Kev Bateson & Jez Taylor - Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday (1995)
Console: SNES
Game Release Date: 1995-10-xx
Bootleg Release Date: 2022-11-21
Ripper: Someone on KHInsider / Remastered + Extended by SnowBlue.
Runtime: 58:53, 24 Tracks
I've decided to scrap the GOTY 2022. Because of the games it makes it way too hard to write a post. This blog will go out the way I want. With 3 completely random posts.
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday is a horror SNES game released back in 1995. It's a game that I just beat yesterday as a matter of fact. Also that I have been playing this game on and off since 2018 when I was using my Ouya regularly.
I started playing it back in 2018 for Halloween. I completed the first level but stopped. The second level was as Halloween-esque and I had other spooky games to play. And then I never got back to it that year. 2019 had the same deal this time on my laptop. It was part of the rotation for Halloween 2019. Played the first level and stopped. I think I got frustrated with it at the time. 2020 it wasn't in the rotation nor was 2021. Then in 2022 while looking for games I put it back in. Then I did the first two levels again and stopped. I was now playing it on my 3DS. Had to stop it because I got some trick-or-treaters and then decided to play something else. It wasn't until a few days ago that I had the house to myself and decided to play more of it. And then, in the span of 3 hours (with breaks) I powered through and beat the whole game.
I don't even remember how I first heard of it. I might've been just looking for spooky retro games and came upon it. I can't recall.
It's also one of the strangest games I have ever played. It is a 2D platformer where you control Porky Pig as he traverses through a series of nightmares. Minutes prior to sleep he was browsing a brochure of possible vacation spots, the images swirling around in his brain.
It is now up to him to escape the nightmare by going through several distorted vacation destinations. Aside from occasionally finding a bowl of fruit to chuck at enemies Porky's only attack it stomp on them. His stomp has a massive hitbox so there's that at least.
Now I describe this as a horror game. It's not scary per se as it is unsettling. Never mind my run, there are so many unusual things in the game it warrants several paragraphs. I still don't fully understand the mechanics behind it but that keeps up the weirdness.
First of all, play first level a few times and you will find it changes. Sometimes there's snow, sometimes it's all grassy and sometimes it actually looks like Halloween. I first noticed this when playing on my 3DS. Suddenly the whole forest was covered in snow when all the last times I played it, the forest was barren.
I thought it could be a per device/emulator thing. Maybe a regional quirk? I ended up finding out the game has a weather system. When you start a game there is a random chance of you playing it in a different season. That's so unexpected and uncharacteristic I would never have expected this game to do that. It's just bizarre, adding to the mystery.
In the game there are tons of hidden items, invisible pathways to other parts of the level, places you can enter where it doesn't look like you can, portals to other dimensions and more. Like, if there's a place you can reach no matter how unlikely it seems there is an item there. In Level 2 you can enter the water towers despite no indication you can. Levels will split off into many branching paths. Dry Gulch and the Mines heavily use this. Dry Gulch has sections of the level where you go into these houses. However, if you are high enough you can just jump over them and skip to other parts of the level.
There's definitely stuff even I missed.
Aside from the crazy and advanced level design there are many other things that just make the game unusual. Porky has a bizarre idle animation that makes the game look unfinished when you move around. Many of the sound effects aren't mixed properly and sound either too quiet or too loud at parts (Daffy's scream is too loud, Porky's death sound is very muffled). Enemies just looked odd. There was a leprechaun that split into 2 smaller ones when attacked. Just things that never would have made sense in the loony tunes world. It's all so surreal.
The whole teleporting doors sequence was another strange thing (in the Alps).
The game constantly straddles the line between being a creepy pasta itch.io game and long forgotten SNES platformer. It plays the spooky-ness so straight it never once gets corny. To add to the mystique I have seen posts claiming there are a series of minigames hidden but I can't find any video of them. TCRF also has a bunch of assets cut from the game too.
Despite the strangeness of the game it's not too hard. If you are pro-active looking around you can find lots of extra lives. I never once ran out. The only part I struggled with was a section in Atlantis where you have to ride bubbles up to the top. That was painful to do. Never once did I find the game unfair or bad.
The music was composed by Kevin Bateson and Jez Taylor. Because of a lack of information I don't know exactly who did what. In the games credits Bateson is credited as Kev B. Unfortunately there is scant information about both artists. The VGMPF lists his only other contributions as Alien Olympics 2044, The Flintstones and 2 Lion King games. He also might have worked for Dark Technologies at some point.
Jez Taylor is a little more known. It seems to be an alias of Jeremy Taylor, a British musician. He's been all over the place, active since the 90s and still active to this day. There's not a singular work he's known for but he's worked on everything from Perfect Dark Zero to Need for Speed: Nitro. He gets around.
The music is a real standout. Both forest tracks are these eerie dark ambient songs that sound completely out of place on the cutesy-SNES. It completely struck me and elevated the forest level to new heights. The other tracks have this almost found-sound to them, the way they loop sound almost like broken transmission. It's really good and completely unexpected to find on a Looney Tunes game nonetheless.
Even the soundtrack has its quirks. I originally tried to grab the soundtrack years ago but found that all the songs I heard weren't there. While compiling it again I found out the reason. There seems to be two soundtracks going around of this game. The KHInsider link below illustrates that. Tracks 1-57 were not heard in my game at all. Not only that, but the titles don't match up with levels I've played either. There is no Japan level in the game. Tracks 58-88 are what I heard.
Now, I don't know for certain but this is my theory. The game was originally developed by Phoenix Interactive / Dark Technologies or Sunsoft. At some point then Acclaim took over and re-tooled it. I believe 1-57 is the 'beta' version of the games soundtrack while the 58-88 are the retail version.
Either that or the NA and EU versions are completely different. I don't know for certain. While re-tagging I also found that Jez Taylor was not credited on the first part so he might have had nothing to do with 1-57. I don't know.
Regardless, the one below I am sharing is the stuff I heard, so tracks 58-88. I'm gonna listen to the alternate half and figure out its origins at some point. If it's good enough I will add it below.
This rip is slightly different from the KHInsider rip. Like many other soundtracks I have shared this one has had its tracks volume boosted and extended. Most songs are now 3-4 minutes instead of 1-2. Just makes for a better listening experience. I have also re-tagged and added cover art (as seen above).
Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvdk5ZMFNiNlQjcnpxNm1ucVpnRW9PTkFsU0N0aTAyakJ5MEZUUG5TWEYyQnNCZHZMQ2VNdw==
KHInsider: https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/porky-pig-s-haunted-holiday-1994-snes
p@ss: strangegame
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