So, before we start talking about Haunting Ground I think we need a little backstory on the game. And it all starts with a game most people are very familiar with called Resident Evil 4!

Just like Resident Evil 4, Haunting Ground comes to us from Capcom. You see, despite the fact that RE4 would end up being one of the most ground breaking and influential games of all time, basically setting the standard for how third person shooters would work, it had a very rocking development! One that lasted a long time and saw the game going through many different prototypes before eventually coming to be the game we know and love.

The original version of the game was going to be very different and somehow even more action focused than the game we got! This version of the game would star an all new character named Tony who wore a flashy red jacket, was super cool, and fought zombies in a castle with his two pistols! However, despite the final version of RE4 being pretty action packed, this version of the game was deemed to be too action packed and too much of a departure from Resident Evil to be a part of the series. Something that is very ironic to hear now given just how over the top and action focused the series got with games like RE5 and 6. That being said, you might be thinking that this game sounds kind of familiar actually… Well that’s because, despite not being fit to be RE4, Capcom still thought the idea as a whole was good enough to continue development as it’s own original game. And that game ended up being Devil May Cry! Tony would be renamed to Dante and would be fighting demons instead of zombies in this massive castle environment. Speaking of, that castle setting seemed to be the one thing that Capcom really liked from this prototype and would be kept for RE4‘s next attempt.

Seeing as the last prototype got way too far from what Capcom felt was right for Resident Evil, the next one would be more focused on horror and keeping the game scary. In this prototype, they decided to bring back Leon from Resident Evil 2 and have him explore a castle owned by Umbrella, the evil organization of the series. They decided to keep the fixed camera angles that had been used for the rest of the series up to this point to further help keep it in line with the series but they wanted to change somethings up still. To do this, they decided to have Leon get infected with a new virus! This would see Leon slowly mutating over the course of the game with one image from this era of development even showing Leon with a mutated arm! However, that’s not all the virus did. It also caused Leon to see hallucinations. Namely, he would hallucinate a man with a hook chasing him. This “hook man”, as fans would later dub him, would not be killable like any standard enemy and seemingly couldn’t be taken down by any means like you could with other unkillable enemies in past games, like Mr. X in RE2 and Nemesis in RE3. The point of the hook man was to make the player panic and force them to run away.

As you probably guessed though, this version of Resident Evil 4 was scrapped as well. However, not everything was scrapped from it…

Now, from what I can tell, this has never actually been confirmed but a lot of fans speculate that much like with Devil May Cry coming from a scrapped prototype of RE4, Haunting Ground did as well! Specially coming from this “hook man” prototype due to how much this version shares with Haunting Ground! Both take place in a massive castle and feature enemies that you must run away from and cannot fight. There’s also the fact that the finished version of Resident Evil 4 featured you being helped by a white furred dog, and in Haunting Ground you also have a white furred dog helping you out! But I’m getting a little ahead of myself now.

Whether or not Haunting Ground really is a scrapped version of Resident Evil 4, it was still developed to be a more classic survival horror but with a bit of a twist. One of the main ideas behind this game was that the developers specifically wanted to have it starring a female lead and this would play way more into the game than simply just having you play a female character. It very much ties into the themes of the game, specially the horror themes, and this is actually where I need to issue a content warning.

The thing a lot of people probably know Haunting Ground for, beyond being a niche survival horror Capcom game, is this theme. One of the biggest horror themes about Haunting Ground is rape. Specifically with Fiona, our main character, being raped by those chasing her. Not all of them but still. The game does not shy away from this aspect either, it is very much upfront about what is going to happen to Fiona. And while it doesn’t explicitly show it, it is still talked about and threatened a lot. I want to bring this up now in case there is anyone reading this that would feel uncomfortable by that. While I do feel like the game gives this horrible act a lot of appropriate weight, I know that doesn’t matter to some when it comes to this subject at all. So if that bothers you, I would stop reading now and let you know not to check out this game. With that out of the way though, let’s start talking about the game properly!

The game opens up with our main character, Fiona, waking up in a cage in a dungeon having no idea where she is and how she got there but luckily the cage isn’t locked. Unluckily she doesn’t have any clothes and has to settle for a thin cloth she had in the cage with her. And just like that we’re already playing the game! And just like that we’re already introduced to one of my biggest pet peeves of this game!

You see, Haunting Ground has fixed camera angles, something I love in any horror game! However, bizarrely, the game does not have tank controls… Meaning rather than having up on the analog stick move Fiona the direction she is facing, it instead moves her up towards the top of the screen. This is a problem when it comes to fixed camera angles because you won’t know which direction will take you where when you suddenly are looking from a new angle. Meaning if you are holding up when the camera changes, suddenly that might make you run backwards in the opposite direction because suddenly the top of the screen has you running back to where you just were. This goes from minor annoyance to a really big problem when you are being chased by someone and suddenly find yourself running back towards them thanks to the shift in camera! I know I shouldn’t be starting things out by complaining, since I actually do really enjoy this game, but this is an issue that plagued me the entire game so I felt it needed to be addressed early on… But let’s get back to the game itself!

