After 36 years, Namco's gory 1988 arcade beat 'em up Splatterhouse is finally coming to the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis port, via an unofficial fan port.
Monster Bath Games, the developer of games like Deathwish Enforcers and Guardgrave, recently announced over the weekend that it had taken a 2-week break from working on its own titles to experiment with creating a fanmade port of an arcade title to Sega Mega Drive / Genesis using @earok's Scorpion Engine. For this, it decided to opt for Splatterhouse, a game that was previously ported to the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx-16 and FM-Towns computer in the early 90s.
This game skipped the Sega console at the time, with only its sequels Splatterhouse 2 and Splatterhouse 3 getting an official release for the iconic 16-bit console.
So far, the developer has posted a three-minute video showing a look at the opening basement level and the first boss fight with a hanging zombie and a pile of leeches, and it's all looking extremely promising from what we can see. It features music from the YM2612 chiptune artist @laurent_crouzet and was assembled with the help of @GabrielPyron & @masterlinkueibr, who offered technical advice and support.
According to Monster Bath Games, the plan is to develop the fanmade port into a finished fangame that people can play, with the developer stating the following online:
"I'm going to try to do one section a week until it is completed. Some levels have 1 section, some have a bunch like the mansion which branches off a few times. Once I get level 2 completed I'll start posting playable builds. As of now it's 3 minutes long with the intro."
As outlined elsewhere in the responses to the video, there's no intention to develop a simultaneous Amiga port, despite the Scorpion Engine also being equipped for development for that machine. The reason given for this is that the developer would have to "recolor all of the art assets again" and also doesn't have "a fully functioning Amiga to test on anymore."
We'll try and keep you posted on how the Mega Drive / Genesis port is coming along and will let you know exactly when you'll be able to play it.