You know what gets me about Horror Mansion? The clown girl. I can't stop thinking about her stupid painted smile and the way she just... appears. The ghost girl is supposed to be the big deal, she's the one who snatched Daniel's girlfriend, but honestly I forgot about the girlfriend for like twenty minutes while dealing with that clown. The game says it's about saving her but the mansion is so distracting. You're just wandering around, and then bam, monster girl in your face, and the art for these encounters is genuinely unsettling in that specific hentai way where you're not sure if you should be turned on or creeped out. The ghost girl has this one scene, I won't spoil it, but the translucency effect is a nice touch.

But okay so the mansion itself. I wish the hallways were more confusing? Like it's a haunted mansion, I want to get lost, I want dead ends that loop back wrong. Instead it's pretty straightforward, click here go there. The monster girls are the only thing that breaks it up. There's this one hallway with flickering lights and I kept expecting something to happen and it never did. That's the whole game honestly, moments of genuine creepy atmosphere and then just... nothing. Until the next girl shows up. The clown. Did I mention the clown? She has this laugh that loops and it got stuck in my head for a week.

I was playing on my phone during lunch break at work, bad idea, someone definitely saw a ghost girl scene over my shoulder. Whatever. The game doesn't care about your dignity. Daniel's love for his girlfriend is supposed to be the emotional core but honestly the monster girls steal every scene they're in, especially the one who's clearly running the show but isn't the ghost? Wait no, the ghost girl is the boss, I think. The description says she stands supreme. But there's this other presence in the mansion that feels bigger and the game never really explains it. Maybe that's intentional. Maybe I'm overthinking a game where a clown girl will absolutely ruin your life in the best way. The Halloween vibe is thick though, cobwebs and candelabras and that one room with the-

Anyway the ghost girl's design is my favorite actually. Forget what I said about the clown.