Haunting Ground - Gameplay

Gameplay

The protagonist of Haunting Ground is Fiona Belli, a young girl who the player must guide through Belli Castle and its immediate environs in an effort to escape. Along the way, players must solve puzzles, unlock doors and evade, hide or attempt to fight against the castle's inhabitants. Fiona is accompanied by Hewie, a White Shepherd and the two must work as a team to solve certain puzzles and outwit their pursuers.

Throughout the game, the castle's inhabitants chase and attack Fiona, although if they are evaded for long enough, they will cease to do so for a set interval. While it is possible to retaliate with kicks, Hewie's bites, or alchemically created weapons, the game's focus is evasion. To facilitate this, there are numerous hiding places found throughout the game's levels. Ultimately, however, Fiona must face off against each pursuer in a boss battle, after which a different enemy will begin to pursue her.

In addition to the main enemies, two other type of enemy are encountered during the game. Neither are inherently dangerous to Fiona per se, but each can alert Fiona's pursuers to her location, and cause her to panic. The first are small floating orbs of blue light known as Luminescents, which follow Fiona and emit a loud noise if they come into contact with her. The second are small fetus-resembling homunculi, who attach themselves to Fiona's legs and let out a piercing scream.

As well as controlling Fiona, the player also controls Hewie. Using the right analogue stick, the player can order Hewie to stay, follow, attack, fetch and shake hands. In order to maintain a good relationship with Hewie (which can affect the ending of the game), Fiona must issue commands, and then praise or scold him depending on whether or not he obeys. Praising or healing him when he becomes injured increases Hewie's friendship level. If not given enough attention, Hewie will ignore Fiona's commands and wander off, and if he is repeatedly mistreated he will turn on and attack her. On normal difficulty, Hewie can be knocked unconscious by enemies, but he cannot be killed. On hard difficulty, however, he can die, which results in a game over.

When faced with certain scripted events or prolonged enemy attacks and chases, Fiona begins to panic. If allowed to remain in a panic for too long she will enter full panic mode and begin to run. Panic mode causes a blurriness of the screen, saturation of the surroundings, inverted black and white coloring and a freeze-frame effect during which time the control pad will begin to vibrate. The player is unable to stop Fiona running (although they can control the direction in which she runs) and must try to prevent her from running into walls and objects, as doing so causes her to fall and begin to crawl; at this point any further damage whatsoever will kill her. Hewie can be called upon for help during panic mode, encouraging him to attack any pursuer, and thus prevent Fiona from being killed. If enemies are avoided long enough, panic mode ends after a set period of time.