As much as I loved this game, it has some boggling oversights and design choices that you wouldn't expect, very ambitious/experimental game though and it gets my respect.

Thank you for the meal Hideaki Itsuno's team of 400 (and shoutout to RK for gifting me this game I love you)

Wilhelmina I will see you again someday...

-> launches game
-> installs patches to play
-> "oh cool! For a game this old the AI sure is fairly smart (than most games nowadays) and the gunplay is good!"
-> make it to mid way point and game nearly gives up to throw anything new at you

-> "Horror sequence straight from a GMOD map
-> Encounter
-> "Horror Sequence again

The encounters were fun though, core combat is definitely ahead of its time. Too bad the horror got stale for me after a bit but I like in certain sections how it linked to the games encounters in darker areas. Cool

(this game is too damn expensive lol)
I beat this game first back in March, and came back to play it again on hard mode. I can say without a doubt this game is much, much Superior on the harder difficulty and I like it leagues more. I'm coming to realize how much detail and thought was put into this game even for just being a scrapped and edited script of RE4


Haunting Ground stands out to me because it incentives replays through the usage of different play styles you can experiment with, there's sooo much to unlock after beating the game. Fiona has many different accessories and costumes that give her new mechanics, take for example the Cowgirl outfit, equipping this gives Fiona a gun that can make you have a guns blazing approach, or wearing an accessory earring that allows Fiona to turn invisible to be more sneaky. I think this is really awesome and different from a survival horror game because it opens the game up tremendously and encourages new playstyles like in Resident Evil, there's even a ranking system at the end of each playthrough that tells you about your kind of playstyle.

On Standard, I was feeling underwhelmed due to how easy it is to get away from stalkers and survive them but on hard is a much different story, the enemy AI is much smarter now (or at least the first 3 stalkers), they take more effort to shake off your trail, you have to be much smarter when hiding, there were quite some times where stalkers like Riccardo, Debilitas, or Daniella would catch me off guard, and almost one-shot me

I ain't gonna dwell much on the story, since the gameplay really is where I'm most interested, all I know is that I liked Daniella's parts (she can have me btw.) Hewie best boy, and Fiona best girl.

For what it's worth I get the feminist readings and interpretations of what the game is trying to say through the eyes of Fiona, objectification against a woman's will is apparent in it however, I somewhat feel like the game contradicts itself in that category with the alt skimpy costumes you obtain lol. (Not to bash the funny boob physics harshly) Almost in a sense the game kinda wants you in on the sexualization at that point. I think the way to rectify this is Fiona only getting those outfits when she has a weapon of power, or dominance, but I still think it's a slight leap in thought considering parts of this game are an heavy analogy of SA or R*pe. I get where the readings are coming from though.



Most horror games nowadays don't really do much to bring you back but Haunting Ground is unique in this regard because of how many different ways you can run through this game. Wanna run past the sections and speed through the game as quickly as possible? Sure! Wanna get risky and go in guns blazing with all the unlockable costumes, or different items you can craft? Easy. Want to use all those items you've found/crafted to plant traps around the map, and ambush the stalkers with Hewie? Very doable. Want to sneak past your enemies, skip most of the encounters, and scout for all the items? Fun. Want to just max out the dog meter and pet Hewie all day? Go ahead! These are all really optimal playstyles and the game knows it. There are so many different outcomes and little details the game is filled with that sometimes on a new playthrough the game can feel really different and you'll encounter something new that you didn't last time.

If the game isn't gripping you after a first playthrough, I don't blame you! Haunting Ground is one of those games that gets better on a replay as you understand how things work, the game opens up much more after completion, it's a game im currently learning to luv. I think that's really neat.
My only real gripes with this game is some of the level design gets weaker in some sections in the last quarter of the game given how strong it is in the main 3 sections, or the inconsistency of Hewie's AI that sometimes lead to deaths.
The game does a poor job explaining some of the mechanics like Hewie for example but I think some of that is apart of the experience, like the lack of a UI hud for the game. The game would be infinitely easier if there was a HUD that showed health or stamina and even your bond with Hewie throughout the game. You have to rely more so on the animations, AI behaviors, and aesthetical cues to understand how things are operating to apply the proper judgment of the situation, I think that's a smart choice on the designers of this game, makes you pay attention more. This game is by no means a perfect cookie, but the kind of cookie that gets better as you take another bite.

If there is something else I would add though in the game would be a limited saves mode (ink ribbons like from RE) where you can only save through an item (like the chips) but that's just me dreaming lol.

