In my last review, I briefly went over the fact that survival and real-time strategy RPGs just aren’t my cup of tea. Now that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy them. I just generally don’t play those types of games. Hunt the Night is the exact opposite. I love these types of games, action RPGs are my jam!!
Not Quite Bullet Hell
When I first launched the game, I was under the preconceived notion that this was a bullet hell game. Now admittedly I didn’t do the best research before jumping in. I didn’t want any spoilers and I like to do my investigation into the studios who make the games after I beat them. So all I had to go on was the trailer on the playstation store and even then, I only skimmed through it. So when I booted up the game I was a little harsh at first. It felt a little slow. There wasn’t as much going on, the enemies attacks felt incredibly telegraphed especially the ranged ones. To say the least it wasn’t like the other bullet hell games I’ve played.
Second Impressions
I really started to reevaluate what type of game this is after the first boss fight. After felling the beast, the world opens up a bit. The game begins to remind me a lot of the old Zelda games or even the Legacy of Goku series for the GBA. The asthetic of the game is more akin to bloodborne, or castlevania though. The game actually seems to have a lot in common with bloodborne. For instance when you kill a boss both games will flash Prey Slaughtered, or Hunt Complete respectively.
The games opening cutscene reminded me of an old Ninja gaiden game I played on a PSP. I don’t remember the name, but Vespers running animation reminded me of it. It feels janky in a way that reminds me of those old pixel art games in a good way. As a kid I was never able to beat any of those old games they were far too hard for me. I’m sure they aren’t so bad now but as a child they felt impossible. Thankfully, or disappointingly depending on who you ask Hunt the Night is relatively easy. It isn’t a cake walk, but it isn’t hard by any means none of the bosses gave me much trouble. I was able to beat them all with little to no issue.
There was one boss later in the game that I was fighting wrong, but once I figured out how to fight it properly I didn’t have any issues beating it. I’ll mention it more in my Pros and Cons section but I really enjoy all the different sprites for the enemies in the game. For some reason I really like how the little purple soul enemies look especially
Minor Gripes and Massive Issues
before getting into the pros and cons proper, I wanted to go over certain small technical and graphical issues. I also wanted to go over this one bug that I found amusing. To lead into my pros and cons list I want to finish this section off by going over one big thing that over time really began to annoy me. First, I didn’t have any major dips in fps aside from the odd stuttering here or there. Never when there were a lot of enemies on screen, it only ever seemed to happen when going from one area of the map to another. The game crashed once or twice but only after suddenly opening the ps5 menu. I noticed a slight delay when pressing certsin buttons it only happened every so often and it wasn’t consistent. I kinda felt like I was going crazy.
Aside from some personal preferences , I don’t have too much to complain about visually and there weren’t any major graphical glitches. One thing I will mention is that the sword Vesper holds during her combat Idle animation is a little too floppy looking for me. The swinging animations for all the weapons are fine so I don’t know why the idle animation looks like that. It makes the sword look like rubber to me. There was one amusing glitch I found. In the video above this section you can see I was able to get out of bounds. The best part is that I didn’t even mean to. I was exploring and I accidently slipped right past a rock that was meant to block the path. Unfortunately that leads me to possibly my biggest gripe with the game.
Excessive Loading Screens
Maybe I’m just pampered, maybe I should try to remember what it was like back during the PS2, or PS3 era. I could boot up a bethesda game and be reminded of what real loading screens can look like, but the amount of loading screens in this game coupled with the length some of them took me out of the game. Now I admit the loading screens aren’t terribly long, but there are tons of them: every house, every new area, every time you save, or fast travel. Even the enemies can sometimes push you into a loading screen. It was too much honestly.
Nothing breaks my immersion more than fighting a group of enemies only to dash into a door and accidentally leave the fight. What I don’t get is that during boss fights the doors and exits are sealed off like in most games. Why can’t it be like that for regular encounters too?
Pros and Cons
On the pros side: the games upgrade system works very similarly to the souls franchise. You’ll gather Noctilium from enemies which is this games version of souls. You then use those to upgrade your healing items, to purchase upgrades for your sidearms and to purchase gear like weapons and clothing. You’ll collect quite a bit of these throughout the game and I never felt like I needed to grind. The games sprites look very nice and it is easy to tell variants apart from each other at a glance. I never got too lost and the way the game handles progression is similar to metroidvania’s. The games combat is rather simple and could get repetitive if the game were any longer than it was. As for cons: The games combat is still slower than I’d like and I didn’t get the rush I was expecting from the bosses.
The game definitely has some bullet hell mechanics, but the projectiles the enemies shoot are too slow and I never found myself overwhelmed. The game ultimately is more like those old pixel art action RPGs I mentioned earlier though. That’s why it doesn’t really factor in to my final decison on the game. Overall I really enjoyed my time and would absolutely recommend Hunt the Night.
