Info about Hunt the Night:

Official game description:
**Hunt the Night** is a retro-style action-adventure game that combines a fast, skilled gameplay with dark fantasy lore. Play as Vesper, a virtuous member of 'The Stalkers,' and explore the vast world of Medhram, a place filled with ruins and horrors. Go through dungeons full of gruesome enemies, fight challenging bosses, and use your arsenal of weapons and dark powers to take back the Night.
It is the 9th Age of humanity. The cycle of day is ruled by humans, the night one by horrid creatures. Despite its efforts, humanity is annihilated with every arrival of the Night.
A group of humans, calling themselves 'The Stalkers,’ discovered how to use the power of darkness to their advantage and fought the Night. However, it was not enough, and with every new dawn humanity rose again knowing that, with darkness, comes extinction.
Humanity found the ‘Seal of Night,’ an artifact that allowed them to stop the cycle in an everlasting day. In exchange for a blood oath that The Stalkers were willing to pay, the sun ruled for hundreds of generations and, for the first time, hope was a beacon of light. Yet fate proved unstoppable, and they paid the ultimate price.
Now, as the Night starts devouring every single glint of light, Vesper, a Stalker by right and daughter of the traitor, will travel a dying land trying to save the last embers of humanity. She hunts in a race against destiny, as the shadows lengthen both in the world and in her mind.
Dash through enemies while you unleash your combos, use your weapons or destroy them with your dark powers. You can switch between melee and ranged attack in quick succession: slashing enemies with your sword and then dashing away to use your ranged weapons, avoiding enemy attacks.
Endure the ultimate challenge as you fight the ancient horrors of the Night that have been annihilating humanity over and over in intense boss battles. Learn their weak points, attack patterns and survive through the different combat phases as the battle gets more challenging and extreme.
Create your own build that will adapt not only to your prefered gameplay but also to particular bosses. Customize the upgrades of your arsenal and use the equipment that best suits your gameplay: Critical Damage, Life Steal, Poison, Close Combat, Firepower and more. Collect Sanguine vials, Crow Feathers, Moonstones and Noctilium to increase your stats and get ready to face the Night.
Explore Medhram in a combination of action-adventure and dark fantasy lore. Survive huge dungeons full of traps, enemies, puzzles and challenges. Discover all kinds of locations, from ancient cathedrals and libraries of knowledge to lost kingdoms and devastated floating cities.
Accept a hunt at ‘Crow’s Nest’ and track down the dark beast, find where it hides and hunt the most powerful creatures of the Night. After every completed hunt you will get rewards that will increase your health and dark energy bar.
Meet new characters and discover their tragic past and stories in a world that is on the brink of the abyss.
Immersive and adapted music to every moment, boss and location, with the collaboration of Hiroki Kikuta, _Secret of Mana_ composer.

Release date: 13 Apr, 2023

Categories: Action-adventure, Real-time Combat, Dungeon Crawler, Metroidvania, Exploration, Puzzle Solving, Character Customization, Souls-like Combat


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Fluid & Responsive Combat (weight 0.99): Players consistently praise the game's intuitive, fluid, and responsive combat system, highlighting its engaging fast-paced loop and well-balanced difficulty. The dodge mechanics are particularly noted for their effectiveness and generous invincibility frames, contributing to a satisfying and fair challenge.
- Remarkable Boss Encounters (weight 0.48): Boss fights are frequently cited as a major highlight, featuring creative, memorable designs and mechanics. Players appreciate the challenging yet fair nature of these encounters, which often require pattern recognition and provide a strong sense of accomplishment upon victory.
- Immersive Dark Fantasy Atmosphere (weight 0.47): The game's dark fantasy atmosphere, world-building, and overall aesthetic are highly praised. Reviewers note the immersive, charming, and often gothic horror-inspired environments, which are distinct and contribute significantly to the game's unique identity.
- Stunning Pixel Art Style (weight 0.43): The pixel art style is a standout feature, frequently described as beautiful, gorgeous, and exquisite. It effectively captures the gothic horror atmosphere and contributes to the game's unique visual identity, often evoking nostalgia for classic gaming eras.
- Excellent Sound & Soundtrack (weight 0.34): The sound design and soundtrack are consistently lauded for their quality, fitting perfectly with the game's aesthetic and theme. They are described as immersive, atmospheric, and effective in creating tension and enhancing the overall experience, especially during boss battles.
- Diverse Weapon & Ability Options (weight 0.23): The game offers a good variety of weapons, abilities, and powers, each with a unique feel. This diversity allows for different playstyles and strategies, keeping combat interesting and rewarding players for mastering various approaches.
- Highly Enjoyable Overall Experience (weight 0.23): Players express high overall enjoyment and satisfaction with the game, often completing it entirely. The game is seen as engaging, well-paced, and offering good value for its duration, leaving a positive lasting impression.
- Well-Designed Puzzles (weight 0.09): Puzzle elements are noted as well-designed, interesting, and logical. They provide a welcome break from combat, add variety to the gameplay, and encourage exploration without disrupting the overall pace.

