Here's another little fun tip about Hewie that I've noticed, if you are hiding in the shadows of a corner, behind something, or if you're using the Faerie Earrings to hide in plain sight, Hewie will put his body in front of yours if your stalker gets too close to you.
@@paigetyler8529 Hehehe guess i was really young when i played it, couldn't understand any of that she was a good meat material at that time.....memories ✨
I was one of the few Europeans who bought this game on its release...I remember replaying it MULTIPLE times because I was in love with the bizarre atmosphere. Even replayed it in German to help study for my highschool exam. It's up there with the original Clock Tower imo! Still at home in my mother's basement, gathering dust...I wanna replay it now.
I miss the stalker type horror games. I love Resident Evil & Silent Hill but the clock tower games actually put the “survival” in survival horror. Playing as a young defenseless Jennifer and being persuaded by a creepy man with giant garden sheers scared the shit out if me, the only thing you could do in most situations is either run or hide.
At least there's Alien: Isolation, which I think is sufficient because it scares the carp out of me. Very few horror games do that for me. So if you haven't tried it, I recommend it.
I was honestly hoping you would cover this game and Rule of Rose as well and i'm glad you did (At least for Haunting Ground). The way you setup your videos and overall how you relay the information/ how it's scripted is always very entertaining and enjoyable to watch ! Only 8 minutes in so far but i know it'll be a great video ahead, keep up the amazing work : )
This game is so good and definitely stands the test of time imo. Also since it wasnt mentioned in the video at all, the death scenes from traps in this game were gruesome and when a stalker killed you the screen goes black and you're just left sitting there listening to whatever they're doing to your corpse (changes per stalker) and it is, to me, the most disturbing thing about playing this game.
Hey Sphere Hunter and watchers, long time watcher and fan of your videos, first time commenting. I actually already played this game after it came out in 2005 when video rental stores were a booming business, before streaming and the internet became their downfall and physical copies were the only way you could get a game. I remember seeing the cover of this game on the store shelf for hire when I was looking to try out a new game on my PS2, because Fiona herself is very much eye candy, but the back cover describing the game about the mystery of her waking up in almost empty castle and being stalked by monsters sold me on wanting to try it out. As a male I felt a sense of empathy wanting to protect her character when I started to play the game as she's very timid and passive as a character, but also playing the game helped me to understand better how women and girls must feel about the horrors of being sexualized in discomfort/being made out to be oversexualized when they're not out of jealousy (e.g. Daniella) and being stalked/chased by said people when you have little to no power to fight back and made to feel absolutely defenseless. Which is what this game does very well. This helped me to empathize and understand women a bit more , but also playing the game when you dodge or hide from an enemy coming after you (like other harder modes of Resident Evil like Outbreak e.t.c.) it can be VERY satisfying that you feel like you outsmarted them. Also crafting the items like the necklace that makes Fiona invisible to enemies helps SO much in surviving close encounters with your stalkers if they don't notice you. I loved this series and I miss both Fiona and Hewie as characters, like you I hope that Capcom decides to release this game as like a remastered version in the near future! Also keep up the great work because you do a beautiful job with your series!
Scott Duncanson I love what you tooo from the game. But I want to mention that my timing sucked SO MUCH I never knew you could make an invisible necklace in those alchemy rooms
@Scotty4815 women arent the only Ones who get sexualized Though, most media has Guys built like army tanks & always with their shirts Off, why does a woman Being attractive hurt women i dont understand??
@scotty4815 i personally didnt like This game, also i felt Like the game made the Women out to both be Victims & nothing else & the men just 1-note Villains & creeps the Game felt so uninspired Because none of the Characters especially Not Fiona were interesting at all, except daniella who Should of been the main Antagonist.
I loved your take on this game, and actually bought it, I'm 2 hours in right now. enjoying it quite a lot so far, reminds me of a time where you actually checked every place to see what the character says about it. Damn I miss that. Good times. Plenty more to say, I'll edit my comment. For now just, thank you very much for your great work, and again thanks for recommending this game, little gem.
This game was a pleasant surprise for me. I'm not normally a fan of the helpless run and hide horror games but this game just had such a charm and creepiness to it. Especially the design of the locations. Glad to see it getting some attention...
