The Night, the evil that plagues humanity day after day

Hunt the Night is an ARPG from DANGEN Entertainment. The designs and traits reminded me a lot of the Metroidvania style, except for the difference in character control, which in Hunt the Night is free, not just linear.

But the presentation is quite similar, as it is a macabre fantasy game with a morbid theme and a focus on narrative. The game promises to deliver adventure, action, multiple combats, and unexpected abilities.

Recently, I covered some RPG game releases. One strong criticism I had was the lack of map exploration, not necessarily the open world itself. In the case of Hunt the Night, the game requires you to explore and collect materials to complete the stages, which was a very positive point in my experience.

With this, you have a lot of freedom to choose to explore calmly (observing each scene, interacting with objects, and discovering the game's story while facing monsters) or even speedrun, which consists of defeating enemies and quickly collecting the necessary elements.

My first impression was that this was one of those games that would make me tense, and right at the beginning when I heard the first song of the game, I was sure of it.



In that sense, Hunt the Night is a game that will give you a different RPG-style experience, with plenty of nostalgia, a gothic setting, and a dark narrative combined with fast gameplay and chilling music. Its release on major PC platforms will be on April 13, and for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation in the days after.

Puzzles in pursuit of greater goals

The first thing I noticed about Hunt the Night is its focus on narrative. Still, in my opinion, the game's storytelling is slow and lacking in detail at first, as it is commented on very superficially. But I already had the notion that later on I would be able to discover much more about the world of Medhram.

With this, I understood that throughout the game I would be in control of Vesper Backbone, who is a member of a group of people who aim to end the evil, called the Night, which is exterminating humans in an endless cycle.

As the gameplay progresses, more chapters of the narrative are discovered through objects that we interact with on the map. After passing a stage, after defeating several enemies (many, in fact), we are able to discover a little more of the mystery. But since it takes a certain amount of time to complete a stage, it is common to get lost in the focus of the story, sometimes becoming tiring and very time-consuming.

But, at the same time that I played the game trying to pass a stage alive and with a full life, I wanted to know more about the game's story. The game all the time emphasizes this story, and shows cutscenes to enhance the plot, something I like a lot and think adds value to the work.



In the first puzzles of the game, I understood that the candles (a handful, which is present in every stage) indicate which direction I should go, something that made the path much easier. The candles show that you have already passed a certain point and that you should continue there (which is indicated when they light up blue flames), not allowing me to get lost wandering around.

We have plenty of options for combat, with dash mechanics (to dodge and advance against enemies and to pass through "dangerous" waters that are capable of killing you in one hit), and attacks (a factor that encompassed both tastes: melee and ranged). You can choose how it looks best for battle, and also have the possibility of combining attacks if you like both ways.

We have the checkpoint from interacting with a very beautiful statue, one of the most gothic elements of the game. We can save the progress and continue our way, in a standard system of RPG games in which the save is far away from the current progress, greatly increasing the difficulty of the game.



And speaking of difficulty, Hunt the Night is undoubtedly a very complicated game. You will need to be very skilled to pass the puzzles the first time and avoid as many deaths as possible since the distant save and the various enemies will not facilitate for you.

For example, at one stage of the game that I was not very good at, I was having to go from room to room to explore and look for feathers (and there really were a lot of rooms to go through). After killing several opponents, I was low on life and died quickly to a power that was not even that strong. With that, I had to go back to the starting point, and, very frustrated, redo the quests.

Hunt the Night is a game in which you will die several times. Therefore, be cautious and abuse some mechanics, especially the dash (it does not have a long recharge time and is easy to use). Also, it is interesting to combine attacks to kill the creatures more quickly.

The game itself is not difficult, but we need to pay attention to the instructions and use the powers in our favor. There are a lot of controls, but they are very simple to execute, and, used in the right way, are efficient and complete.



With that, I also need to talk about how to complete the game menu is: we can see what instruments we have in our arsenal, the feathers collected, pieces of diaries that tell the story of the game, weapon upgrades, and, of course, the options menu. With this panel, it is much easier to locate ourselves and check how many objects we still need to collect, what weapons to upgrade, and what the final narrative of the game will be.

The strong presence of a gothic and haunting world

Hunt the Night has an impeccable soundtrack. At the start of the game, the developers have posted a warning advising players to wear headphones for greater immersion. And it really makes a difference to hear the suspenseful, often tense music that accompanies the game.

At times I even had to turn down the volume to concentrate more and not be so pressed to get through a task. As easy as the stages are to complete, the spooky sound can have a lot of influence (i.e., it fulfills its role perfectly).

The ambient sounds in Hunt the Night are also something that is quite scary. Sounds of monsters, weapons, objects, and some of the scenery have been adapted very well and match the theme of the game one hundred percent.

Regarding the graphics, Hunt the Night presents very fluid and well animated 2D pixelated graphics, the game's background is not just scenery, it has movement and interacts with the character. It is a type of game that is not at all still, with very nice animations and designs.



The game has a color palette focused on black, purple, and red, but, even so, the color tones are stunning and totally suited to the proposed gothic genre and style.

One factor that I found very interesting is that the character we control moves involuntarily. In some moments that I was standing still, simply thinking about the best way to pass through a phase, the character would do some animation, throwing his hair and fixing his posture. I don't see this in many games nowadays and it was a differential for me.

Taking into account that the game asks for a minimum requirement of 4GB RAM, an Intel Core i3-6100 processor, and NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 video card and I played on a PC with 16GB RAM, Intel Core i5-9400F processor, and GTX 1050 Ti video card, I did not suffer any bug or glitch, the game ran perfectly.

The Hunt the Night key for PC was made available by DANGEN Entertainment.