Doctor Hauzer is a survival horror game released exclusively for the 3DO in 1995 by Riverhill Soft. Set in 1952, players assume the role of an investigator searching for the missing archaeologist Dr. Hauzer in his isolated home, built over an archaeological site. The game features a 3D environment, multiple camera perspectives, and emphasizes exploration over combat. Despite its innovative design, it was not released outside Japan due to its short length, lack of enemies, poor framerate, and other issues. An English fan translation exists, omitting only the FMVs.
In 1952, an Investigator (You) is searching for the archeologist Dr. Hauzer, who has disappeared. The Investigator finds a large house in the middle of nowhere that belonged to Dr. Hauzer. The home is built over an archeology site, with Doctor Hauzer having become obsessed with a deity named Kellbim. It is up to you to find Doctor Hauzer and what happened to his interns.
One of the earliest Survival Horror games, Doctor Hauzer was released as a Japan exclusive for the 3DO by a development studio that was well-known for their detective\mystery visual novels, top-down RPGS, Point-&-Click Adventure games, and Japanese localizations of Western games like Prince of Persia up till this point. Doctor Hauzer was Riverhill Soft's first foray into 3D. Influenced by the successful Alone In The Dark, your character will navigate a fully 3D environment and die numerous times in the house's deadly traps, including some that are unavoidable for first time players. You have unlimited save games so you can view the death animations as part of the fun. You can switch the view between first-person, third-person, or overhead. Choosing a different view will help you overcome some traps, including some platforming.
There are several major reasons why this game was never released outside Japan: It's relatively easy with no monsters to fight, is roughly 1-hour long, has an incredibly bad framerate that can get as low as 3 frames-per-second (the 4DO emulator can "overclock" the CPU up to 400%, making it less choppy), some music is plagurized like the theme song being a near identical copy of the Beetlejuice movie's theme, and was on a platform that was already failing in the West.
An English fan translation is available, with only the FMV's remaining untranslated.
