Escape From Monster Manor: Jumping Spiders

Oh, good, more yelling in the background. Wait, what even is this music? Its got the usual slow Halloween noise for a slow section, then it goes into double time and the narrator says "Tread carefully, now". Electronic Arts published this crap, folks. Pretty sure these animated heads are in time to the music, but I also don't really care. They're just here to be spooky.

Look, ghosts. Actual freaking sheet ghosts. Electronic Arts published this crap, folks. When they die, the sound they make is that generic "ooooo" ghosts make that no reasonable person would ever say if someone wasn't offering them money. The ghosts are faster, but otherwise not different than the other dudes.
This level tries to be a lot more open-ended. I don't think I mentioned it in the first entry, but in this game, every door is opened by a key. Any key, they're all generic. The way this level is open is there are a dozen or so doors, many of which lead to exactly the same location. Here, that means you have quite a few more keys than you really need if you're not opening doors you don't need to open. Oh, and one of the doors has nothing but a key inside, which would have been fine if I didn't miss it the first time and walk all the way back there. That's not a fun proposition when this mansion is apparently next to a theme park. I'm not terrified, I want to move to someplace less annoying.

By the end of the level, I have a headache, a few narrow scrapes with death, and a distaste for the game. I'm starting to notice that enemies are awakening slightly outside of the player's vision. Its playable, certainly, but its not something I enjoy playing. The boss is a reskin of the ghost. Yippee. The narrator says something about spiders. Things underfoot.

Oh, look, obvious foreshadowing is obvious. Granted, this first group of enemies nearly gets me, but there isn't much difference from what the narrator said. This isn't going to be anything but a generic Halloween-style horror game, and its going to rigidly stick to that format. You've got to wait for the spiders to jump, they shoot venom for reasons, which has a very obvious problem. I consider myself an average player, in terms of skill. I feel like I have to time things absolutely perfectly in order to hit these things. They're random in attacking, and I'm hitting my limit for reaction time. Not to mention they dodge after attacking, so if they aren't in a hallway you aren't hitting them. I get killed multiple times because these guys just can't be killed in a reasonable way.

So much for playable. If it isn't regular death, its death by a lack of ammo. This is level 4. These are going to be all over the rest of the game, aren't they? You might be thinking, just go to the location of the medallion and the exit, problem solved. Yeah, no. The way this level is set up, you absolutely need all the ammo here. Even with that its very touchy. My ultimate solution to the spider problem is getting them up close and hoping I hit them before they hit me, they seem to be less random in that case. Speaking of random, it seems like the enemy placement is slightly randomized each time. Several times enemies weren't where they were before. By the time I finally finish the level I barely make it out, grateful that the yet again generic boss is a generic boss. I guess the playtesters had a much easier time of it than I did. the narrator goes off about something, but I miss it, grateful to save.

The next level, in comparison, is considerably easier. Imagine the secret crypt level from Heretic, but done in the Wolfenstein engine, badly. No spiders, despite being a crypt with ample opportunity to put them in. Just ghosts and the floating heads. A couple of interesting things here, firstly, see-thru walls. No, not that impressive, but considering the tech this game has, impressive, some enemies are hidden inside these kinds of rooms, a few are blocked off entirely. The things you can deal with when you don't have an end of level enemy percentage. Secondly, if you're smart, you can rack up a lot of spare keys. Several doors are literally pointless, they just open to a wall. This would be clever if the map didn't show what was behind a door. I manage to get through this level quickly, owing to the rather non-descript location of the exit and luck. Oh, no, my perfect score.

This Session: 2 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes