Haunted House (PlayStation 5) review "Urn on the Side of Caution"

Zachery Graves, treasure hunter extraordinaire, has gone missing. His niece, Lyn Graves, has taken it upon herself to search his mansion for clues. With four of her friends tagging along, the group steps inside the menacing structure and... immediately get separated from one another. After regaining consciousness, a friendly ghost has informed Lyn that she is trapped inside the building crawling with paranormal activity. She now has several objectives to complete: find her uncle, locate her friends, and collect pieces of a magic urn in order to escape in one piece!

A slight reworking of 1982's Haunted House "spooky" plot, 2023's Haunted House premise has decided a more Goonies approach with the use of kids and a cartoon-esque art design. And just like its story, the devs have taken the core gameplay of the Atari 2600 title and expanded on those ideas. Taking place in an isometric perspective, you'll guide Lyn through room after room and encounter several opposing entities. Like the original, the goal here isn't to face them head on but more on the side of avoiding direct conflict, with this 2023 entry using modern stealth mechanics to its benefit.

For example, certain foes, like ghosts or literal Frankenstein monsters, either patrol or obstruct your path. Most of these otherworldly beings can only see so far, as indicated by their red cone vision. Obviously you can use this to your advantage, but there are other dangers to look out for, such as noise being a measure to alert some enemies. You can counter this by carefully sneaking around the environment, which is sometimes tricky since some objects, a vase stand for instance, can be knocked over. Unless you're prepared for the consequences, you better have an escape plan, especially if you're real close to the now-alerted creature.

But what if there's no way to sneak around? During your haunted journey, items can be obtained from chests and used against the opposition. You can toss a noisy rubber duck and cause someone to walk away, use a timed ghost costume to stroll by, or, even better, stun them and then use your lantern to erase them from existence. Though, your inventory space is severely limited to three slots at the start, meaning you have to think hard whether to drop a health item for a distraction item. However, you can also attempt to get directly behind someone and instantly take them out with your lantern's bright light. You can't do this all the time depending on the scenario, thus emphasizing the stealth aspects.

Each trip is never the same, as pre-made rooms are randomly-placed whenever you enter one for the first time. Further lending to its roguelite dungeon design, you lose obtained items upon "death," but your gem currency carries over, allowing for upgrades like health, extra item slots, or stronger lantern power. While roguelites are usually less strict than roguelikes due to things like carrying over stats and money, Haunted House is still surprisingly simple for what it is. Once you understand stealth play, know the general flow of enemies, and upgrade some of your abilities once after one or two attempts, the game is a breeze. While being easy isn't grounds for it being bad, there are aspects that falter in delivery, thus creating a product that's more on the generic side.



The most apparent issue is enemy types; each floor share common foes that patrol or guard, along with enemies unique to specific floors. What makes the latter unique? Well... if you're even remotely decent at being stealthy, you will likely never know, and that's the problem. Most enemies are just not structured around the stealth mechanics, creating an atmosphere of literally not knowing what your opponents will do unless you're impatient or reckless. There's only a rare few types that will bother you even in stealth, like marionettes that drop from the ceiling or gargoyle statues that move when lights briefly go out. Oddly, those two solid examples only appear in the final floor.

It isn't a lengthy journey either, which wouldn't be bad had its gameplay elements been stronger. If you don't like exploring the randomly-generated maps in full and instead aim straight for the bosses, then this can be completed in under ten hours... and that is with the added padding! Explanation: despite easily plowing through 99% of the game with just Lyn, the devs still force you to rescue her four friends trapped in the basement, due to their freedom being a requirement for the final boss fight. Each character has their own area you must travel through and the problem with that is, unlike the differing settings of the normal floors, the basement rooms share the same settings across all four areas; worse, they don't have any good standout enemies and they all share the same boss. Repetition sets in quick.



The game is also a buggy mess, but it's normally odd things like a typical chest being stuck behind another object or an enemy not spawning when they're suppose to. But the times when the bugs actually disrupt gameplay, it's frustrating. One specific example is when the game is in motion when it clearly shouldn't, like when a cutscene plays out and you get discovered as it plays, or when you're being transitioned to the next room and an enemy injures you in the process. But the biggest instance is something that can happen in the final floor; when you enter a room from the right side, there's a probability that you will spawn in a specific room with one door... that exits to the left side. If that path leads to a dead end that requires backtracking, then you're just screwed. Considering that this review is based on playing a patched version of 04.000.000, that's a big yikes.

Remove the bugs and you still have a game that sounds nice in writing, but the execution is less than desirable. You have a rogues gallery that mostly doesn't gel with the stealth, which the whole game is based around, and four-sevenths of the mansion being recycled content that you're forced to go through. Haunted House shows promise as a solid remake early on, but that potential withers long before you reach the ending.

Community review by dementedhut (October 23, 2024) Now if only I had the foresight to submit this OutRun review a day earlier...