The first game had an excellent soundtrack and "so bad it's hilarious" acting going for it. Not this game. No, the soundtrack is bland, the acting is banal, to say the least, the graphics are terrible--even for the time, considering in the first game, the actors at least looked like they meshed with the scenery--the story is incoherent, sloppy, barely even there until the end. Players will frequently find themselves stuck until they resort to endless pixel-hunting and guide-using. The first game's hook was cringe-inducing gore that still packs a punch today, but this game's hook is boobs, boobs and bondage, and it is cringe-inducing in all the wrong ways. You will not be aroused. You won't even chuckle. It has no connection to the story and takes up roughly a third of the game. Just to add insult to injury, the final puzzle of the game CTD on me, so I had to watch the ending on YouTube. Do not buy this game.
Based solely on its own merits, Phantasmagoria is a terrible game: it's extremely linear, many filler animations last far too long, and the acting is like something you'd see on MST3k. On the other hand, this is one of those games that both earns the moniker "so bad it's good" and surpasses it. If you like laughing at bad movies, you'll love this; I have to say, though, the lead actress does a pretty damn good job at appearing legitimately stressed and terrified. The graphics are at the level that the actors don't appear as if in green screens; it meshes just enough. The music is almost perfect, to the point where I wish GOG.com offered the soundtrack as a bonus, but alas. The story, though unoriginal, succeeds at what it needs to do, with no obvious plot holes (apart from a few graphical screw-ups) or significant leaps of faith. To put it simply, you'll laugh, you'll jump, you'll avert your eyes and occassionally groan, but it's not a bad way to spend five bucks during a sale.
