I was rubbing along pretty well in House Of Necrosis before I hurled a vial of unidentified black serum at a squashy purple Devourer. I was hoping the serum would be some kind of poison – I mean, come on, an unidentified black serum? You wouldn’t pour that on your chips. It turned out to be an XP potion, which transformed the Devourer into a Foul Devourer – still squashy, still purple, but with much sturdier defence.
I managed to recover some of the accidentally donated XP by lobbing a cheeky hex, but not enough to boost the stopping power of my homely pawnshop knife and pistol. So down I went in a pool of that special red serum the billionaires like to drink when they’re feeling mortal.
Imagine if this had happened while you were playing the original Resident Evil on PS1. Imagine hurling a bottle of unspecified weirdness into the blindspot immediately after the Hunter’s first appearance, and hearing a cheery level-up chime. You’d have ripped the power cable out of the wall. You’d have sworn to track down Shinji Mikami and make him eat his own socks. Unless, that is, you’d already played a few Mystery Dungeon games, which do this kind of nonsense all the time.
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I described House Of Necrosis as “OG Resident Evil but turn-based” in the latest Mawmouth, which isn’t inaccurate but (as reader SeekerX pointed out) omits plenty. This neato horror RPG is a tribute to both Capcom and Spike Chunsoft. It sees you exploring a zombie mansion made up of grid-based floor layouts full of randomly distributed enemies, treasures and traps. You’ve got to find the next floor while sprucing your stats and gathering items.
It’s a game of pleasurable/maddening occult surprises. For example, I was spared death at the claws of an AOE-slopping boss monster by a teleport trap, which whisked me off to a room stocked with green herbs. Thankfully, these do exactly what you’re expecting. For people who can’t get enough of that old-timey survival horror, there’s also a hub environment with proper tank controls.
House Of Necrosis is out now on Steam, still has a demo at the time of writing, and seems jolly, going by the early user reviews. I did enjoy my brief time with the Foul Devourer, though I feel like the game’s devout 32-bit murkiness may wear out its welcome, next to the crisper anime stylings of regular Mystery Dungeon. Shame it doesn’t appear to be Steam Deck Verified – this feels like it would make a fine portable play. You can also find developer Warkus on Itch.io – they’re certainly fond of fifth generation consoles.
