Hauntii review – a ghost searches for understanding in the afterlife in this imaginative debut | Games

hauntii is a twin stick shooter in the same way Super Mario Bros: Wonder is a jumping game. This imaginative, breathtakingly beautiful debut from Moonloop games about a ghost seeking understanding in the afterlife transforms the most thrilling genre into a sprawling, accessible adventure filled with puzzles, surprises and ideas.

You play as a recently departed spirit cast adrift on the black shores of purgatory beyond, with no memory of their past life identity. As you walk winding paths of white light, two goals appear for you to pursue: to find out more about who you were before you died, and to chase down a mysterious angelic figure that keeps slipping from your grasp, like a certain princess who absent from a certain castle.

While Hauntii’s gameplay involves some fast-paced movement (you can only move safely through lit areas, for example, forcing you to sneak between shadows), it’s more of a mystery than a reaction game. Its hook is that the ghostly green projectiles your spirit can fire can also possess enemies and items. Possessing a tree (yes, the afterlife has trees) will allow you to shake it, causing it to release particles of light that splash to the ground, creating new paths between dark areas.

You use these possession abilities along with your shooting and movement to search for collectible stars hidden in the game’s open areas. You can possess a ladybug (afterlife also has ladybugs) to climb a tree and pluck a star from its crown, or take control of a ghost dog to reunite it with its owner, receiving a star as a reward. Each star you collect can be incorporated into constellations that allow you to upgrade your abilities, unlock new areas, and peel back the layers of your spectral amnesia.

If this all sounds a little… weird, you haven’t heard the half of it. Hauntii’s portrayal of life after death is odd to say the least. The second act takes place in a sprawling circus of the dead, with you in command of huge, circling roller coasters. And while the game has a tragic undertone, from the soaring musical refrain that plays when you pick up a star to the wistful glimpses of the life you’ve lost, it’s also filled with wacky characters and offbeat humor.

It is also artistically sublime. The monochrome style of pointillist art may seem simple, but it is brought to life through delightful animation. He also constructs some highly impressive landscapes from his simple aesthetic. The aforementioned carnival is one, but it also features vast cityscapes that curve beneath you as you cross the spoke-like bridges that jut out from the central hub of the game. Later, you explore a desert full of ruins where inky patches of sand shift around your ghost as they move.

It’s a beautifully crafted piece of work held back from greatness by a few pesky gremlins. The isometric perspective combined with the lack of a zoom feature in the game world can make its larger areas frustrating to navigate. Also, if you die in battle, you only respawn with a fraction of your health restored, forcing you to sniff out health-restoring items each time. And while the possession mechanics are always fun and inventively deployed, the puzzles themselves are too disjointed for the game to make anything truly ingenious out of them.

Regardless, Moonloop Games makes its clever attempt to elevate the humble twin-stick shooter. After a month already full of indie gems, Hauntii is another gem to add to the glittering pile.