Review #593: GhostHunter

 At least it's got a Medievil reference.

 GhostHunter is often considered one of the PS2's forgotten gems, making it into quite a few Top 10 obscure or forgotten games. That's how I came around it. Curiosity piqued, season appropriate, it was time to give GhostHunter a look.

 Agent Steele and her partner, Lazarus Jones(Quite the name) are sent to inspect an abandoned highschool were murders were committed a few years ago. One thing leads to another and Lazarus unleashes hundreds of captured Ghosts into the world, the bigger, baddest of the bunch kidnapping Steele. Aided by Astral, a ghost that possessed him and grants him the ability to see ghosts, and by a Ghost-Hunting AI, Lazarus Jones sets out to rescue Steele and right his wrongs. The story is silly. It doesn't seem like so, and voice performances are on-point, but the game tries to maintain a weird balance between taking itself seriously and being silly, but I felt that the attempts at humor took away from what could've been a better script. It did get a few chuckles out of me once or twice though. If you're a fan of Medievil you're in for a treat, as one of Sir Dan Fortesque's descendants appears in the game and haphazardly helps Lazarus on his quest. That said, there's a weird subplot which shows the big-bad working for an even bigger bad, but it's never expanded upon... although I could take a gander at who said bigger bad was supposed to be.

 GhostHunter is a fairly linear third-person shooter. There're no secret weapons to find, hidden areas, hidden enemies, nothing. At most you'll find a few health and ammo pickups. Lazarus can equip a few weapons to deal with ghosts, some, like the rifle, sniper rifle and lasso run on ghost energy, while the shotgun and the grenade launcher run on regular ammo, there's also a gun with unlimited bullets. To be honest, I stuck with the rifle until I got the lasso, and why wouldn't you? The Sniper Rifle has its uses on the first stage and then you'll never need it again, and the shotgun has its uses against beefier enemies... until you get the lasso. The lasso is supposed to have high energy consumption as its drawback, but enemies drop so much of the stuff that you'll never run out. You are fighting ghosts, however, so they must be captured, this is done by throwing your 'grenade' at them. While you can't capture a ghost without hurting it first, sticking a grenade in one has many benefits: It distracts them, so you can get free shots at them(They also try to escape while it's in them, but at least they don't fight back... most of the time) but it also lets you see how much health they've got left.

 The shooting mechanics are fairly solid, albeit guns don't have much pizzazz to them, which makes shootouts lack a bit of excitement.  But you'll also have to solve puzzles, most are fairly easy... but time consuming. The Swamp, the second stage, is probably the worst part in the game, featuring annoying, unnecessary stealth sections in which you must hide from a pig-ghost so that it'll open doors for you. These are the worst bits in the game, so, luckily, once you make it past the swamp you'll be fine. As a matter of fact, the game seems to get better as you push forwards, with each stage being better though-out than the previous one. On another note, your mileage on level design might vary, but dammit if they aren't neat environments to look at. The final stage does leave a little to be desired, though.

 But I digressed, let's talk about Astral, the ghost that possessed Lazarus. Numerous times throughout your adventure you'll spot glowing circles on the ground. Pressing X will let you play as Astral. While the ghost-pig sections were the absolute worst part in the game, Astral puzzles come close second. Astral can fly, as well as earn a few abilities(Turn into flesh, manipulate debris, go through green portals(Only used once!!!), etc). The biggest problem is how slowly Astral moves around, you have to explore your surroundings in order to find what objects Astral can interact with and then how to interact with them. Lazarus has two aim modes, third person and first person, you exit these modes by pressing circle. Just like Lazarus, you can have a first person view by pressing square... but if you press circle you'll go back to Lazarus after a lengthy animation sequence. This is another annoyance with Astral, it's very easy to forget that cancelling out of powers or first person mode is done with Triangle, while playing as her, lest you want to suffer through the Astral/Lazarus sequence again. If this game had just been a simple third person shooter it would've fared much better, but as it stands, the numerous Astral sections really soured my experience.

 But don't let me get started on how the game almost became unwinnable. You can save the game at any point in the game, but it'll take you back to the last checkpoint you hit when you load it. You should keep more than one save, unlike me, not because of the glitch I'll talk about but because the savefile also save how much health you had left, which could possibly put you in an unwinnable scenario. Still, what happened to me was that, on the final stage, an AI partner you have to escort got stuck running back and forth in front of a door that was supposed to open but didn't. Restoring my file didn't get him out of the sequence. Luckily, by pushing against him I somehow managed to get him to clip through the door and onto the path he was supposed to be following. That said, I was ready to drop the game right then and there, and I wouldn't have minded.

 I understand that there's a cult following behind Ghosthunter, but I'm not buying what they're selling. The shooting sequences are alright and stages look great, but the puzzle elements bring down what could've been a more entertaining action game. The plot didn't help either, I don't mind the game not being scary and spooky, but the attempts at humor are lame and, once again, take away from what could've been an entertaining narrative.
 5.0 out of 10