1:40 The RE4 scenario contemplating a girl accompanied by a genetically-engineered dog was the famous "Castle" version, were Leon was supposed to be infected by the black fog and only publicly shown through the TGS 2002 teaser trailer. The devs never revealed who the girl was supposed to be nor if she was going to have her own, specular scenario (as in RE2) or if she was going to be controlled by the player at specific intervals. All that is known was that she was going to awaken in a laboratory beneath the castle and make her way up in order to escape. That bit when you play as Ashley (during the castle section, no less) in the released version quite probably stemmed from that scenario, as well as the dog helping Leon fighting El Gigante. I seriously hope someday we'll get to know more about that aborted prototype, as it was the only one that actually had a real scenario written: the "Hallucination \ Hookman" version recycled assets created from "Castle" but had no actual story to back it up, according to Yasuhisa Kawamura (the scenario writer of RE3 who later worked with Sugimura in fine-tuning the first non-DMC RE4 scenario and eventually stayed on the project after the latter left). Kawamura described that build as "very romantic" (I guess referring to Romanticism as an artistic movement rather than romance fiction). After his version was scrapped, Sugimura indeed donated his scenario to the "Demento \ Haunting Ground" team, who took what fit their project and discarded the rest.
I wish more people talked about this gem. The atmosphere, characters and gameplay mechanics combined together makes this game such a unique horror experience. I was lucky enough to get my mitts on a copy recently, and after finishing my 1st playthrough, I just want more, more, more. The relationship between Fiona and Hewie is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever seen and it just makes me love the game so much more!
@@TheSphereHunter I read your comment here before I read anything else and my brain blue screened for a moment until I realized how it came to be, that account has to generate so many excellent ridiculous comment chains.
@@TheSphereHunter The game is pretty weird and Steve is annoying as hell so I know I'm among a very few who call Code: Veronica my favorite RE game. I've played it more than any other RE title maybe just because I love Alyson Court so much as Claire. RE4 was an amazing game but it was also the beginning of the end for an RE universe that was cohesive and made sense. Code: Veronica was truly, spiritually the fourth mainline, canon installment of Resident Evil that could trace everything back to where it all began in that horrible, beautiful mansion. I'll always love RE4 for what it is: an amazing, mold-breaking, trend-setting game. But, if you take out Leon and Ada's names and character designs in what way is it Resident Evil? RE4 was like the beginning of a parallel universe to the original RE universe and Code: Veronica was the final game of the original Umbrella/T-Virus storyline.
@@joshuaewalker I agree with you about RE4, do you think if capcom continues its remakes that RE4 should be retconned out and they keep the story nice and tight? I think it would be great but I also see a great danger in doing that as it would anger so many RE4 fans
@@kinggoten Nah, Resident Evil is what it is now. I don't like retconning. I hope that Nemesis and Code: Veronica get the same REmake treatment that RE1 & 2 did, but RE4 is its own thing and still holds up considering it already has an HD upgrade that can be played on XBOX One and PS4 Pro.
Just a note, there are some rooms that stalkers can't enter. But...you will have to figure those out on your own. Haunting Ground is one of my FAVORITE games!! Thank you so much for bringing attention to it!! Maybe one day it will be available on the PSN...maybe.
Played "Haunting Ground" in the day. Watching your video reminded me of another similar game I played and enjoyed. It was called "Rule of Rose". Anyone remember playing that game?
I couldn't bring myself to play the game because at the time i was so stressed at the thought of hewie getting hurt or worse, dying!!! I guess it's good to know that hewie only plays dead. i never knew that
I totally missed this! And since Ico is my favorite game of all time and there are conceptional intersections and also how they were received commercially at the time. Now I feel bad missing this out. :D
Excellent game review! I have been looking up any old horror-survival games that came out on past consoles, you expressed your opinions succinctly and brought a lot of attention to the mechanics and gameplay rather than the story’s focus. Allowing potential new players a chance to play themselves. I’m glad you also give Hewie credit to making this game as unique and different from other titles w/ a similar theme. The way that HG has been remembered gives me hope that maybe it will be making a comeback someday in the future. There’s always potential for reviving a classic game like this. Anyways, thanks so much for making this review. I hope to try my hand at playing it someday too! :)
I know capcom didn't make Rule of Rose but I can't help but feel these games are a tiny bit related. Since that game also includes dark subject matter, a vulnerable girl, and her dog named Brown.