After coming out of the dungeon like area, Fiona finds herself in a garden. A pretty normal looking one which is a shock given where she just was. Exploring around will reveal that most everything is locked besides one area, a bed room. At this point Fiona will start mentioning that she really needs some actual clothes and as luck would have it, there’s actually a pair of clothes right on the bed waiting for her! Now this is where I need to talk a bit more about that big content warning theme. Fiona is a busty lady and the game doesn’t shy away from this. It kind of makes a point of showing how attractive she is with having you start out in nothing but that thin cloth. And even when you do get those clothes on, there is still some very noticeable jiggle to her chest when you move! And I’m not trying to call out the game for doing this, at least not in a negative way. A lot of games do this, especially in this era where jiggle physics were really becoming a thing! I’m not calling out Haunting Ground for having this sort of thing because I think it’s inappropriate for the game to sexualize the main character when one of it’s main themes is rape. Mainly because it’s sexualizing her not for fan service or for the player’s enjoyment, but to serve the plot.

As Fiona is putting on these tight clothes, so tight she actually comments on it, it’s shown that she’s actually being watched. This shows that the game isn’t trying to sexualize her for the fans but rather that the creepy people running this castle are sexualizing her for their pleasure. Which is an amazing way of flipping the jiggle physics and all of that on it’s head! Suddenly it all has a point, and it should make the player feel as gross as Fiona does when they realize why she is bring dressed like this. This is the game using how sexy Fiona is to actually add to the horror! A bold move that I haven’t seen many horror games attempt again and I don’t think it’s because it hits on a touchy subject.

However, much like my review of Fatal Frame II last week, we’re not going to talk too much about the story here. Story is usually the best driving force for any horror game, it helps the player want to see these horrors through to the end! And while I’d probably say Fatal Frame II has the better story of these two games, Haunting Ground‘s is still great and it also goes pretty far out with it’s story as well! And it was certainly good enough to keep me going through the interesting but so-so game play.

While the concept of running from enemies rather than fighting them wasn’t nearly as popular when Haunting Ground was released as it very much is now, it still wasn’t exactly new either. The Clock Tower series came way before this game, a series all about running and hiding from a crazy killer with scissors. And funny enough, by the time Haunting Ground released, Capcom had made their own Clock Tower game! Some people even suggest that Haunting Ground might be Capcom’s attempt at making their own Clock Tower series as it would be an IP they actually own. But given how poorly Clock Tower 3, the one game in the series Capcom made, was received I’m not sure if they’d want to take another crack at a similar concept but who knows!

Now, despite all the similarities between those two series, Haunting Ground still has something that sets it a part. That being Hewie! Your lovable dog companion! Early on, Fiona will help Hewie after he gets captured as well. And to repay the favor, Hewie decides to stick around and help Fiona through out her trip through the castle! However, despite how much I personally love Hewie and having him around, the entire mechanic of having Hewie help you out is actually what has driven some players away.

Unlike something like Resident Evil, in Haunting Ground there is no defeating what is chasing you. Or at least until you have a boss fight. You are meant to be pursued constantly with Fiona needing to hide and sneak around who’s chasing her from time to time. Finding hiding spots is key so that you can shake off your pursuer and get back to exploring and solving puzzles. This is the main game play loop of Haunting Ground. You get to an area and need to find a way to progress while being chased around with each area you explore having a different villain to chase you, with there being four in total! And if solving puzzles while being chased by an unkillable threat sounds stressful, tough, and annoying that’s because it is! But not enough to actively discourage the player to stop playing. At least it wasn’t for me!

The fact that you are chased by different killers really helped to keep things fresh for the most part especially since they’d always be introduced with a new section of the castle to explore. Granted, some of them were far more annoying than others, one quite literally has a gun which didn’t particularly feel fair, but again I did manage to finish the game without it ever feeling like a slog! It helps that you don’t really have health in the traditional sense like you would in Resident Evil. Fiona’s health is basically her stamina. When she’s attacked enough times, or experiences some scary things around the castle enough, she’ll go into a panic where she’ll run around almost uncontrollably. I say ‘almost’ because you can partly direct her, but she will be running into plenty of stuff while panicking. While she is panicking though, if she’s attacked enough here that’s when you’ll get a game over. However, since her health is her stamina it means that if you manage to get away or find a safe spot to hide, Fiona will calm down and be able to take some hits again. Given how unpredictable some of the people chasing you can be and how easy it can be to take hits, having this system over a traditional health system goes a long way to making the game feel a bit more fair. If I was stuck with only limited health items I would have quickly turned on this game. There are actually items to help you regain your stamina though just in case you need them!

