Capcom released Haunting Ground for the Playstation 2 in May of 2005, sandwiched in between the Gamecube and PS2 releases of Resident Evil 4. With that context, it's no surprise that Haunting Ground wound up both middlingly received by critics and completely overlooked by gamers at the time. "The future," they thought, "is over there." At first glance Haunting Ground seems antiquated and droll. Fixed camera angles, hiding from stalkers, no upgradeable shotguns. Haunting Ground may have seemed like regression, something to be beaten back after having just tasted the sweet sweet nectar of Resident Evil 4. But it's not 2005 anymore, and hiding from scary enemies while solving puzzles has come back in vogue. It's impossible to search through Youtube or Twitch without being assaulted by a litany of videos thumbnailed by a man screaming in terror at a game you've never heard of, a game that is proably about hiding in a closet while waiting for some kind of freak to walk away. That most common element of modern day horror games forms the base component of Haunting Ground, and if Haunting Ground were just this it would still be a successful enough horror game. It's what Haunting Ground uses that baseline to become that turns it from Acceptable Horror Game into a game that I think is an all-time horror classic.

Haunting Ground casts you as Fiona Belli, a young woman who wakes up naked in a cage in a shack behind a giant castle. Not ideal. Within 15 minutes it becomes clear that your parents are dead, you can't leave, and the castle's inhabitants are into some bizarre research and they want you for their schemes. From here the game is split into four separate 'chapters,' each involving a different primary entity hunting you down and each taking place at least partially in a separate segmented area of the castle. Fiona and her loyal pup Hewie have to explore the area, uncover items, and find the clues necessary to solve the puzzles scattered about the play area if they want to escape. All while being pursued by that section's primary antagonist. This sounds annoying on paper, and at first perhaps it can be. But the game is very smart about how it doles out its stalker characters. Each of the 4 have vast differences in the way they search the area for Fiona, and as you spend more time around them you become more and more familiar with their unique quirks. One likes to close doors behind them, slowing them down but cutting off your escape routes. One might have louder footsteps than the others but move more quickly, which turns evasion into something less strategic and more white-knuckle responsive. Unlike a lot of games of its type, Haunting Ground also provides you with a lot of options for dealing with these enemies once you've been found. From defensive items that can be both thrown and planted, to commands that allow Hewie to assist in various ways, and physical attacks Fiona herself can land on her assailants, the game manages to make you feel vulnerable without turning failure into a frustrating chase. It's a tightrope walk, but one the game pulls off with grace.

Getting familiar with the various enemy AIs is fun and satisfying, but would mean nothing if the play area itself wasn't fun to explore and master. Fortunately, Belli Castle and its grounds make for one of the most enjoyable and tense areas to explore in any horror game I can think of. The atmosphere is dense, unnerving but also inviting. Each room is detailed, and most have interactable objects that give interesting flavor text if nothing else. The shadowy corners and run down cabinets offer excellent places to hide from the game's stalkers, and also serve as tight and terrible places to be trapped in when the noose is tightening. The puzzles that these areas house are just as much the star of the game as its stalkers, with each area housing several elaborate, multiroom puzzles that must be studied and understood and then executed while the pressure is on. None of these are truly difficult, but they're momentary roadblocks that feel satisfying to overcome, not unlike a good Zelda puzzle. Often solving a puzzle will alter the area in some way to grant you a momentary repreive from your various harrassers, so solving them brings both satisfaction and relief.

The story of Haunting Ground is clunky and the game does occasionally stumble when dealing the maturity and complexity of its themes, but by and large I think this area too is a success. It's not often that a video game taps into a Giallo-esque portrayal of femininity and the cruelty of men, but Haunting Ground soundly utilizes that theme as the bedroot of the games horror. Fiona is objectified and victimized in every moment, and while occasionally it does become laughably ridiculous (her breast physics are for real outrageous) when the game wants to mine that topic for horror I think it does so very successfully. It's been 17 years as of this writing since the release of Haunting Ground, and earlier this year women in the United States lost the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, unwanted or otherwise, in many states even in the cases of rape and incest. Even as a straight man, this eradication of human rights disgusts and disturbs, and its looming shadow is presented with stark clarity in Haunting Ground. A game older than most gamers that not only manages to feel more topical than most modern games, but far scarier than them because of it.

