Everyone propably knows that Resident Evil is considered one of the founding fathers of survival horror. It started a franchise that would take a nuclear blast to be eradicated, if only for a while before the next outbreak would happen... That all said, how many actually know the story behind Resident Evil?

It's not like the creators of the original game just came up with an awesome idea including an isolated mansion and evil creatures that go bump in the night. The original game was supposed to be a remake of a 1989 Capcom horror title Sweet Home. If you live anywhere outside of Japan it's unlikely you have ever heard of or played this game since it was released only for the Famicom and never ported on any other system. The game was based on a movie with the same name and they were released simultaneously.

"Shinji Mikami was initially commissioned to make a horror game set in a haunted mansion like Sweet Home."
-taken from The True Story Behind Bio Hazard

Here's a synopsis and some gameplay stuff for Sweet Home:
The game features a group of people going to investigate a supposedly haunted mansion in the middle of the woods and try to restore and document some frescoes located there. The team include Kazuo (team leader and producer of the documentary), Ryo (cameraman), Akiko (medic), Asuka (art restorer, though I always thought of her as a maid) and Emi (daughter of Kazuo). After getting stuck in the mansion in the beginning you can team up in groups of 3 people max. Although being an rpg style game (leveling, equipping weapons and random battles) it relies heavily on survival as any of your characters can die in battle or as a result of an event, never to be revived. The ending also differs depending on what you have done and which characters survived the mansion. The game also features a manageable inventory system, later implemented in the Resident Evil games.

Images:


Now it's time to give a rundown on stuff that the games have in common. All of the characters in Sweet Home carry a special item with them from the beginning and two of those were later used in Resident Evil: Kazuo has a lighter and Emi has some kind of a master key (usage similar to the lock pick). The game featured elaborate puzzles, door opening sequences, creepy music, gory imagery (something unusual in an early Nintendo game), backtracking, and the use of scattered memos and diaries as storytelling mechanics all of which we are familiar with the Resident Evil series. And let's not forget the mansion setting and emphasis on survival. There's also supposed to be death animations and "save rooms" which enable storing of items but I haven't had anyone die on me and I'm not that far into the game that as of now I have not seen any of these "save rooms". The game also had zombies as regular enemies. Still, the most shocking similarity I encountered while playing the game was the door opening sequences.

"Loading screen" comparison:



Other similarities can be associated with early versions of Resident Evil 4. The game was supposed to have more to do with possession and haunting, much like Sweet Home 15 years earlier. The version now known as the Hooked Man Version featured possessed dolls as enemies (seen in the short gameplay trailer) while they were commonly encountered in Sweet Home. Interestingly enough, the original version of Resident Evil 4 got made into a different game (DMC) just like what happened to the original Resident Evil being a remake of Sweet Home.


Long story short, without this movie we would never have encountered
the evil that resided in the Spencer mansion deep within Raccoon woods...



Thanks for your time, this sure took a lot of mine. If someone decides this is worth being a sticky, I'll be most honored.





Interesting fact: Nokko, who plays Emi in the movie, is the lead singer in a band called Rebecca.

i like it.. the movie and the game.... theres so much you can compare with RE specially the loading screens, i wonder where can i get it?

thumbs up

I've seen a lot of gameplay of it. Did you make this whole thing Mass?

Yes, it took a good while of research over the net and about one or two hours to write and find the pictures. I also have some experience from the game so it made this a bit easier.

@ace: The movie might be available on DVD somewhere, haven't been able to find it yet but I sure want to see it. The game you propably need to have imported or if you're lucky you might be able to get one from ebay. Thanks for the thumbs up

i might give a watch on the movie.. is it the 1973 film... ... ... where one girl is named... 'claire' ? or is it the 1981 movie... both seemed like horror movies... i also have a feeling that these movies are origins of cluedo the movie and board game ...

also the game is much similar to final fantasy with the RPG style... it seems like square is attempting to make a horror game but failed

As I said in the post the movie came out the same year (1989) and all the characters had the same names as the ones in the game. The only strange resemblance to a RE character by name was that one of the actors was a singer in the band "Rebecca".

And yeah, every rpg style game might've looked like FF back in the day as the developers were limited by the hardware. This game was by Capcom though.

capcom huh...

Oh come on, it reads in the post



Oh holy crap, just noticed! A thousand thanks for the one who made this into a sticky! I did so much work on this that I couldn't be happier.

I can somehow see it was Nite

I think it is important that every RE fan knows of Sweet Home and how it affected RE and this was brilliantly done so you deserve it.

Thank you so much I wanted to make this info accessible to other fans.

Btw. I wonder if that band, Rebecca, is still out there?

so i found a sweet home nes file i started to play it using nestopia, it's very hard theres tons of pizzles and you can also get poisoned.. this is good

Oh yes, it's an awesome game. I wish I could find an original cartridge... That would make my collection about 20% cooler

kind of like 3.5...
theres evil dolls and spirits