Hauntii immediately attracted me, thanks to its surprisingly illustrated art direction and the charming jazz-noir soundtrack. A powerful opening shows the protagonist, a charming ghost who recently died, trying to ascend to a celestial plane by the hand of an angelic guardian, only to be bound and withdrawn to the depths of eternity. It is an emotionally effective moment and, although the gameplay is not always captivating, it offers enough emotions to take an impressive journey through the afterlife.

As the ghost attempts to bond with his winged companion, the game takes players through beautifully designed biomes in the realm of eternity. From a dense forest village to my favorite setting, a busy amusement park, I can’t emphasize enough how cool the game’s two-color line art looks, especially in motion. Behind the images there is an excellent soundtrack, which is one of my favorites of the year. It jumps from sparse piano melodies and saxophone-driven lo-fi beats to grandiose, uplifting scores that effectively evoke emotions.

Despite its composure, Hauntii is an action game at heart and plays like a double lever shooter from top to bottom. In addition to the simple thrill of striking enemies with spectral energy by aiming with the right stick, you can “chase” them by shooting at objects and using their unique abilities. Possessing other enemies can be useful in sometimes challenging action experiences thanks to the superior firepower they can contain. Sure, I could rely on my own power, but it’s much more satisfying and effective to take down enemies than bomb-breathing flower bulbs or fending off aerial threats with a theme park employee blowing up firecrackers.

Hauntii routinely urges players to rely on ball possession to overcome difficult actions, where sometimes more than a dozen opponents fire bullet hell-style projectiles. The moment-by-moment glow fades after a while, but creative experiences with bosses add interesting wrinkles. My favorite is to have a bomb-laden roller coaster to go through a booby-trapped track and get to an imposing monster.

Other immersive interactions are less complicated and more personalized, such as capturing a tree to shake the coin and the health of its branches. In this sense, Hauntii reminds me of Super Mario Odyssey, as some objects had no practical use, but provided fun and novel interactions. Other, more creative possessions allow him to manipulate level design and navigation, for example, elevating platforms to create elevated paths or inhabiting cosmic sand cetacean to navigate through a turbulent vortex.

Each area contains a number of hidden stars to collect, which you can use to increase the number of hearts, shoot ammunition and how many times you can use the dodge dash. They also unlock simple but effective vignettes that reveal a central memory of the ghost’s past life. Collecting these stars channels the satisfying treasure hunt of the 3D Mario games. Some stars are found in dark corners, while others must be earned by completing basic side quests or completing hidden challenges, for example. the removal of a threat area. Fortunately, you don’t need them all, as these are not always the most exciting tasks, and some are repetitive, such as timed runs and searching for a lost dog.

The exploration is also dampened by the conscious speed of the movement, which is a little slower than I would like. Since most of the areas are extensive and require several visits, I often pressed the button on the dashboard to speed up the trip. Elaborate artistic design and isometric viewpoints can also make navigating certain paths, namely the elevated ones, a complicated and sometimes irritating affair due to perspective. I could also refrain from collecting different but identical coins to unlock different hats that are cute, but I wish you could delete them instead of just switching to another one.

Although Hauntii offers a simple pleasure to shoot, my favorite moments didn’t involve blowing targets to pieces. The voiceless story of the ghost, who gradually recovered valuable memories, only to leave them at the crossroads, deliberately moved me. I enjoyed interacting with the crazy and funny ghosts, like a paranoid scientist coming up with creepy plans to trap your angel friend as a villain from Team Rocket. I never got tired of immersing myself in the puffy score as the camera rotated to reveal a stunning backdrop. The beautiful final sequence stands out as the highlight of the year. Hauntii transforms the understandable fear and dread of death into a seductive and comforting reflection of the joy of life.