Hunt The Night‘s caused a minor stir upon its release. The top-down action-adventure game plays like a brutal marriage of styles between Hyper Light Drifter‘s cryptic exploration and movement-based combat, and Bloodborne’s gothic-horror death bonanza. With a game this hardcore and this dependent on skill, it can look daunting. Especially when it takes two whole stages and boss fights before you get any kind of hub or safe area. While no one will tell you the game isn’t punishingly difficult (it is), it’s also incredibly fair. If you get a few tips and learn its mechanics, Vesper will be mowing through the Night in no time.
All Up To You
The bad news is that beyond equipment, there’s no way in Hunt The Night to change your stats. There’s no “best build” or “optimum balance.” It’s all going to be what equipment you pick up and how well you learn the mechanics. Since the game is based on Bloodborne (check out the hunter/crow/blood motif, lack of a block button, and firearms), you’ll butt heads with the difficulty a lot.
The good news is, there’s less to deal with. There’s enough gear variety and equipment that you can build the character that works best for you. Try out a bunch of weapons, whether they’re the lightning quick Lacerators, Vesper’s trusty rapier, or spears if you want a reach. Eventually, you’ll hit on the items that work best with your play style.
Scout Around
Once you get past Hunt The Night‘s first boss, your shadow companion Umbra shows up. While Umbra’s main use is getting around the large patches of purple ooze all over the castle, she can also scout rooms as long as you have the dark power. Rooms in the castle are large and full of cheap deaths and even cheaper monsters. Use Umbra to scout out a room, plan out your attacks, and fight smarter, not harder
. Each room is a careful maze of death where you have to use every weapon and skill you have. A little planning keeps you out of harm’s way and away from a couple of unnecessary deaths. In a game with this much backtracking, that can mean saving you an hour, even.
Hit Them With The Change-Up
Hunt The Night favors a highly mobile combat style where you switch between ranged and melee combat. Some enemies are weaker to guns, some are weaker against specific melee, and given that at any point they’ll swarm you all at once, knowing the difference is crucial. When you run out of bullets for your gun, you can charge it back up with a melee combo. This even extends to bosses. Attack windows against bosses and mini-bosses work the same way. Not every boss will let you get close, and it’s a balancing act of knowing when to rush in with those hits and when to maybe play it cool from a distance.
Know Your Enemy
Hunt The Night has lot of monsters to mow through, each with their own unique behaviors. Finding these patterns is the difference between life and death. Some of them are easy, like the tiny dark fetuses that serve more as fodder than actual enemies. Others are simple, like the suits of armor whose eyes flash red before they strike. Some you just have to watch for, like the invisible stalkers who sulk and growl around every room, their only cue a weird distortion in the background of the screen before they strike. Learn what your enemies do and how to avoid them, and you’ll clear rooms in no time.
Knowing what to look for gives you a leg up on bosses, too. Since bosses are all about patterns and attack windows, knowing what to look for and how to time your dodges will see you snapshot-rolling with the best of them
Stalk The Grounds
Go everywhere. Hunt The Night has you explore a number of vast regions and their surroundings. You’re not just there to see a story. The nonlinear paths through levels and cryptic puzzles point out that you’re there to explore. With all your abilities tied to your weapons and armor, that road to nowhere could be a road to a new crossbow or the armor that’ll keep you alive against the next boss. Exploring also unlocks shortcuts all over the place that cut down on backtracking. In a game with levels this huge and checkpoints so far apart, it pays to explore even if you don’t find anything.
Ravenford Reforged
Once you beat Hunt the Night‘s second boss and open up the refuge of Ravenford, two plague doctors found to the right of the library (up the stairs by the save point) will upgrade your equipment for a hefty chunk of your money. You can also upgrade your health refills in the courtyard and in the caves decorated by red roses. Doing the optional hunt quests also increases Vesper’s health, giving all the more reason to complete them.
Never Give Up, Never Surrender
The most important word in the title Hunt The Night is “hunt.” You might die, but you’ll learn more about the rooms, traps, and enemies of the castle in the process. If it gets too frustrating, it’s all right to take a break, or find someplace else to explore. It’s all about learning the enemy patterns, finding a style that works best for you, and taking a step back when you need to. Hunting isn’t a mad dash. It’s about understanding your enemies and their behaviors, and then adjusting accordingly.
For more retro gothic soulslike fun, check out our overview of Moonscars. Or to get into the series that started the whole genre, here’s our guide on How to Play the Dark Souls Games in Order
