This is beautiful adventure and puzzle debut from Moonloop Games in the USA. It launched in May 2024 for PC and consoles.
Players take control of a little spirit in the afterlife. What unfolds is an indie game of impressive sweep, with a unique haunting gameplay feature and an expansive world to explore.
All of which is backed up by an often jaw-dropping artistic style and excellent soundtrack. Let's get spooky with this one.
Enter the World of Ghosts in the Visually Stunning Hauntii
In this one your ghost arrives in Eternity as a naïve new spirit. You quickly learn the ropes, haunting objects you encounter (such as trees, hills, projectiles) to unlock new areas and continue exploring.
The haunting feature is very clever, often opening up new areas as you take control of the landscape and its denizens.
As you go about you must collect items, which are used to unlock new powers and unlock the story of Hauntii's past life. Here's a gameplay look. We mean, look at how it unfolds over the first 10 minutes—stunning!
Hauntii provides an incredible artistic sweep. It reminds us of the impactful nature of GRIS (2019) when it landed, very evocative and the like.
Except Moonloop has gone for a unique, monochromatic style seemingly inspired by pointillism (painting with small, distinct dots).
The incredible animation around that, with charming and cute characters you meet along the way adding a rich sense of life to this afterlife happy world.
That's complemented by its sweeping, often orchestral soundtrack. It does give way to more Chopin inspired, melancholic piano numbers, too. But has its more upbeat moments, too, in the style of a classic Floex composition (in many respects).
But at its heart it's a puzzle game with twin-stick shooting aspects, which is enhanced by its possessive central gameplay mechanic. For example, you can take control of a ladybird and use it to float to a new region of the game map (a lovely little in-game moment, there).
It's not a big surprise the game has met with instant acclaim.
You get about five hours or so of gameplay time here and it's totally worth. Not least to see the extent of the little doses of originality sprinkled across Hauntii like gold dust.
However, there are a few technical niggles here and there. That led Nintendo Life to give the Switch version 4/10, which we presume Moonloop will swat those away with a few patches soon. The Xbox Games Pass version we played was largely flawless, so it must be a Switch related issue.
If it intrigues, do make sure you play it.
Hauntii is a highly original, enjoyable, even magnificent experience and one of the gaming highlights of 2024 (so far).
The Upbeat Ambience of Hauntii's Haunting Soundtrack
Hauntii has an excellent score, provided by American composer Michael Kirby Ward.
It really is a fine piece of work, reminding us of Floex's ambience numbers and Gareth Coker's masterpiece of a score on Ori and the Will of the Wisps (2020). But Ward had plenty of room to create a unique identity for the game here.
The more maudlin moments are drenched with that Chopin-like piano, which works so well with the unique art style.
But a lot of the pieces are surprisingly upbeat.
We must note, Ward was very busy on this one, too! There are over 50 unique compositions for the soundtrack. And he has a lot of styles to cover.
But we think its best moments are the jaunty little numbers that populate the various in-game regions you visit.
All of which makes what he's done here very impressive! Another indie game music delight and congratulations to the team on its successes.
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