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Maniac Mansion Review
When I came to the conclusion that reviewing Maniac Mansion as it relates to Halloween-related content, I was honestly a bit reluctant. It's been two years since I officially ended the torture that was completing that game, and it wasn't hard for me to say I'd had enough of it. But heck, progress in Dragonball Z Kyoushuu! Saiyajin isn't something I look forward to, and Breath of Fire 2 hasn't interested me in three weeks. Might as well dig through some old NES titles, grin and bear it, or don't grin and just bear it.
Maniac Mansion, like the other recently-reviewed SUPER SPOOKY game Clock Tower: First Fear, is a Survival Horror, point-and-click adventure. Although when I say "Survival Horror" I say it without much emphasis... at all. Actually, all that's really to the game is solving puzzles, deaths only occur due to extreme ignorance(or more over, boredom while trying to solve said puzzles), and there's more humor than there is scares. Actually, I really don't think there IS anything horrifying in this game, unless you count Nurse Edna. A 5-year old could play this game without the slightest bit of a flinch. Matter of fact, the only way I could think of to make it a bit eerie is by turning off each character's music, but even that didn't work. So I guess it's not really a Survival Horror game... but since there's really nothing else to call it except "Wacky Horror Puzzle Game", the title stays. By most Children's Programming standards it's considered a PG-13 Halloween episode, anyway.
Graphics. Although some of the characters appear somewhat blocky at times, the rendering of "actual people"(AKA an attempt at something more than super-deformed sprites) on the NES is done pretty well. The interior of the mansion is drawn up pretty well, with a good amount of details put into each room. No serious complaints, nothing much more to comment on... 7/10.
 Gameplay. Similar to Clock Tower's point-and-click system of mayhem, MM is handled by the same standard rule of mouse games: click on everything. Only real difference is, you use nice little options at the bottom to do things with these objects, like "push", "pull", "turn on"(which doesn't work on anybody, for some reason...), and so on. It sometimes can be a pain to dicipher what exactly you're supposed to do with a certain something, but the majority of the time it's just common sense. You get to choose three kids from a total of 5 to join you, the admirable DAVE, on your quest. Each have their own skills, and when combined allow the completion of the game. As well as I can remember, it's not impossible to beat the game with any combination, but if you know the good ones it sure is a heck of alot easier. Red-Head Girl is a goth chick who likes Tentacles that are into Rock(I could go down a very disgusting path with this, but I won't), Wendy(the girl-next-door type) is a depressed writer who probably has never had a boyfriend, Surfer Dude is good at... fixing phones, if I recall, Black Guy is a photo developer who works at Wal-Mart, Bernard's the geek who can work with anything HIGH TECH, and Dave's obviously the middle man who can't do a damned thing except give items to the people who can do things with them. Other than that, Dave's only other talents are pouring things into a mutated potted plant that burps and getting caught by the Ed's. Anyway, whereas Clock Tower frightens you away from playing continiously, Maniac Mansion becomes addictive, even after you swore you wouldn't get into it again after the first time through. 8.5/10.
 Plot. A normal family of blue, psychotic people known as the Ed's live up on a mountain house, when "30 years ago today" a meteor hits the place nearby and they find it. Then that's when they become REALLY psychotic, discover the Meteor talks, and begin hatching a plan of world destruction, or something. Not exactly sure to this day what the big plan was, but I'm pretty sure it involves the words "destruction", "world", and/or "domination". The Meteor is apparently not just an ordinary Meteor, either. No, no, no, of course not... it's an OUTLAW METEOR! On the run from the notorious Space Police, The Meteor has so terrible of intentions for the earth, even after the beating the game I'm still unaware of what they are. Maybe I'm just having a severe case of two-year Memory Lapse, but regardless, I don't know at the moment. Anyway, Dr. Ed(the head of the household) kidnaps Dave's chick, Sandy, because The Meteor likes girls, I guess. Really don't know about that one, either. This is where DAVE and the rest of the residing offbeat High School students come into play; so they can save their dear Sandy. Don't really see how Bernard plays into all of this, though, considering Sandy as well as Dave seem like the type that would go out of their way to push the guy around on a daily basis. Guess he's just an irregularly nice guy. The sign in front of the Ed's house portrays a message that doesn't seem very inviting(see screen shot above). This is where I really begin to wonder about people. Didn't somebody, ANYBODY over the years see this message while walking down the street and just happen to say "y'know, something might be wrong with these people"? Obviously, somebody wasn't thinking. 5/10.
Sound. An impressive array of annoying CD Player tunes for each of the characters are selectable, and can even be exchanged with other characters so you can listen to your favorite Annoying Jingles while you're playing as another! Actually, the other characters become tipped off at the fact that they'd have to listen to more annoying music, so everytime an exchange is offer they refuse. Clever. Turning off the music to add a "SUPER SPOOKY!" effect doesn't help much at all, if that's the sort of thing you were hoping for, so just leaving it on is the best choice. Not too many sound effects or anything else that could fit under the catagory of audible, so... yeah. 4/10.
Replay Value. It IS quite addictive, and playing through the game with various combos of characters(or just plain trying out different characters you haven't tried) is always an interesting challenge. I'm still sceptical if the game can actually be beaten without the omnipotent Bernard. 9/10.
Final Thought/Overall Rating
Maniac Mansion is one of those games that reminds you of classic Mario; can't get enough of it until it's finished. It also is comparable to SMB in terms of overall wackiness. And, just like in SMB, you jump on plants and they grow. Hey, you do. 7/10.
-Grand Master Dragon
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