Since it is the season and Halloween is almost upon us, let's talk about some of the spooky games I played this month, starting with Doctor Hauzer. Doctor Hauzer is a Japan only release for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, released in 94 just two years after Alone in the Dark wrote the book on 3D survival horror and two years before Resident Evil would redefine it.
Developed by Riverhillsoft, a studio mostly known for adventure titles on Japanese home computers like the J.B. Harold Murder Club series. Doctor Hauzer would adopt those sensibilities as it completely forgoes combat and enemies, instead focusing on item use, exploration, and trial and error death traps. Why just the 2nd room in the game presents you with two unlocked doors, one of which will send our intrepid reporter falling to his death.
Doctor Hauzer's world is fully 3D textured polygons which makes it quite unique for the era and allows you to play the game from different camera angles including first person. This does have a consequence however of slowing down the game tremendously as the 3DO just isn't quite up to the task. Our hero has the ability to jump which is also rarely seen in this style of game and the game doesn't mind testing out your leap from time to time.
The story is about the eccentric Doctor Hauzer, winner of every scientific award, suddenly going missing. Our character, Adam, is a reporter who has a long history of covering Doctor Hauzer's work and finds this disappearance very unusual so he tracks the Doctor down to a large mansion. While exploring the deathtrap ridden mansion, Adam soon comes face to face with the ghostly specter of the doc himself and becomes wrapped up in something a bit otherworldly.
Sadly as the adventure starts to build, it abruptly ends. Doctor Hauzer is a very short game, only taking me about 2 hours and that was at the default clock speed of the 3DO. Still, despite its briefness and the clumsiness of the controls, I had a great time with it. If you enjoy exploring the history and evolutionary branches of genres, I think Doctor Hauzer is right up your alley. If the speed is too rough though you can overclock the cpu in 3DO emulators wink.
Doctor Hauzer's development team would later put out Overblood for the Playstation just two years later, in fact the same year as Resident Evil. It has a lot in common with Doctor Hauzer including the full 3D world, multiple camera settings, and even the platforming. Overblood would add some combat into the mix as well as a voiced story set in a sci-fi setting but would get overshadowed by the success of Capcom's zombie debut. Overblood would also see a sequel that would greatly depart from its predecessors.
Akihiro Hino, who was the main programmer on Doctor Hauzer & Overblood plus director on Overblood 2, would create Level-5 in 98, taking lots of his Overblood 2 development team with him. He would also act as the main designer for it's first title, Dark Cloud. Riverhillsoft would layoff most of its employees in 2000 and then completely shut down in 04.
If you'd like to see me play Doctor Hauzer, I uploaded a full playthrough over here on youtube - https://youtu.be/y4wddMvCdzM
If you want to explore Doctor Hauzer on your own, it emulates just fine via Opera/4DO and Phoenix. On top of that there's a romhack from SnowyAria that translates the whole adventure into English for you. You can find that here - https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5654/