Video Game Review - Hunt The Night

Prepare to die…in 2D!

Hunt the Night is a game that instantly drew me to it. On it surface it’s a top-down 16-bit adventure game in the same vein as Legend of Zelda - or any other 90s title. However, delve a little deeper and Hunt the Night reveals its self as a gothic horror that takes a bite out of the Soulsborne pie.

Taking the role of the mysterious hunter Vesper, Hunt the Night sees you navigate the veteran hunter across a multitude of locations as she attempts to bring the light back to her world. Aside from its striking fusion of genres, Hunt the Night’s narrative also goes to some deep lore filled places. The world of Medhram is filled with darkness as a blanket of perpetual night covers the land. As the night brought it’s own brand of terrors who stalked Medhram, humanity fell to its knees. Those caught were either slaughtered by the hordes, or hideously mutated by the curse that followed. Enter the Stalkers, a group of hunters who attempted to end the cycle of the night. By using an ancient relic known as the Seal of Light, the Stalkers managed to bring light back to Medhram. Now the dark has returned and with the Stalkers long gone, Vesper is the only thing standing in the way from humanity’s extinction. 

Like the games that have inspired it, Hunt the Night is a punishing game. Head into battles without any care and attention and you’ll soon find yourself heading back to the nearest checkpoint. However, treat it with respect and you’ll find a very robust combat system that offers that classic risk vs reward gameplay that’s synonymous with the Soulsborne genre. Across the adventure, Vesper is able to equip various different attacks for you to use. While she’s quite a speedy demon slayer, you do have to be careful with how you approach each battle. Get caught up with performing flashy combos on one enemy, could give the invisible one stalking you a chance to strike. As such combat is all about reading the environment and utilising some situational awareness. 

Away from this and Vesper’s combat skill can be further augmented by a multitude of weapons that can be scavenged. There’s nothing too exotic about these weapons with plenty falling out of the medieval gothic playbook. The only difference is how each handles. Where as smaller weapons sacrifice damage for a faster attack, larger weapons favour high damage over speed. You’re also able to equip a ranged weapon too which naturally allows you to fight distant foes, however these do have a limited supply of ammo. To keep you in the fight, ammo can be replenished via multiple ways. The most basic is by simply landing three hits with your melee weapon, then there’s running through a Nocturne Rift, or resting at a Crow statue (which also recovers any lost health, and replenishes your grenades). Where a traditional Soulsborne has a form of stamina, Hunt the Night has dark energy. This energy governs how many times you’ll be able to use Vesper’s dash. While the meter replenishes quite quickly, you can’t simply spam the move. Doing so can often leave you vulnerable to attacks - which during boss battles is something you don’t want to be. 

As you travel though Medhram you’ll encounter chests which can offer Moonstones. What these stones do is act as buffs which can further supplement Vesper’s abilities granting powererful offensive - or defensive - stats. There’s also a rudimentary currency which can be spent on a multitude of wares such as increasing your health, and unlocking dark powers.  Later in the game you’ll also get access to one particular dark power which allows for teleportation across short distances, and factors into many of the games traversal puzzles. 

Where the bulk of Hunt the Night does involve slaying monsters and fighting gargantuan bosses, to keep things from being stale there’s puzzles too. Some of these require you to simply activate switches against a time limit, or finding the right key, there is one or two that are more elaborate. It’s these that I enjoyed the most as you had to dive into the games lore to work them out. One early puzzle has you reading notes to determine what order your activate some statues (hint: it’s in the order of how they died). I’m not a massive fan of puzzle solving, yet here it entwined with the overall narrative very well. Not only does the exploration help to build the wider world, it also got me invested in the personal stories it told along the way. 

Presentation comes in the form of a standard 16-bit adventure game - it’s  a little rough around the edges, but is full of charm. The world of Medhram is gorgeous and is filled with plenty of gothic architecture that builds the tension and atmosphere in the world. Character designs are also varied and each of the NPC’s you meet along the way have their own quirks and personalities. Enemies are also well designed and there’s a nice balance between the variety that you’ll fight. Of course the boss battles are the main draw to Hunt the Night and while I wont spoil them  - you wont be disappointed! 

This then leads nicely on to the games difficulty. As I’ve mentioned already Hunt the Night does take its inspiration from titles such as Castlevania, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. While it’s difficulty can seem a little unfair at times, the game is balanced incredibly well. At no point during the journey did I feel under powered, or unfairly outmatched. If anything each defeat refines your fighting pattern and I often found myself asking if I was using the right skills or maybe not fully understanding the bosses movements. This also means that the game isn’t going to be to everyone’s tastes. While Moonlight Games gives you plenty of tools to aid you in Vesper’s quest, they don’t guide you at any point. Naturally this is nothing new to fans of FromSoftware’s recent titles, but if you’re heading into  Hunt the Night as a “casual” you’ll bit hit with the difficulty curve fairly early. 

Overall and Hunt the Night is a great debut title from Moonlight Games. It’s a punishing - yet - highly rewarding action-adventure that’s blanketed under a great medieval fantasy story, with some epic boss battles. Add in an abundance of lore, and a wide variety of characters to meet and quests to complete and Hunt the Night will have you roaming around Medhram and Ravenford for quite some time. 

Rating: 8.5/10

A code was kindly provided for this review.

Hunt the Night is available now and can be purchased on Steam. 

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Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow us on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev, and TikTok @Geekculturereviews.