Common complaints:
- Repetitive Levels & Enemies (weight 0.42): Level layouts and enemy encounters become repetitive, with frequent respawns and uninspired design. This leads to tedious gameplay, especially with recurring enemies and uninteresting room-locking combat scenarios.
- No Map & Poor Guidance (weight 0.36): The absence of an in-game map and clear guidance makes navigation frustrating and leads to players frequently getting lost. This hinders exploration and makes progression unclear, especially after early game.
- Lacks Polish & Optimization (weight 0.33): The game suffers from a general lack of polish, including bugs, optimization issues, and unrefined controls. This contributes to a 'rough around the edges' feeling and negatively impacts the overall player experience.
- Frustrating Boss Design (weight 0.26): Boss fights are a source of frustration due to inconsistent difficulty, unfair mechanics (e.g., instant kills, wonky hitboxes), and repetitive patterns. Some late-game bosses are also perceived as underwhelming or too easy once patterns are learned.
- Confusing & Unclear Story (weight 0.19): The game's story is often described as confusing, convoluted, and lacking clear explanations for its lore and character backstories. This makes it difficult for players to empathize with the plot or characters.
- Useless & Underdeveloped NPCs (weight 0.19): Many NPCs are underdeveloped, serving little purpose beyond a single phrase, and lack consistent design. This makes them feel useless and contributes to a general lack of character depth and world immersion.
- Annoying & Poor Dialogue (weight 0.15): Dialogue sequences are overly verbose, intrusive, and often feature an annoying 'beep-beep-beep' sound. Poor translation further exacerbates these issues, breaking game pacing and player immersion.
- Poor Economy & Progression (weight 0.12): The game's economy is poorly balanced, with currency becoming useless by mid-game and armor offering little meaningful progression. This, combined with a lack of side quests, diminishes the sense of character growth.
- Localization & Game-Breaking Bugs (weight 0.12): Significant localization issues, including untranslated lines and items, hinder understanding and progression. Game-breaking bugs, such as freezing and black screens during transitions, also severely impact playability.
- Short & Spiky Difficulty (weight 0.1): The game is relatively short, offering a 'bite-sized' experience, and features noticeable difficulty spikes. This can make it challenging for new players to the genre.
- Limited Useful Spells (weight 0.08): The majority of magic spells are deemed useless, with only one or two (like lifesteal) offering any consistent utility. This limits magical combat options and makes other spells feel unimpactful.
- Bugged Achievements (weight 0.08): The achievement system is bugged, with achievements not consistently unlocking or tracking progress correctly. This diminishes the reward for completionists.

Gameplay feedback:
- Challenging, Skill-Based Combat (weight 0.59): The game features challenging, skill-based combat with a strong emphasis on dodging and pattern recognition, similar to Souls-like games. Players must learn enemy behaviors and manage resources, with difficulty primarily stemming from action and boss fights rather than character progression.
- Hybrid Melee & Ranged Combat (weight 0.52): Combat heavily relies on a hybrid system combining melee and ranged attacks. Melee hits are crucial for replenishing limited ranged ammunition, encouraging a dynamic and varied combat rhythm.
- Metroidvania Exploration & View (weight 0.42): The game features a Metroidvania-style progression system where new abilities unlock further exploration and backtracking. It is presented from a top-down, isometric perspective, reminiscent of classic Zelda titles.
- Short Playtime & Moderate Difficulty (weight 0.15): The game is relatively short, with most players completing it within 8-12 hours. While some puzzles exist, the overall difficulty is not consistently high for all players.
- Upgradable Weapons System (weight 0.1): Players can upgrade their weapons, particularly ranged firearms, at a central hub after progressing past certain points in the game, such as defeating the second boss.
- Lore Through Item Descriptions (weight 0.08): The game's narrative and lore are primarily conveyed through collectible items and in-game descriptions, similar to the storytelling approach in Dark Souls.
- Protagonist & Core Narrative (weight 0.06): Players control Vesper, a 'Stalker' or 'Shadow Hunter,' whose combat abilities are tied to a 'Darkness' bar. The narrative explores themes of duality and the cycle of day and night.
- Simple Complementary Puzzles (weight 0.05): Puzzles are present in the game but are generally simple and serve to complement the action rather than being a primary challenge.
- Limited Healing & Upgrades (weight 0.05): The game has a limited item system, with healing potions being the primary consumable. Players can only upgrade health and the quantity of healing potions.
- Multi-Phase Boss Fights (weight 0.04): Bosses often feature a second phase with new attacks after losing half their health, and mini-bosses reward players with health point increases.
- No Character Leveling (weight 0.04): The game lacks traditional level-up elements or character progression systems, focusing instead on player skill and equipment upgrades.

