Hauntii Review

Released in May of 2024 by small studio Moonloop Games, one-of-a-kind indie game Hauntii shines among its genre for its number of stand-out features. It’s been available to play on Steam, Switch, Playstation, and Xbox, but I only recently decided to try it out after seeing it on Game Pass. That decision has since prompted a lot of amazement, frustration, and admittedly confusion at times. 

The effort put into every aspect of the game is evident and endlessly applaudable, but I certainly found notable flaws as well that hindered my experience with it from time to time. While the story is very compelling through its entirety, for example, the mechanics of NPC interactions to get that story are frustrating, as no matter how long the string of dialogue is, there’s no way to back out/cancel an interaction if you accidentally re-prompt it. Adding to that sense of awkward pacing is the aimlessness that arises when it isn’t quite clear what you’re supposed to be doing to advance the plot, replacing the brain-teasing of an actual puzzle with a distracting, running-in-circles loop until you realize whatever it is you’ve missed. I think “wait, what killed me that time?” was my most repeated phrase as I reached the more battle-oriented stages of the story, and while some might argue that that’s part of figuring out a puzzle game, I’d return that my gradually decreasing excitement to “get it right” on the next respawn is more indicative of a game with room to be bettered than a rightfully difficult one. However, when taken more as a visual, interactive story the game is extremely impressive, especially when it comes to graphics! For indie lovers and people with more patience than me, it’s a valuable little gem totally worth playing.

YOU MAY LIKE...