The Haunted Mansion (GameCube)
developed by High Voltage Software
published by TDK Mediactive
★★★★☆
Movie-based video games are historically not good, so I can see why this game, released about 6 weeks before the eponymous film, was mostly overlooked. After the movie itself was panned by critics and audiences, the game was pretty much destined for the bargain bin — which is a shame, because this game is good, especially if you’re already a fan of the ride.
You play as Ezekiel “Zeke” Holloway, a young man who arrives at a mysterious mansion on a hill in the Louisiana bayou on October 17, 1879, to apply for a job as caretaker. Upon his arrival, several of the resident ghosts approach him, but he faints and finds himself in a round, strangely-decorated room being addressed by a green disembodied head floating in a crystal ball, Madame Leota, who tells him of a curse put on the house and that he needs to rescue the 999 “Shriveled Souls” trapped throughout its many rooms, and capture them in the Beacon of Souls (which not coincidentally resembles the lantern held by the Caretaker in the ride’s Graveyard scene). Zeke takes Leota with him on his task, and sets out into the mansion to find these souls.
As gameplay begins and you enter the Great Hall, you discover all the lights are out. In order to restore the lights, you must defeat several evil spirits using a beam emitted from the Beacon, then flip the light switch. This releases the Shriveled Souls, which are hidden throughout the room in groups of five. Find their hiding place and capture them into the Beacon, and you’re free to go through the door into the Foyer. Each of the 25 rooms you enter will follow a similar pattern. The lights will be out, an enemy or wave of enemies must be defeated or a puzzle must be solved in order to light up the room, then all the Shriveled Souls must be found in their hiding places in order to proceed to the next room.
Several of these rooms (as well as the exterior of the Mansion itself) are based on rooms from The Haunted Mansion movie, while many others are inspired by rooms in the attraction. Sometimes, rooms that were combined in the ride and film are split up to create more unique locations for the game, for example, the Dining Room and Ballroom. But most of the rooms you’ll visit are merely inspired by the source material, taking designs from both and mixing them with appropriately Victorian and dingy elements to create rooms that are never seen or mentioned in either medium, but fit perfectly within their imaginary world.
Every room has a distinctive condition that must be fulfilled before the lights can be switched on. No two rooms are the same. For a game with 25 rooms, this is an impressive accomplishment. Even Nintendo’s Luigi’s Mansion (which was inspired by the Haunted Mansion attraction, and subsequently inspired the game) can be more repetitive than this. Most of the puzzles require more thought than skill, although a few others require a precise level of platforming that the game’s floaty controls are not always well suited for.
Others can be downright tedious. An early room shrinks Zeke to the size of a billiard ball and tasks him with coaxing a pool-playing ghost into sinking nine balls (thankfully, in no particular order) by standing where you want the cue ball to go, and letting him hit it towards you, forcing you to aim and angle shots from the wrong end, and with a limited time before the ball is hit. If the ball strikes you, you take damage. This would all be frustrating enough, but if you try to stand on the edge of the table where it’s safe, ghosts will swarm and hurt you.
Another room forces you to use the webs from a series of spider enemies to pull yourself gradually closer to the light switch on the other side of a room while a wind blows you in the opposite direction. Enemy ghosts will appear and attack you while you navigate this tricky maneuver, and if you accidentally kill the spider who’s holding you, you could end up starting all over again.
These are the most egregious examples. The worst aspects of the other rooms are the rare opaque puzzle or annoying monster closets. But for the most part, each room can be solved in under 15 minutes, and when you figure out what the room requires of you and flip the light switch, it’s a satisfying feeling. Finding the Shriveled Souls is as simple as finding the object in the room that’s pulsating and touching it, although you can’t see the object pulsate until you’re right next to it, so finding it can be time-consuming.
Each room requires so many Shriveled Souls to access, making progress mostly linear, but finding the next room can be a challenge, because they’re not in order. This requires searching through the many corridors of the Mansion for the door with the number that matches how many Shriveled Souls you’ve collected. These corridors and doors are themed after the ones found in the attraction, with matching wallpaper, wainscoting, and transoms. One corridor even has busts that watch you as you walk by. This fan-service may be lost on players who’ve never been on the ride, but is very much appreciated, especially considering how little the movie designs resemble the originals.
The final battle is unimpressive. Not to spoil anything, but get used to moving left or right while holding both triggers to lock-on and auto-fire. But the lead up to it is so much fun that it’s really just a way to put a pin on the end of the game. Which, unfortunately, is the end of the game. There is no post-game content, besides maybe exploring the Mansion and listening to what all the rescued ghosts have to say (something I didn’t even realize you could do until about two-thirds of my way through it). Unlike Super Mario Odyssey, collecting 999 MacGuffins is a requirement, not a bonus.
Fortunately, this entirely self-contained game is short. You’ll almost certainly beat it in under 10 hours — probably closer to 7 or 8, in fact. As a fan of the attraction, being able to explore every room of The Haunted Mansion is a dream come true. As a gamer, being able to do it with dozens of clever puzzles and activities is a joy. The game’s early-2000s physics and controls are often wonky and awkward, but rarely a hinderance. The game makes sure that nothing is made impossible by its own limitations. I only wish Disney would give us a sequel or remaster.
Oh, well. I guess I’ll just keep playing Luigi’s Mansion 3 until then.
All screenshots taken from GameFAQs
