Sweet Home is a 1989 role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom for the Family Computer. It was developed alongside the horror film Sweet Home, and tells the story of a team of five filmmakers exploring an old mansion in search of precious frescos hidden there. As they explore the mysterious mansion, they encounter hostile ghosts and other supernatural enemies. The player must navigate the intricately laid out mansion, battling with the enemies, and the five main characters with the limited weapons and health restorative items available. The narrative moves forward regardless of whether the characters stay alive, and leads to its five different endings.
The game was directed by Tokuro Fujiwara, who previously worked primarily on arcade games such as Ghosts 'n Goblins (1985). Fujiwara toured the film's set to gather inspiration for the game, and the film's director Kiyoshi Kurosawa gave Fujiwara permission to take some liberties with the game's script. Both the game and film were produced by filmmaker Juzo Itami. Sweet Home was released in December 1989 exclusively in Japan, where it gathered generally favorable reception and was considered better than the film. The game was never localized to western markets, likely because of the game's gruesome imagery and the unpopularity of role-playing games outside Japan.
In retrospect, Sweet Home is considered a landmark game and is often cited for laying the groundwork for the survival horror genre. It served as the main inspiration behind Resident Evil (1996) which was a massive critical and commercial success, launching a multimedia franchise. Later games would continue to pull inspiration from Sweet Home through the use of quick time events, inventory management, and ghost story elements. Sweet Home<nowiki/>'s Metroidvania-style exploration, storytelling methods, and horror elements have been cited as precursors to key elements found in other successful games decades later.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Taguchi and Akiko roam the mansion in the English [[fan translation.]]
Sweet Home is a role-playing game (RPG) set within a mansion that has a cohesive, intricate layout. There are five playable characters who can venture solo or explore in teams of two or three. The player can switch between characters and parties at any time. The five characters each have a unique item that is necessary to complete the game: a camera, lighter, medical kit, lockpick, and vacuum cleaner. Along with these items are others that can be picked up and dropped anywhere and retrieved later by other characters.
Sweet Home places an emphasis on puzzle-solving, item inventory management, and survival. The player must backtrack to previous locations in order to solve puzzles using items acquired later in the game. In this sense, the interconnected mansion is gradually explored in the style of Metroidvania games. Enemies are encountered randomly and the player must fight or run away through menu-based combat. and there are a variety of enemies, including zombies, ghosts and dolls. Thirty years prior to the story in 1959, famous artist Ichirō Mamiya hid several precious frescos in his huge mansion before he mysteriously disappeared. In the present day, a team of five documentary filmmakers seek to recover the paintings from the abandoned, dilapidated mansion. Upon entering, they are trapped inside by the ghost of an unknown woman, who threatens to kill all trespassers. The team decides to split up and find a way out, but the mansion is both in danger of collapsing and is occupied by countless monsters.
The team find a projection room, where they find a projector that displays an image of a couple and their baby burning. They discover that the ghost is that of Lady Mamiya, Ichirō's wife. It is revealed that thirty years previously, Mamiya's two-year-old son had fallen in the house's incinerator and was burnt alive, and Mamiya attempted to provide playmates for her son by killing several other children. She committed suicide shortly after and her ghost, unable to forgive herself, became trapped in the mansion. The team arrives in the main chamber and confronts Mamiya in a final battle. After defeating her, a rescuer arrives to help them escape from the mansion as it crumbles.
Development
thumb|upright|The director of the film, [[Kiyoshi Kurosawa, supervised the game's production.]]
Sweet Home was developed by Capcom and directed by Tokuro Fujiwara. He had previously directed Ghosts 'n Goblins (1985) and worked on titles such as Commando (1985), Bionic Commando (1987), Mega Man 2 (1988), and Strider (1989). Sweet Home was one of his first console game projects after working primarily on arcade games. At times he was frustrated by the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom)'s graphics limitations. Fujiwara took a tour of the film studio to gather ideas to build the game.
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Sweet Home was released for the Famicom in Japan on 15 December 1989. The game received generally favorable reviews, and many critics believed the game was better than the film. One of the reviewers in said it was the best game of the year, complimenting that it did not have the annoying traits as taking time to gain experience or making money and complimented the scenario and the fast-paced gameplay. While reviewer complimented the game for incorporating elements from the film, another dismissed the film as a "dud" and only hoped Capcom would make it an original narrative next time.
In a retrospective in 1991 of older RPG games, Famitsu reviewers complimented the horror-themes, visuals and puzzle solving involved to progress in the game which they felt made it a unique title. One reviewer commented that their biggest issue is that it was not very long. Also, the low popularity of RPGs at the time (at least in North America) may have had an influence on this decision. The staff of Computer and Video Games called it "one of the Famicom's finest technical hours". The game was directed by Shinji Mikami with Fujiwara acting as producer.
Both games placed an emphasis on survival It also pays homage to Sweet Home in a side story told through a VHS tape. Peter Tieryas of Kotaku blamed the decline in critical acceptance of modern Resident Evil offerings on Capcom abandoning the basic gameplay design laid out in Sweet Home. The games director, Koichi Nakamura found that there were not many horror games on the market, and recalled that Sweet Home was "so scary that you didn't want to continue playing. I wanted to create an experience where the user would be too afraid to press the button to continue the story, too."