LogFAQs > #945409010

124. Ghosthunter (PS2 game) (9.5 points)
Nominated by: GavsEvans123 (4/5 remaining)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X0NTb920Ls

Importance: 1
Fear: 2.5
Snake: 6

Remembered by few, played by even fewer, Ghosthunter may not have set the survival horror world on fire, but I think it's a neat little gem that's rough around the edges. From its onset, Ghosthunter's Gothic ambience quickly devolves into B-movie narm, cluing you in to just what type of game this is going to be: which is to say not very serious or full of itself. I mean, the opening minutes features someone dual-wielding sub machine guns against some sort of reject from the Castlevania series. The Nintendo 64 Castlevania games. From there, we are introduced to our main protagonist, a turbo dork named Lazarus Jones (nice on the nose name there), but honestly, I actually like the voice acting & characters in this game. It's surprisingly decent for what it is, and I like the chemistry Lazarus has with his partner Anna Steele, and later, his astral companion, well, named Astral (yeah, naming is not this game's strong suit). The story is a classic ghost hunting story with tons of paranormal lore, and the game has a dark sense of humor that actually feels Medievil like to me (it even has a character named Fortesque).

To touch on the gameplay here, released (at least in the EU) about a year before Resident Evil 4 changed third-person shooters forever, Ghosthunter controls like butter, and incorporates stealth movements like crouch-walking & wall-hugging with arcade-style strafing and shooting. It incorporates a ghost-capturing grenade, making the game a generally fast-paced, tension-fueled experience that is much more than just mindless trigger holding. Enemy designs can be creepy but could've used more detail to give combat that much more of a spookier edge. You can also control Astra at certain points, adding another dimension to the gameplay with potential for dealing with enemies in different ways other than pure firepower. There's a lot to do here, and it's all packaged in a game that is really graphically advanced for the time, beyond some bland environments.

Ghosthunter is not really scary, it's pretty much just an action-fueled B-horror movie, but if you've exhausted the mainstays of the PS2 horror library, I would definitely recommend it. It can get repetitive at points, but the game's lively personality and fluid gameplay I think gives it a unique reason to give this disc a spin. Think of it like a Luigi's Mansion with gun variety.

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Is this girl the cat or is she the canary?
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