Yeah I recall being at Gamestop back then holding this game in my hands but the price point and not knowing if it was good led me to leave it behind. Wish I had supported it then 🤷♂️😅
Daniella is a living doll. An earlier victim of the castle's occupants. the mummy in her part of the game is her corpse, that is why she is disgusted by her mirror image and dies happy.
Man, I had two copies of this from the old Capcom Grab-bags at SDCC from 08 and 09. I gave one to my friend and filed the other away in a CD binder. Wish i would have kept it knowing how much it goes for now...
This game is considered a hidden gem? I was under the impression that it was pretty well known this whole time, being just slightly more well known than fatal frame
I played it at a pretty young age, rented it from a local video store (didn’t get far, was too young to get it) but I def thought it was semi well known!
I get that being a female character is most likely deemed to be scarier because women are physically weaker and smaller, generally speaking. But just once I'd like to be an average male character who's similarly vulnerable. I can get behind being a weak little girl shitting herself fighting crazy monsters and whatnot, that is terrifying. But it's hard to be scared as anything when you're playing some hunk like Leon or Chris from RE, who takes it in their stride. Playing a relatively short and weak male character would be a nice perspective to see for once, I would find them highly relatable since that applies to me. I wouldn't be that scared of slow moving zombies but my stature and lack of strength would make them tough to fight against. Instead of being a generic male character who can just roundhouse kick zombies to death, y'know like clearly every man can.
I had some deep memories unlocked by this video. I completely forgot about it but remember seeing it all the time during x-play reruns and wanting to play it. Thanks for all your hard work 👍
this looks a lot more intriguing than most resident evil parts, imo. another forgotten gem of that caliber is "evil twin : cyprien's cronicle". it's not even that physicel copies are rare, you will hardly even find one. particularly of the boxed PC port.
I've never even played this game and listening to you talk about Hewey around the 16 min mark while simultaneously get thrown by the stalker... I immediately yelled his name in my mind and was pissed at the stalker for hurting the the number one doggo.
I absolutely love how you narrate the stories in your videos. You are amazing and I can't wait for your spoiler review for re3. I'm currently on nightmare run
Never heard of this game before but I love learning about hidden gems like this one. It struck me after having played RE Village that Daniela in that game is another reference to Haunting Ground put in by Capcom? Thanks for the review!
I deadass snagged the last sealed store copy in Australia of Haunting Ground, i looked everywhere for and finally found it for 26 bucks as the store was looking to dump their old ps2 library, I really don't think they knew just how expensive and rare this game actually is to get a hold of, I also wanted Rule of Rose but fuck me that thing is stupidly expensive, emulates very very well though Daniella is one of the most tragic characters I've ever seen, just, god damn she got fucked over Speaking on the visuals, the best way to play this is using pcsx2 and upscaling it, you do need to tweak the settings to get the post processing and shadows to work correctly but it does run perfectly, I ripped my own disc to do it so i can say for a fact it works, you just have mess around a bit to make it so. its incredible how much great art is obscured by the 6th gens low resolutions, like this, Rule of Rose and Outbreak FIle 2 look really really great when ran at 4k, a testament to the skills and vision of the art teams
Bought this game 4 years ago during my sophomore/ junior year. Dont regret it. Only downside is that this game is only available on PS2 and Japanese Ps3 PSN store - that is if you intend to play the non emulation route. Even when I found out Capcom silently re released this digitally 4 years ago, I thought many die hard fans would know this; but nobody bothered to discover this news until your video mentioned it 27:08. Hopefully Capcom does re release this as this is one of my favorite survival horror games ever made . Glad I bought mine for 40 - 60 bucks 4 years ago .
For anyone watching this years after this was put up, I'd like to mention that the emulation issues mentioned near the end of the video have been ironed out by now; the game pretty much looks perfect in PCSX2's Vulkan renderer and when played in your upscaled resolution of choice, aside for some garbage lines on the edges of the screen I got that I easily cropped off in the video settings. That said, in current versions of PCSX2 there's an issue where if you're upscaling the game using a non-power of two resolution scale there's noticeable odd lines. v1.7.4691 is the version you want to pick up for Haunting Ground, depending on your display and your GPU's capability (though if you were going to play at 1x resolution aka 480p anyway, it doesn't matter). They did apparently fix the garbage lines at the screen edges since 4691, at least.
