It is increasingly difficult to stand out on a platform that is widely used today like Kickstarter, but the Spanish team moonlight games managed to wisely manage the campaign, proposing a video game that takes the top view of Secret of Mana and drops the protagonist Vesper into a rotten and blood-stained world, explicitly citing Bloodborne at the beginning of the adventure. They are high-sounding names, but Hunt the Night, despite being a production with a small overall budget, manages to stand out from similar projects thanks to a distinctive graphic style and a fast and bloody combat system, capable of fully reflecting the ruthless character. nature of Medhram, the world in which Vesper and the rest of the Stalkers move.
It's a shame that the version tested for review had some limitations compared to the release version (the Prime Hunts mode, with the possibility of facing bosses again, was not available in our test). We initially experienced some bugs, but the numerous corrective patches released to date have significantly improved the situation, virtually smoothing out all the rough edges and allowing this Excellent (and frenetic) action video game. shine as it deserves.
We tell you about our experience in Medhram in our Hunt the night review.
The hard life of a Stalker
In the Ninth Age of Humanity, the arrival of Night - capable of annihilating, cycle after cycle, human beings - opposes stalker, a sect of warriors who have discovered how to (paradoxically) harness the powers of darkness to prolong the length of the Day, the time in which men can live and prosper. It is the blood of the Stalkers that fuels the Night Seal, central to the plot of Hunt the Night, the only means by which the darkness can be kept at bay and humanity can continue to live, albeit at a high cost.
Vesper moves in a dying world, Medhram, now about to give in to the Night: her task is to redeem herself and the misdeeds of her father, a traitor to the Stalkers, and continue feeding the Seal to prolong the existence of human beings. . species. The presence of the cycles is certainly familiar to Dark Souls fans, and exactly like the works of FromSoftware, Hunt the Night is also told primarily through descriptions of weapons, armor, items and special powers, as well as with the crow feathers, memories of the Stalkers that are scattered throughout the game world and can be found in the most disparate corners. Overall, the story is told in a stimulating and coherent way, without reinventing the wheel of stylistic elements. dark fantasy, and maintains a good pace for the roughly twelve hours needed to complete the adventure while properly appreciating the game world and its side branches.
Ultra-fast fights
Vesper is very fast at running, a central mechanic in both exploration and combat. Ruled by the bar of Darkness, which is slowly restored over time, the plane favors a style of attack in duels against the creatures of the Night, quite varied and characterized by sometimes quite original designs. With a system similar to that seen in the demo of The Last Case of Benedict Fox, shots with the knife recharge the bullets available to the protagonist, gaining an advantage. "Mixed" approach to fighting.. There are different types of short-range weapons, including swords, spears, and greatswords, and three types of firearms; the latter can be upgraded in the central hub, which is unlocked after a couple of hours of play, where upgrades for Vesper's healing items can also be purchased.
The currency of the game world is Noctilio, which can be obtained by defeating enemies and opening chests found around Medhram. Hunt the Night features gods role playing elements not excessively deep but well implemented, such as the presence of the aforementioned firearm upgrades, but also the existence of equippable items capable of enhancing certain skills and clothing with special powers (which, in a touch that demonstrates attention to detail, change the color of the sprites that make up our Vesper). Unlike what happens in souls, losing a fight does not mean having to recover the Noctilium when you die: Hunt the Night has a medium-high difficulty, but has no penalties in case the game ends. You return to life at the nearest Raven Altar, a location that acts as a checkpoint as well as a save and movement point on the game's vast map. Whether or not to touch an Altar is the result of an evaluation of tactical opportunity, since contact with it implies the resurrection of enemies defeated by Vesper in the area.
Too bad I didn't get to try Prime Hunts mode before Hunt the Night's release date, because the boss battles are full of adrenaline and well groomed in the design of enemies and their powers. However, the Hunting Missions, available in the tavern in the center of the game, are not always interesting: by paying a sum, you can access arenas scattered throughout the different locations of Medhram and face improved versions of the basic enemies. If in some cases we have found any stimulating challenges, in others the team made less effort and more banal confrontations occurred; However, on average, Hunt the Night's fights are fast, merciless, with just the right amount of difficulty, and, in a word, very tasty.
A dying world
Medhram often features the most classic settings seen in dark fantasy video games: the dark forest, the castle haunted by unspeakable powers, the sanatorium haunted by the ghostly presences of the people who were once hospitalized there. Moonlight Games, however, has achieved the difficult task of making these more traditional places pleasant and beautiful to see and explore, on the one hand, and inventing, on the other, most unusual places, always with a great commitment to artistic care and in managing the color balance of the settings.
Essential in the exploration are the Umbra's powers, the ghostly side of Vesper's soul, capable of projecting beyond obstacles and then "calling" the Stalker's physical body beyond them. Gaining these abilities throughout the adventure encourages backtracking to previously explored areas. Regarding the structure of the game world, we highlight an initial dispersion in the first phases outside the initial castle - a dungeon simply perfect as an introduction to the exploration and combat mechanics - fortunately resolved by the presence of a character who gives us advice on where to go to continue the adventure. There is no shortage of secondary missions, quite modest in number, but fortunately Medhram offers many corners full of secrets that encourage exploration. The puzzles are good, with good variety and capable of building interesting interactions with the environment.
Honorable mention for the interfaces present on the screen, non-invasive and totally consistent with thegothic aesthetic of the setting and the protagonist Vesper; The same consideration applies to the menu. In general, the appearance of Hunt the Night is remarkable, despite the simplicity of a pixel art that is not too refined, but capable of building an excellent balance between all the elements present on the screen. There is currently no Spanish translation and we enjoy Hunt the Night with texts in English.
The soundtrack is excellent., in which he also collaborated Hiroki Kikuta (composer, among other works to which he has contributed, of the soundtrack of Secret of Mana): the sounds are based mainly on the piano and strings, and are evocative both when they have a more contained scope, and in the more subdued themes. bombastic and orchestral. It's no coincidence that the developers of Hunt the Night advise players to enjoy the experience with headphones: even the diegetic sound effects (the sound of footsteps, the sound of a gunshot, the wind whipping around a snowy hill) are very good care. and contribute in a non-marginal way to the construction of an experience that demonstrates great attention to these details. The code, not very clean at the beginning of our testing period, has been systematically optimized, eliminating the errors initially present to present a decidedly more refined product on the eve of launch, at which time we wrote this review.
Conclusions
Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (3) 6.6 your voteHunt the Night advances at the pace of its protagonist, Vesper, without forgetting to stop at the aesthetic and sound aspects of a production that manages to build a very well-structured and stimulating dark fantasy atmosphere, both from the point of view of exploration, both from the perspective of the combat system. Vesper is agile and leads each battle at lightning speed, forcing players to keep up even in situations where the difficulty becomes high - on several occasions we breathed a big sigh of relief after holding him back for a long time in a Violent and frenetic boss fight. , and those who love a challenge will find what they are looking for. The soundtrack is excellent, with several tracks that stick in our heads and that we find ourselves whistling in the most disparate situations. We can only applaud Moonlight Games for its ability to create an action adventure that is retro in aesthetics, but able to look towards more modern experiences - above all, the souls of FromSoftware - to extract important lessons on how to keep players delighted with experiences of game of non-trivial difficulty. .
PRO
- Really intriguing dark fantasy atmosphere.
- Fast and bloody combat system.
- Some boss fights are just excellent.
AGAINST
- At first you feel the lack of a map of the game world and it takes some time to give you a clear direction.
- A plot that at times seems overwhelmingly already seen