Performance notes:
- Frequent stutters and frame drops (weight 0.11): Players experience frequent frame rate stutters and drops, especially during screen transitions, monster spawns, or when taking damage. These performance hitches create noticeable pauses and disrupt the smooth gameplay experience.
- Controller compatibility issues (weight 0.03): There are reports of various controller issues and bugs, which seem to differ depending on the player's computer setup. One specific instance mentioned a Bluetooth disconnection with a Betop controller.
- Inconsistent hit detection (weight 0.02): Some players have observed inconsistent hit detection, specifically with bosses and the player character. This can lead to frustrating combat encounters where hits do not register as expected.
- Achievement progress bug fixed (weight 0.02): A specific patch was released by developers to address an issue where achievement progress needed to be re-registered upon visiting a particular in-game location. This indicates a past bug related to achievement tracking.

Recommendations:
- Generally recommended with caveats (weight 0.31): The game receives a general recommendation from many players, often with caveats or specific conditions. Some recommend it after updates or for its art style, while others simply state it's a good game worth trying.
- Strongly recommended for genre fans (weight 0.24): Players highly recommend this game, especially for fans of Metroidvania and Soulslike genres, noting its dark fantasy aesthetic and challenging gameplay. It's considered an excellent alternative within the Soulslike category.
- Buy on sale for best value (weight 0.19): Many players suggest purchasing the game during a sale, indicating that while it has value, its full price might be a deterrent for some. There's a mixed sentiment on its overall worth at current pricing.
- Manage expectations for difficulty (weight 0.12): Players advise managing expectations regarding the game's design and difficulty. They warn that the game might have some 'jankiness' or design misfires, and less experienced players should be prepared for frustration.
- Solid but not exceptional ratings (weight 0.06): The game generally receives moderate to good scores from players, typically ranging from 6.5 to 7.5 out of 10, suggesting a solid but not groundbreaking experience.
- Wait for bug fixes (weight 0.06): Some players recommend waiting for bug fixes before purchasing, or note that the game improved after updates. This suggests that initial releases might have had technical issues impacting the experience.
- Desire for a sequel (weight 0.05): A notable number of players expressed interest in a sequel, indicating a positive overall experience and a desire for more content in the same universe or style.
- Art style is a key draw (weight 0.03): Players note that the game's art style is a significant factor in its appeal, suggesting that those who appreciate it are more likely to enjoy the game.
- Wasted potential in ideas (weight 0.02): One player felt that the game introduced promising ideas but failed to fully develop them, leading to a sense of wasted potential.
- Suggests avoiding combat (weight 0.01): One piece of feedback suggests a specific gameplay strategy of avoiding combat when possible, which might indicate challenging or unrewarding combat encounters.