100% yes. I actually bought this at release, and this is still a game I flail around and suggest to friends when they talk about wanting to try survival horror. My only complaint is the STUPID CRAFTING SYSTEM (which I eventually grew to love, but I'll admit sometimes I just closed my eyes and button mashed). So good to see discussion about HG still going!
Ahh... Fiona Belli, the lady that made 13 year old me go 👀 Also this game is probably the most convoluted tale of sexual assault. The villain is literally "Uncle Diddler".
I appreciate this review. I played the game when it was new, and it's nice to see someone actually do a fair review of it. I also appreciate that you acknowledge the outfits were revealing, but don't dwell on that and make it a focal point.
I believe that the bonus outfits to be non emmerson breaking simply because fiona is sexualized in her regular outfit so the fact she has ones that better represent an archetype fetish from role playing as a cowgirl to a dominatrix, a skimpy medical patient and even a frog yiff costume the game doesn't really suffer and with these costumes being put into the mind of her stalkers, it intensifies. From this perspective I've always found Ricardo to be far creeper and disgusting then intended.
you should do a review for Rule of Rose. It's a very similar game with a young girl as a protagonist and a dog. The concept for the story is also really unique and ahead of its time.
I bought this game when it first came out in the UK and it is one of my favourite games ever! I recently just made a Japanese psn account JUST for Haunting ground! I’ve played it to death. Hopefully Capcom will re release it in the future or maybe like a HD version of it
Got this one for christmas for around 28 bucks. Can't wait for the 25th to play and hopefully finish it. Horror Games are just the apex type of gamed imo. From Resi to Silent Hill, from Haunting Ground to Condemned, Horror Games are always something I can appreciate if they are somewhat good and well made. Amazing video. Love it
This is a great review of Haunting Ground. I played this game the year it came out. Rented it from Blockbuster. Once I started playing it, I couldn't stop.
The joke is these guys are super rich with huge castles. They could just chat up the lady they want at a bar and be like "I own a castle" and not have to go through all this kidnapping.
I just recently found out this channel and I have to say: love your work and love your voice. A little suggestion: try to vary your tone of voice. Sometimes can be kind of monotone and can make the viewer/listener kind of lost focus of what you are saying. Besides that, great job, you have a new subscriber
Amazing video! I really love Haunting Ground and I hope Capcom to remaster or remake it some time at a near future, for PS4 or PS5. This game is perfect for me, as a Survival Horror big fan and as a gamer at all too! ❤️
I played this when I was young, but I couldn't finish it because I wasn't very good with games where I was helpless against enemies. This included Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
PAL version of this game is actually pretty cheap. I got my sealed copy for 10$, and the seller still had several copies left. It was on a polish auction site though.
youve made me want to go out and try this and im not usually a fan of typical horror games. Also it does suck when good games or series fail or remain unkown to most due to poor or lack of good marketing
I remember seeing this game around the same time I got a used copy of RE4. I got this brand new from K-mart, a store that no longer exists. This was 2005, just after it released I believe. I was fifteen at the time (turning sixteen that June) when I got the game, but didn't beat it until I was nineteen. I really like this game. I haven't seen any other game like this one before, making it unique in the Survival Horror genre. Hewie, himself, is a definite favorite. A four-year-old pure white German Shepard is my favorite character in the entire game, Fiona being a second. Since I was within the same age group as Fiona when I originally got this game, I really connected with her. When I got passed the final boss, all I could think and say was 'Good riddance, you bastard. Stay the fuck down'. I really loved this game. A friend of mine has yet to play it, but I fully intend on having her play it, helping her on occasion. She'll be very surprised.
I played Haunting Ground at the same time as Resident Evil 4. My brother had Resident Evil and my sister's friend has Haunting Ground. I think I liked Haunting Ground more because it was way scarier, but Resident Evil 4 was my first Resident Evil game, so they're both pretty even in my mind.
