In 1995, Casper was released in theaters as a live-action adaptation of the Harvey Comics character bearing the same name. Within the comics, Casper The Friendly Ghost is a young boy who just wants to make friends. Unfortunately, he's a ghost and most mortals are hesitant to become acquainted with the supernatural. This isn't helped by his three uncles, Fatso, Stretch, and Stinky, who bank on humanity's fears of ghosts to find entertainment within the afterlife. This would be fine if the uncles didn't treat Casper with the same cruelty but those who give Casper a chance are the ones who are there for him despite his status as a ghost.
The movie was a success and like most family films that saw success in the 90s, several movie video game tie-ins were released across various generations of consoles. There are four different versions of Casper, not counting the Game Boy version. The Windows version was a children's edutainment game while the SNES version was a side-scrolling platformer. There was even an exclusive Japanese game released exclusively for the Super Famicom that took on a more isometric approach. The version I'll be focusing on is the one developed by Funcom, the Sega Saturn/Sony PlayStation/3DO version.
I was a fan of the original Casper movie as a kid and it would be a routine watch every Halloween with my mother. The movie centered around Kat, a girl who moves into Whipstaff Manor with her father, Dr. Harvey, "therapist for the dead." Basically, he's a spirit channeler who can interact with ghosts, and in the movie, it's played up for a specific plot point. The movie itself was a fun watch although the themes were always pretty mature for a family film. I remember this being one of Christina Ricci's earlier roles as a child actress and Casper was a relatable character who just wanted to be accepted.
While I recommend everyone to watch Casper whether or not it's Halloween, I can't say the same for the video game based on the movie. This was the kind of game that was marketed towards someone like me, a fan of a family movie in which I ran the VHS tape to the ground. It's also why I would be critical of publishers like Outright Games even if I am aware this is low-hanging fruit. If you're going to create a product aimed at children, at least put in the effort to make it fun rather than a mere cash grab. The Casper video game was made with love, so it dodges that bullet. However, it is nearly impossible to finish the game without outside help.
Casper the video game loosely follows the plot of the movie split between three acts. The first is to give a gift to Kat and Dr. Harvey to gain Casper's trust. The second is to rebuild pieces of the Lazarus to revive Casper and the third act is to escape the clutches of the main antagonist. The player begins in the main hall of the Whipstaff Manor and is ultimately left to their own devices. Casper can roam around the manor while interacting and identifying objects. To get anywhere, Casper needs keys to open doors, with colored doors requiring colored keys. There are treasure chests that hold important items that require brass keys and certain switches that can only be opened with two-ton weights that just happen to be lying around the manor.
The objective is to gather items and return them to a specific area within the manor to continue the plot. There is a lot of backtracking and a lot of the rooms are barred entry for various reasons. The gated doors are simple enough as these are accessible via switches. However, there are boarded doors, vents, and holes in walls that also obstruct Casper's path. Casper would need a specific power-up to bypass these objects, such as turning into a puff of smoke to enter vents and turning into a buzzsaw to chop boarded doors. I assume that Casper simply couldn't phase through walls like a normal ghost for plot reasons as it would turn a three-hour game into a 30-minute game.
Occasionally, Casper will have to fight his three uncles who will ambush the ghost in certain rooms. The trick to defeating them is carrying an item that will defeat each encounter. An early example is Fatso complaining he's hungry, with the solution being to feed him hamburgers that are in the next room adjacent. Likewise, Stinky will stink up the place so Casper will have to borrow Kat's perfume to banish his foul stench away. Defeating the ghosts in these encounters is key to progressing through Act 2 but the game doesn't do a good job in explaining all of this.
Unfortunately, if you were a clumsy kid like myself who would misplace the CD jewel cases, you would lose the instruction manual which went into detail on the game's mechanics. Worst-case scenario you could have rented the game from a video game rental service that didn't provide the luxury of a manual much less a case. This is a game where you cannot afford to forget a random red room that you saw an hour ago due to recently picking up a red key at the other end of the manor. But make sure it's the right red key and not a spare key you don't need or else you could literally soft-lock your progress by doing so.
As a fan of the movie, I enjoyed the game mainly because it was something that brought my mother and me closer. The controls are very simple, there's no combat (dealing with the uncles relies on solving puzzles), and the game is very "go at your own pace." An in-game map would have done wonders for this game and it would be enough to recommend it as a fun hidden gem if that was the case. If one of the in-game hints is recommending me to draw a map so I won't get lost, then, yeah that's a slap in the face.
Ultimately, I chose this as my Halloween feature this year for the nostalgia trip. There are many games that gave me trouble mainly because I was an impatient kid who didn't have an internet connection to look up guides on message boards. Even then, I wouldn't think I'd find nearly as much information back then as I would now. While the childhood memories from playing this game were a nice feeling, taking off the rose-tinted glasses reveals Casper, a game that can only be recommended to die-hard fans of the movie.