Haunting Ground is a triumph, a genuine landmark of the horror genre that went sadly overlooked because of the initial context of its release but that still surprises and delights and terrifies even today. It's not perfect - the controls can be clunky and Hewie's AI occasionally causes more frustration than feels intended - but most horror games made today could still learn a lot from it. Personally, I think Capcom is sitting on a goldmine here. A faithful remake of this game in the RE Engine that cleans up its controls, corrects those minor thematic miscues and tightens up the script, I really think could be a massive success in the modern environment. Oftentimes when I go back to these older titles and experience them for the first time I have the enlightening experience of seeing how those games became a part of how video games were designed from then on, like Resident Evil 4's camera angle or Devil May Cry's combat mechanics. With Haunting Ground, however, I had the much more fascinating experience of seeing a game that clearly still has a lot to give. It's a golden gem, waiting for its moment. I see it clearly. It might take another five or even ten years, but Haunting Ground is a moment of cultural significance waiting to happen. All it needs is the right push.

Haunting Ground é a perfeita representação do gênero cinematográfico slasher e giallo dentro dos videogames. O jogo acompanha a história de Fiona, uma adolescente que perdeu parte de sua memória e acorda presa em um castelo, e com a ajuda de Hewie, um cachorro que ela encontra pelo local, deve escapar do lugar a todo custo.

É com essa premissa que o jogador deve resolver diversos puzzles e escapar das pessoas perturbadas que ali se encontram, e ao mesmo tempo desvendar os mistérios envolvendo os personagens e o lugar onde a história se passa.

A gameplay é simples e consiste em parte no elemento hide-and-seek bastante conhecido de jogos de terror e em grande parte com foco em exploração do castelo. Com câmera fixa e controles 2D, Haunting Ground possui ângulos cinematográficos em sua gameplay, em algumas cutscenes até mesmo alterna pra primeira pessoa, lembrando bastante filmes do famoso diretor de giallo Dario Argento.

Apesar de seguir o famigerado hide-and-seek, amado por poucos e odiado por muitos, Haunting Ground subverte expectativas do gênero e se prova um jogo mecanicamente rico. Nunca te forçando a seguir um estilo de gameplay ou instantaneamente Game Over, você tem a liberdade pra jogar como quiser, mas tenha em mente que apenas correr dos perseguidores pode se provar uma tarefa dificil. Ainda mais quando Fiona não é apta para combate.

A história é o ponto alto do jogo, e pra não estragar a surpresa de ninguém, direi apenas que me surpreendeu bastante por ser bastante corajosa em abordar temas pesados dentro de um jogo de Playstation 2 (Silent Hill 2 realmente influenciou diversos gêneros, huh). O jogo é brutal, visceral e te serve coisas que você quer ver num slasher e giallo, de forma crua. As mortes são muito grotescas e eu me vi olhando para o lado para evitar encarar a protagonista sendo dilacerada pelos terrores que a cercam.

Duas coisas interessantes: o sistema de "pânico" nesse jogo é uma das melhores coisas que eu já vi num survivor horror, é uma homenagem clara a cenas dos filmes de terror onde a personagem sendo perseguida por um assassino começa a perder controle de seus movimentos basicos, como andar e correr. E a segunda coisa é que a tela de game over é perfeita

Se você gosta de survivor horror, Haunting Ground é um prato cheio

Exploração de cenário que lembra Metroidvania
Gore a um nível moderado mas serve a proposta do horror
Ambientação memorável
Vilões memoráveis (Daniela jamais será esquecida)
História ótima que aborda temas pesados
Gameplay prato cheio pra quem curte puzzles

Pra Haunting Ground eu dou 9/10. É uma obra prima do Ps2 em diversos aspectos