Hauntii is a twin-stick shooter in the same way that Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a jumping game. Moonloop Games’ imaginative and breathtakingly beautiful debut about a ghost searching for understanding in the afterlife turns one of the most nerve-wracking genres into a sprawling, accessible adventure full of puzzles, surprises, and ideas.
You play as a ghost who has recently washed up on the black shores of the afterlife of Purgatory with no memory of your past life. As you follow a winding path of white light, two goals emerge for you to pursue: learn more about who you were before you died, and pursue a mysterious angelic figure who continues to elude you like a princess who missed a castle.
Hauntii involves fast movement (for example, you’re only safe in well-lit areas and have to dash through shadows) but it’s more of a puzzle game than a game of reaction. The best part is that your spirit can fire ghostly green bullets that can possess enemies and objects. Possessing a tree (yes, there are trees in the afterlife) can shake it and send specks of light that splash onto the ground, creating new paths between dark areas.
There are trees in the afterlife. And ladybugs…Hauntii. Photo: Moonloop Games
In addition to shooting and moving, you’ll use these possession abilities to search for collectible stars hidden in the game’s open end zone. You can possess a ladybug (there are ladybugs in the afterlife too) to climb trees and pluck stars from their canopies, or control a ghostly dog to reunite with its owner and receive a star as a reward. The stars you collect can be inserted into constellations to upgrade abilities, unlock new areas and peel back layers of ghostly amnesia.
If this all sounds a bit… weird, you’re not even listening to the half of it. Hauntii’s depiction of the afterlife is outlandish to say the least. Act 2 takes place in a vast circus of the dead, where players ride a giant, looping rollercoaster. The game has a tragic backstory, from the uplifting musical refrains that play as you collect stars to the melancholic side of a life lost, but it’s also packed with goofy characters and quirky humor.
Artistically, it’s also a delight. The monochrome, pointillist style may look simple, but the fun animations bring it to life, and that simple aesthetic also makes for some seriously striking landscapes, like the aforementioned carnival, but also the rippling cityscape you see below as you cross a spoke-like bridge that juts out from the game’s center. Later, you explore a desert full of ruins, and ink-flecked sand shifts around ghosts as they move.
Ink speckled sand shifts…Hauntii. Photo: Moonloop Games
The game is beautifully crafted, but a few pesky issues stop it from being a masterpiece. The isometric perspective, combined with the lack of ability to zoom into the game world, makes traversing the large zones frustrating at times, and if you die in combat, you revive with only a portion of your health restored, forcing you to hunt around for health restores every time. And while the possession mechanics are always fun and inventively placed, the puzzles themselves are a bit too piecemeal to allow the game to create anything truly original from them.
Still, Moonloop Games has pulled off a smart attempt to elevate this humble twin-stick shooter, and in a month chock-full of great indie releases, Hauntii is another great addition to the illustrious pile.
Source: www.theguardian.com
