Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle Reviews
Despite the different setting, interesting environmental puzzles and the creative party-splitting mechanic, Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle fails in several basic aspects, with repetitive and tedious combat, weak story and a total inability to keep you interested in the game.
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It is really depressing to play a game like Hyakki Castle. It has some things that could have made it a good game in a vastly underrepresented genre. It got the atmosphere just right, which is one of the most difficult things to nail perfectly. However, it is dragged down by many things that while independently does not ruin a game, it destroys the game when combined. Bad mouse and keyboard controls would not ruin a game, but the painful process of making gamepads work with the game does as it is almost mandatory to use a gamepad to enjoy the game at all, and do not even get started on the hunger system that makes exploring, which is one of the core pillars of enjoyment in the genre heavily, punishable. In the end, while it is easy to want to like Hyakki Castle and see how it could have been a great game, it is too hard to not see that it isn't a good game.
Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle may have interesting and satisfying dungeon crawling survival gameplay but its presentational aspects definitely take a lot of fun out of the equation.
Hyakki Castle promises an interesting premise but can deliver on little else besides some pretty loading screen concept art.
In many ways, Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle is a pretty traditional dungeon crawler with its grid-based movement, first person perspective and numbers-heavy combat on the back end. Where it breaks the mold a bit is in how it allows you to split your party up for its real-time combat and Japanese-infused aesthetic. This is a genre that sometimes can get a little stodgy, and does not generally bring a lot of innovation to the table, so despite some annoying difficulty spikes and some lackluster overall presentation values, Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle still makes for an interesting addition to the genre.
While somewhat antiquated in its controls and visuals, Hyakki Castle is a strange game that uses its stellar atmosphere and exceptional enemy designs to hearken back to the classic era of first-person dungeon crawlers.
Hyakki Castle looks and plays great, but simply has too many issues to recommend to a general audience. What the game achieves in its setting design and leveling system comes at the cost of a half-baked “party splitting” feature, a frustrating save system, and a 720p resolution lock.