remote mansion near a small coastal town, and they become menaced by the presence left there by the previous owner. As Adrienne, the player explores the mansion, discovering hidden rooms and passages, eventually releasing a demon that was summoned by, and possessed, the 19th century magician Zoltan “Carno” Carnovasch who once resided there. The now freed demon takes over her husband, who eventually is driven further and further into violent madness.
One of the first things that surprised me about the game was its relatively slow pace, in a good way. The game is split over seven days, one for each disc, and it seems like the first three or so days are spent exploring the mansion and getting familiarized with the cast of characters. The puzzles never are too complex, allowing you to take in everything at your own pace and really get to know the space before circumstances start to get dire. Even nowadays it feels rare for a video game not to start on a big action-y note, so I was very happy to have something that ramped up nicely without ever being too boring.
The point and click interface is relatively simple, with a fun little stone border that always shows your inventory and a few buttons that allow for various functions. There’s an eye for you to drag your items onto that allows you to examine them more closely, rotating them to occasionally find hidden elements, and a red skull that gives you hints when pressed. This readily available hint button is important to the design goals of Phantasmagoria, as it feels like a game that they want you to be able to finish without too much friction.
There are occasionally some strange leap-of-logic adventure game moments where you wouldn’t think to use an item a certain way, but for the most part the puzzles are all solved pretty easily to keep the narrative moving. I used a guide to play this game, because I had played it before and didn’t want to get hung up on missing specific objects, but I still would click the hint skull occasionally because it was always fun to hear the overdramatic voice trying to point you in the right direction.
It’s a joy to get around the house, given the visual style of the game. Phantasmagoria combines the live action actors with computer-generated backgrounds that are shown from many angles, and it’s a stylistic choice that I have a strong fondness for. There’s an interesting air of the uncanny when the two visual styles collide, watching actors interact with objects that weren’t there and spaces that were a green screen, but for me it really works to make it feel unique. I kept putting myself in my 11 year-old shoes trying to remember how mind-blowing this must have felt to see something like this for the first time. Even little animations like her relaxing on a couch or sitting down on a bed would have been a technological marvel for the time, and the fact that they recorded so many of these little moments showed the attention to detail that they were going for.
Also impressive is the amount of work they put into the presentation of the murders, which were done by a practical effects company called The Character Shop. A woman’s head getting split by a swinging blade, another woman getting stabbed in the face with a garden tool, and a man’s head being lit on fire are all rendered in graphic detail, with just enough of a cheesiness to give it character you don’t necessarily get with modern CG. There’s also a great little séance sequence that blends the live action and computer-generated in the best way, making for one of the most memorable scenes. The compression that the video underwent actually goes a long way towards making the deaths look even more gnarly and raw.
Is it all good? Not really. The house itself is really gorgeous, but it seems improbable that two people would live in such a large house and also not discuss any of the extremely weird things going on in there. There’s a whole section of the house that’s locked when they move in, and it’s not treated as anything they should immediately deal with by doing something as simple as calling a locksmith. A room with a torture chair goes uncommented on, and no one removed a baby crib that’s clearly been there for decades. Some of the side characters are also kind of questionable stereotypes, including the sexist sleazeball realtor and a mentally slow man who acts as comic relief. Even with its flaws, it adds to the charm, making it feel like a Rose Red-era Stephen King TV miniseries, with all the good and bad that comparison evokes.
It’s rare that I’ve been able to write about a game that I’ve played for its 30th anniversary, but I was glad I got a chance to revisit Phantasmagoria after all these years. It’s a relic of its time, exemplifying the best and worst qualities of the era, doing so with lavishly produced visuals, both live action and computer-generated. While I mostly remembered the excessive violence, I was surprised to find myself really enjoying the haunting tale of a woman trapped in an increasingly abusive relationship, with the backdrop of a massive mansion and an evil magician heightening the drama.
If you can stomach some cheesy acting and writing, or better yet if you find that tone to be immensely charming like I do, Phantasmagoria is definitely worth checking out, whether you have nostalgia for it or not.
