The Haunted

The newest version as of this review was uploaded on July 22, 2007.

Perhaps there is a version of this game sitting on a computer somewhere and that version is free of layering issues, of missing files, and of bugs. Perhaps that version even has more than four maps. This, however, is not that version and, considering the lack of any form of update in over five years, it is likely that this is the last version we'll ever see.

I'll start by going over the story. There isn't one. The game opens with the protagonist, Jake, rushing into the middle of a street filled with zombies, detonating a bomb, and saying "Hasta la vista, baby", complete with a voiceover. After this, the game pops up a messaging explaining some basic controls and tells players that the only place to save is near HQ outside of the city. What's HQ like? Who are the other survivors mentions on the main page for this game? Why is the city filled with zombies? These are questions I cannot answer as the entirety of the game consists of two streets and the inside of two single-room buildings as any other street or building entrance is simply devoid of any sort of map transition event.

Ok, so what about the combat? Well, there are no random encounters and once zombies are defeated they stay dead so that's nice. Of course, running up to a zombie crashes the game with an error message saying Data/retry.sg cannot be found. Well, there's no Data folder, but since I was playing through this game for the sake of review I made one and stuck a 'retry.sg' text document in there and, sure enough, combat now worked. Not that it was worth it of course since it's the standard turn-based system and Jake can choose to use a normal attack, use a nearly worthless healing skill, or use a potion which restores 50% of both HP and SP while zombies simply spam a bite attack and on very, very rare occasions use a stun attack. To clarify, I've been referring to enemies exclusively as 'zombies' throughout this review and there is good reason for that as, aside from two enemies which I'll discuss shortly, every encounter I came across consisted of a single normal zombie. Interestingly, even though the 'retry.sg' file was missing, the game does feature a retry system where players can choose to restart a fight if they die; it's nice, but rather pointless considering the state of the rest of the game.

Now, I did mention that there are two encounters against something other than normal zombies and, considering the small amount of content in this game, it couldn't hurt to go over them. The first of these encounters comes in the form of the Zombie Leader, a zombie with yellow pants found on the first screen who moves faster than usual and has a layering issue which allows him to walk through walls; the Zombie Leader hits harder than usual, but otherwise seems to have nothing other than a normal attack and can easily be overcome as long as Jake is level 2 and has a potion handy. All the zombies on the first screen disappear after the Zombie Leader dies and this leads to the second unique fight. Immediately after the Zombie Leader is defeated the Zombie Master will rush onto the screen cursing Jake for destroying his zombies while Jake makes an exclamation of surprise before the fight starts. The Zombie Master looks like every other zombie, but he has blue pants, hits significantly harder than anything else, and can outright stunlock Jake for several rounds; I retried this fight several times and, short of a string of misses on the Zombie Master's part, I see no possible way to win.

But is there anything else to do in this game? Sadly, the answer is pretty much 'no'. There are some blue chests on the first screen which can supply Jake with a new gun, a new helmet, and a new piece of body armor and these are noticeable upgrades over his default gear; the armor appears to protect against various types of damage as the default armor mentions providing protection against 'Impact' while the new armor protects against 'Proto', but just what this means or if it even matters is unclear. Jake can also go onto the second street area, which is completely devoid of enemies, and can find a locked chest, a chest with a potion in it, and a chest with a 'full potion' as well as a building with a locked door and a building which pops up a prompt asking if you're prepared for the final battle. Players who choose to go into this 'final battle' building will enter a small room with new music and a staircase, but the staircase cannot be climbed and the building cannot be exited so players will have to restart the game and watch Jake once against blow up zombies since 'HQ' and its savepoint simply do not seem to exist.

The final place players can go to is a particularly noteworthy one. Players can enter a single-room building near the start of the game and this building contains two zombies, a solitary chest, some crates, a counter, and various bugs. Most notably, everything in this building aside from the chest is layered incorrectly - walls, crates, random pieces of wire fencing, everything can be walked through. The content of the chest is equally perplexing as it contains a 'Barrier Kit' which when used creates a barrier for a few rounds which almost complete negates all damage, but which also makes Jake unable to take any actions; the Barrier Kit seems like it would be very useful with even another party member, but Jake is the only character players have access to in this version so it is completely useless. Lastly, the zombies in this room give yet another game-crashing error when encountered as an error message will pop up noting the absence of Battlebacks/bt_back2. After making the Battlebacks folder and sticking a custom background in it, these fights were accessible and they proved to be standard zombies, but at least this allowed me to add an appropriate background to the game:



Ultimately, The Haunted feels more like a tragedy than a train wreck (though it certainly is one). The city, or at least what can be seen of it, is put together well and looks great, the Barrier Kit would be a very fun and useful item with the addition of a second party member, the retry system is rather nice and is rarely seen in RPG Maker games, the different types of defense on pieces of gear suggests a planned focus on resistances instead of raw numbers, and the Zombie Master showing up after defeating the Zombie Leader was legitimately surprising and could serve as a sign of a game filled with unexpected dangers and secrets. Unfortunately, absolutely none of this matters as it is impossible to see anything other than four of the maps which the game has to offer and what little content can be accessed is marred by frequent layering issues, game-crashing errors, an exceedingly questionable default music choice for the bloodstained zombie-filled city (though the battle music is catchy), and repetitive, uninteresting encounters. There are enough systems in place that some degree of effort was clearly put into The Haunted at some point, but there are so many severe, basic issues with this version of the game that one cannot help but wonder why it was uploaded at all, let alone marked as 'complete'. This is a game which has been abandoned by its creator in every sense of the word despite showing signs of potential - and that is nothing short of tragic.