Hunt the Night time’s darkish fantasy world makes a wonderful first impression. Instantly you discover your approach right into a corrupted fortress to tackle its many horrors and reclaim a spot for humanity. It goals to supply gameplay that’s someplace between Bloodborne and Zelda, combining fast-paced fight with puzzle-filled dungeons. All the things’s there for a very good sport, and Hunt the Night time does present some potential at occasions. However the general expertise is simply not pleasing, as you slog by clunky fight, annoying degree design, and a rushed story.
The story is centered round Vesper’s journey to seal the Night time, a state of fixed darkness that has nearly worn out humanity. It’s a grim setting, with corpses littering every space and little or no (non-hostile) life to be discovered. Vesper herself is branded a traitor as a consequence of her father’s betrayal of The Stalkers, the group aiming to cease the Night time. As a sport that takes some inspiration from Bloodborne (and Souls video games typically), loads of this story is informed through optionally available textual content slightly than cutscenes. You’ll discover feathers that act as the ultimate reminiscences of lifeless Stalkers, and notes typically give extra lore on the world you’re in.
Nonetheless, Hunt the Night time does function cutscenes for key story moments, and it is simple sufficient to comply with alongside with out studying any of the choice textual content. The story itself is serviceable, primarily simply providing you with a purpose to go to the following monster-ridden space, although it feels rushed. After being shortly thrown from space to space within the latter half, it turned onerous to essentially interact with what little story there was. This all results in a finale that has little actual affect, involving characters that aren’t very attention-grabbing.
If the story is extra of a purpose to discover some bizarre and lethal locations, then the exploration and fight are what make up the meat of Hunt the Night time. Areas typically supply a number of hidden chests to seek out, containing gear, collectibles, and even the occasional magic spell. They’re by no means overly difficult (exterior of 1 place full of poison that makes it onerous to find out the place you’re), and it’s satisfying to lastly open a chest that was taunting you once you first arrived within the space.
Sadly, whereas the overworld areas are easy however enjoyable sufficient, the dungeon areas really feel missing. Most are fairly linear, with the principle alternative for many being “Which path do you need to take first?” Puzzles, which appeared like they’d be an enormous focus of Hunt the Night time, include following a easy sample discovered on a be aware, then going to a particular space within the dungeon. Pull levers on this order, work together with objects on this order, put in these particular numbers — puzzles are hardly ever partaking or supply any break from the fight.
And the fight… it’s dangerous, in various methods. Vesper has entry to 4 completely different melee weapon varieties, together with 3 weapons. Extra melee weapons will be purchased or present in chests, although they solely supply extra harm or the flexibility to use considered one of two standing results. Weapons will be upgraded so as to add selectable passive results, although the beginning pistol finally ends up being probably the most helpful. Builds, typically, aren’t actually a factor, because of the lack of selection with gear.
An absence of builds or weapon selection wouldn’t even matter if the essential fight was really enjoyable, but it surely by no means is. Vesper can solely melee assault in 4 instructions (ranged weapons have full 360-degree aiming), making spears awkward to make use of. In the meantime, most enemies can solely face left or proper and have been given broad swings and huge AOE spinning assaults to make up for this. Combining this with ranged enemies and the overall excessive harm you are taking, and it might probably make for some very annoying encounters. Most rooms will be rushed by, although you’ll incessantly be locked into an space and compelled to combat waves of enemies. Afterward, Hunt the Night time has a behavior of spawning waves of probably the most annoying enemy varieties that aren’t enjoyable to combat.
Bosses don’t fare significantly better. In reality, they spotlight extra points with how fight is dealt with. Telegraphs are sometimes poor, providing you with little to no time to react, with a number of dangerous hitboxes guaranteeing you get hit no matter whether or not you dodge or not. Oddly, the primary few bosses are the worst offenders for this, with later bosses typically being higher for telegraphs. They nonetheless undergo from bizarre assault patterns, combining assaults that make it inconceivable to keep away from taking harm at occasions. I don’t suppose there’s a single boss that’s really memorable exterior of its visible design — one massive boss halfway by was really fairly enjoyable till I needed to slowly take out 2 extra well being bars after the principle combat was already over.
As you’re coping with the jank fight, you additionally need to cope with some grating hit results and fixed display screen shake. What makes each of these issues unusual is that the sound design and presentation typically are literally very strong exterior of fight. The environments are lovely, with the boss and ambient themes being way more memorable than the precise gameplay. Character and enemy sprites are a bit of unusual although. Vesper is easily animated, although she appears to be like misplaced visually in comparison with each different character. Enemies are additionally inconsistent, some having extremely clean motion sprites whereas others stutter compared.
Hunt the Night time – Remaining Ideas
It’s genuinely a disgrace to see the atmospheric world be wasted in such a approach. Fight is wonky and repetitive, areas don’t supply any actual puzzle-solving alternatives, and the entire expertise comes throughout as rushed later within the sport. Exterior of the music and a few sprite work, Hunt the Night time doesn’t do something higher than the video games it’s impressed by.
Hunt the Night time was reviewed on PC utilizing a code provided by the developer.