Other player notes:
- Strong Bloodborne/Soulslike influence (weight 0.13): Players frequently compare the game's dark fantasy setting, protagonist concept (night hunter with melee and guns), and overall gameplay to Bloodborne and other Soulslike titles. However, some note it's not a 'true' Soulslike, suggesting a blend of genres.
- Major bugs largely fixed (weight 0.08): Multiple reviews indicate that significant bugs, including save corruption, have been largely fixed in recent updates (specifically version 1.1 and the June 4th, 2024 update). This has positively impacted player recommendations.
- Achievement and exploration notes (weight 0.05): The game allows for all achievements in a single playthrough, with exploration being key for unlockable items. There's a specific tip about returning to Dalia's Garden to refresh collection achievements if they don't pop, though one reviewer was annoyed by missing a single item for platinum.
- Minor lore and character details (weight 0.05): Minor narrative and character details include the protagonist's inability to speak outside of an 'internal/spiritual world' with Umbra, Corvus being a leader, and a mention of an 'Order of Insomniacs' that was never found. Familiar concepts are noted to aid immersion, and one NPC provides direction.
- Victorian Halloween aesthetic (weight 0.04): The game features a distinct Victorian style and is noted to have a perfect vibe for the Halloween season, despite not being vampire-themed.
- Mixed story reception (weight 0.03): Feedback on the story is mixed, with some finding it 'kinda whatever' while others describe it as a narrative about bearing destiny and fighting or joining the night.
- Not for all audiences (weight 0.02): The game's difficulty and design may not appeal to all players, particularly those inexperienced with challenging titles, as it can lead to frustration.
- Headphones recommended (weight 0.01): One reviewer suggests playing the game with headphones for a better experience, implying the audio design is a strong point.
- Criticism of player complaints (weight 0.01): One reviewer criticizes players who complain about the lack of a map or 'riddler' storytelling, drawing comparisons to Dark Souls and Zelda, suggesting these are intentional design choices.
- Review code disclosure (weight 0.01): One review explicitly states it was based on a code provided by DANGEN Entertainment, which is a disclosure of review origin.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.25): Players felt satisfied by the game's overall quality, including its fluid gameplay, engaging combat, and well-designed boss fights. The appealing art style, immersive music, and rich atmosphere also contributed significantly to a rewarding experience, often coupled with a sense of value for money and challenging but rewarding progression.
- Frustration (weight 0.21): Frustration primarily stemmed from numerous bugs, technical issues like frame drops and slow loading times, and poor optimization. Design flaws such as far checkpoints, lack of a map, confusing guidance, and repetitive or uninteresting combat mechanics also significantly contributed to player annoyance and difficulty in progression.
- Disappointment (weight 0.2): Disappointment arose from the game's unfulfilled potential, often due to a perceived lack of polish, unfinished features, and overall design flaws. Issues like limited enemy and weapon variety, repetitive gameplay, and an underdeveloped story or progression system led to a feeling that the game fell short of expectations.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.11): Enjoyment was driven by the game's overall quality, particularly its engaging combat, immersive atmosphere, and compelling visuals and sound design. Specific elements like boss fights and horror elements also contributed to a fun and entertaining experience.
- Excitement (weight 0.06): Excitement was generated by the game's overall quality, polished gameplay, and engaging atmosphere. Players also felt excited by challenging gameplay, the acquisition of new abilities, and the anticipation of upcoming updates or new locations.
- Admiration (weight 0.04): Admiration was frequently expressed for the game's artistic elements, including character and monster designs, pixel art, and overall visual style. The immersive atmosphere, compelling story, and well-crafted combat and sound design also garnered significant praise.
- Anger (weight 0.02): Anger was primarily caused by broken game mechanics, numerous design flaws, and a perceived lack of progression. Poor customer service also contributed to player frustration and anger.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Players experienced surprise when the game exceeded their expectations, particularly regarding its overall quality and unexpected enjoyment. This often indicated a positive discovery of the game's merits.
- Joy (weight 0.01): Joy was felt due to the overall positive game experience, with some players considering it a new favorite indie title. This emotion reflects a deep positive connection with the game.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from elements such as riddle-like characters and an unclear plot or bounty board system. This indicates a lack of clarity in certain narrative or quest-related aspects of the game.
- Ambivalence (weight 0.01): Ambivalence was a general feeling towards the overall game experience, suggesting a mix of positive and negative aspects that prevented a clear positive or negative sentiment.
- Captivation (weight 0.01): Captivation was a strong positive feeling tied to the overall game experience, indicating that players found the game highly engaging and absorbing.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game was specifically attributed to its beautiful pixel art and immersive atmosphere. This highlights a strong aesthetic and emotional connection to the game's visual and environmental design.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance stemmed from specific gameplay mechanics, such as rooms that close with waves of enemies, and from other players complaining about design choices. This indicates irritation with certain game design decisions and community interactions.
- Boredom (weight 0): Boredom was caused by repetition within the game. This suggests that certain gameplay loops or content lacked sufficient variety to maintain player engagement over time.
- Nostalgia (weight 0): Nostalgia was specifically triggered by the game's lack of a map. This suggests that the design choice evoked memories of older games that similarly omitted maps, appealing to a sense of classic gaming experiences.
- Mixed feelings (weight 0): Mixed feelings were expressed regarding the overall game experience, indicating a balance of positive and negative aspects that prevented a definitive positive or negative assessment.
- Exhaustion (weight 0): Exhaustion was caused by monotonous gameplay. This suggests that repetitive or unengaging mechanics led to player fatigue rather than enjoyment.
- Relief (weight 0): Relief was felt following a bug fix and responsive action from the developers. This indicates that players were relieved when critical issues were addressed, improving their game experience.
- Euphoria (weight 0): Euphoria was experienced after boss victories. This suggests that overcoming challenging boss encounters provided a strong sense of triumph and intense positive emotion.}