Might make a video explaining its mechanics for it who knows lol

To start, I think there are a lot of things this game does better than the first, the amount of weapons/variety you're granted is stellar (miss the darts tho from 1), and every single one feels great to use. The enemy variety is much better which spices up the encounters more which was an issue I had with 1, and conceptually this game is much more interesting and unique than DC1. It really stands out more as its own identity.


I love everything about this game conceptually. However, in its execution, I think it lacks the tightness of the first game in the design apartment if you ask me, I have a feeling the reason I feel the way I do is because this game was much more experimental, it went such a different route than the survival horror that was in the first game. I love the idea of a run-and-gun arcade-style game with traditional tank controls similar to Resident Evil's Mercenaries mode, but I feel like some things didn't translate well here, you can see that some of the traditional stylized mechanics, like the aiming/fixed camera angles (with the slight turning lag).
I absolutely love them in horror titles because of the ambiance and unsettling feelings they provide, however, they just feel really strange to me here sometimes. Not at all because of the angles themselves, but more so the system and results behind it.

Considering it's a more fast run and gun-styled game, I dislike how the game has a habit of whenever you turn into a new camera angle out of nowhere a random bunch of enemies will spawn, even if you killed all of them in that particular angle, on normal difficulties it isn't much of an issue but on hard I think this is really inconsistent and annoying, however, this problem I have is mostly when I play as Dylan and not Regina. Dylan focuses mostly on close-range weapons, whereas Regina is more medium/long-range automatic weapons, this is completely fine, but with these systems, I think it makes Dylan's sections frustrating at times even though he feels great too.


But this begs the question, between Dino Crisis 1, and 2, one game is a type of game that has been done before and shares less of an identity than the other, but feels more tightly designed, and executed well, whereas 2 is much more experimental, unique, and fine-tuned in different areas with some ridges around it. I respect both.


I love to play short, yet replayable games like these and would love to see a remake of this one in particular because of how well it would translate with run-and-gun gameplay systems today when taking a look at the recent Resident Evil Remakes like 4 so hopefully it comes to fruition Capcom!

Wish we got to play as Regina a little bit more though cus she's the best ;p

Having never played AA (Ace Attorney), this game intrigued me because I have never played a Shu Takumi game before, and my IRL made me curious about it lol.
Ghost Trick ended up being a really tight, and consistent game with a very strong end. I appreciate that the puzzles in this game have many layers and nuance but never to the point of it feeling nonsensical. You always feel like you're on the edge of finding your solution and it is great how constantly engaged you feel when it is so due to how snappy the visual design is and fun or charming the characters are with their interactions.

I want to spoil as little as possible because it really is one of those games that is best knowing only a little bit of. Im a sucker for Interrelated branching stories where the main character helps everyone along the way so this was up my alley.

I'm considering moving the AA series up my backlog after playing this, Shu Takumi show me what ya got.

I actually really liked this game, I had fun with the puzzles and the game actually pushed me to the point of actually having to write things down on pieces of paper to figure things out, I think it's cool that the puzzles in this game are actually kinda clever, like having to tilt your head upside down to figure out the pass code to a key in one section.

There's a lot more of an emphasis on running away than fighting since the dinosaurs contain much smarter AI than the standard zombies of Resident Evil but it was pretty up my alley. If you like classic RE I recommend it

Aside from what everyone else has said about this game, just from a pure game design standpoint this games level of detail is astonishing, I'm shocked at the level of interactablity there is with the environments, levels, and enemies. Like most third-person shooter games, leon of course can point and shoot, but what he can do with the point-and-shoot with his guns are what sets them apart. Shooting the enemies in the leg will stun them, being able to melee them (even all at once depending upon the scenario) the arm will stagger, of course, headshots as well, shotgun can mow down hordes of enemies (and the rifle can if lined up in rows as well) if the enemy has dynamite you can shoot it out of their hand, an enemy has a throwable melee weapon you can shoot it down mid-air, it's crazy.

I think one of the best things about this game from a gameplay perspective is a lack of crosshair, the lack of crosshair gives it such a tactical feel and really puts you in Leon's shoes, having to use the red dot as a way to land the right shots, this makes it feel more in a sense, desperate in situations, the red dot is your main form of accuracy depending upon if the circle fully forms or not.

The level of detail doesn't stop with just gameplay, even with the cutscenes the number of cutscenes provided are fun too, there's quite alot that can easily be missed, many of them I didn't even know until I saw them online not too long ago as I write this, if you don't explore parts of an area, what action you take, I'm surprised. Probably a timeless game, I'm not sure at all how the remake is even going to try to top this. What else can you expect from the legendary Shinji Mikami

DMC4hook mod my beloved

Inertia Dante Skystar Guardflying goes BRRRRRR

(First played this game back in 2011/12 on the ps3 💀)