However, with all that said, Fiona technically isn’t defenseless. She does have Hewie! Once the two team up, Hewie will follow Fiona around helping her with some puzzles, getting items, and fighting off enemies! You still can’t out right kill them, but you can stun them if you do enough damage with Hewie! Though for the most part you’ll want Hewie attacking them so you can get away rather than sticking around and having Hewie do enough damage to knock them out. Also despite the fact that he follows Fiona everywhere, the people chasing you don’t seem to put together that Fiona could be hiding in a room that Hewie is in thankfully. In short, Hewie is a very good boy! Though some people certainly don’t feel that way.

You see, like an actual dog, Hewie does require a bit of training. You are giving four commands when it comes to controlling Hewie. You have “Go!” which will have Hewie run in a direction, fight whatever is attacking Fiona, or go fetch an item that’s out of reach. “Come/Stay” which obviously calls Hewie to you and if he’s close to you has him stay where he is. And then you have commands to praise Hewie for doing a good job and one to basically call him a bad dog for not listening to you. And that last bit is what people don’t really like about this system. Hewie will not listen to Fiona sometimes or just do something completely different from what you tell him. In these situations you’re obviously suppose to tell him that he’s being a bad dog. When first introducing all this, the game does actually tell you about needing to train him up and how Hewie will learn to listen to you the more you use these systems. Despite that, a lot of players found that Hewie wouldn’t listen to them more often than not which can be very annoying especially during the game’s boss fights where you really need Hewie to listen! But here’s the thing about that… I honestly never had much of a problem with this system?

Now don’t get me wrong, there were of course times where Hewie didn’t listen to me and I had to tell him he was a bad dog, but as the game went on these moments became way less frequent! I don’t want to blame some people for basically being bad pet owners or tell them to just “get good” at the game but I’m just saying, I never had any issues with Hewie.

It’s a real shame too since I think the bond you form with Hewie throughout the game is honestly the game’s best aspect! I loved that dog by the end of the game and it really felt like we were a team. Believe me when I say that any time one of the people chasing Fiona hit Hewie I was ready to turn around and throw some hands! No one kicks my dog…

That’s about it for the game play though! It’s all about you and Hewie needing to get out of this crazy castle together while solving puzzles and avoiding some terrifying killers. And while it’s not the most unique for its game play, as I said before Clock Tower 3 came out before this game and had a very similar system of running away from enemies and even going into a panic when they attack you and there was also another game Rule of Rose that also featured a helpless protagonist who teams up with a dog, I still think it’s pretty unique for the time when you look at a lot of survival horror games of this era! There’s also the game’s dark themes which is another unique thing about it. The only other game of this era, that I know of at least, that covered similar stuff was Silent Hill 2.

Though Haunting Ground is far from perfect as well. I feel like constantly getting chased in the middle of trying to solve some puzzles can get very frustrating, especially when it feels like some of your pursuers just won’t leave the one area you need to be meaning you’ll just need to hide and wait for them to eventually leave. There’s also all the stuff I said about the lack of tank controls which probably makes more sense now that I explained how much you’ll be chased around. It really got on my nerves that there wasn’t at least an option to have tank controls like you had in Fatal Frame II. Despite that though, I would still highly recommend going through the effort of checking this game out! Even if your only real option is emulation this time.

Haunting Ground is far more well known now than it was when it originally released. Not only did it release towards the end of the PS2’s life cycle, it was also released after Resident Evil 4 which really changed the scene of survival horror. Going into the PS3 era people were not really interested in fixed camera angle survival horror and it wouldn’t be until the generation after the PS3 that people really started getting into horror games where you couldn’t defend yourself. Not sure if I’d go so far as to say that Haunting Ground was ahead of its time or anything, but I do think it didn’t get nearly enough praise as it should have. At least nowadays the game very much has a passionate cult following! And one that’s big enough that Capcom has acknowledged the game in recent years. Not enough to give us a port or remaster but still!

And unless you have a Japanese PS3 with a Japanese PlayStation account, since the only port of this game was released exclusively to the Japanese PS3 digital store for some reason, you are going to have to emulate this game. Which, again, you shouldn’t feel bad about if you are wanting to experience this awesome survival horror game!

That all being said though, what if you’d prefer a far more traditional survival horror experience? One with fixed camera angles that have tank controls, clunky but do able combat that doesn’t feature a camera, and is bizarrely made by the creators of Dark Souls? Well then you should check back next week as we talk about our final game of Spooky Month, Kuon!

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Have you heard of Haunting Ground before? After reading this post, are you thinking about checking it out? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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