It’s a testament to the Metroidvania genre that we see many good independent titles coming out within the last couple of years. Orange Popcorn recently released HunterX Is another example of a stellar indie Souls-like Metroidvania title that shows just how great this style of gaming is to independent studios. I’ve recently found myself playing a lot of Metroidvania games and I had a blast with HunterX. It’s not perfect but it’s more polished than a lot of other titles even with its faults.
HunterX opens up in the dark and abandoned city with the players taking control of Tsuki, a hunter who is looking to hunt demons when they find a crack in the world. Tsuki and her partner enter the crack in the world and it turns out it’s connected to the land of her ancestors. They soon find that it is infested with demons and must explore to figure out the tragic history of this realm. HunterX adopts more of a Souls-like story structure than it does a Metroidvania story structure;Â most of the story is found throughout the environment that you travel in. There’s also some dialogue placed in there as well when you meet certain characters. It’s not a bad way for the game to tell its story, but I didn’t feel invested in the overarching narrative. I was in it for more of the gameplay than I was for the story. The story seems just a little bit generic and easily forgettable, but it is fun to see what type of boss is coming next as you hunt these creatures to get to the next area.
We’re HunterX strives and hits its peaks is in its fast, responsive responsive gameplay. Many times after I got a new base skill I tried to work it in with my normal combo to see how long I could stay in the air. It felt like I was playing a character action game rather than a Metroidvania-style game. One thing I loved doing was the following: Jump > Attack x2 > Use Occult (swords) > Air Dash > Attack x2 > Use Occult (swords) > Double Jump > Attack x 2 > Air Dash > Attack x2 > Mortal Blow.
Outside of the fast combat, it does have a leveling system that is very Souls-like. Every monster that gets hunted drops you some Karma that is used to level up your stats. I wasn’t a huge fan of the karma crystals that were just in the levels, it didn’t feel like it fit in with the rest of the game and felt sort of like a question block randomly placed on the map. Especially since they already had items that give you Karma anyways all it did was clutter up the screen at certain points. I wouldn’t call HunterX a hard game, but I wasn’t challenged by this game at all. To make this game challenging, I created a pure strength glass cannon build. A little past the game’s halfway point I would die in one hit. I found myself enjoying the title a lot more if I played it that way and I understand that that’s not for everybody. I don’t feel like I died unfairly when I did die. I felt like it was because I messed up and not some sort of cheap shot.
However, if I had any points and did not want to play like that anymore, I had the option to retool my stats. I didn’t use that option but it’s nice to have it for players that want of respec at any point. Another thing that I wasn’t too fond of was that most of the bosses are all big and all of their hitboxes are not on the ground. Maybe this is more of a personal preference but I wish that I could have fought on the ground some more instead of having to go up into the air for every boss fight. It didn’t make sense to me why I couldn’t hit some of the pieces of the boss when they’re in the same plane as I am. I’m looking at you, flame dragon. Other than that some hitboxes are pretty funky and some balancing of some enemies is a little weird but they’re minor and easy to overlook.
Overall I believe HunterX is a very solid game that fans of Metroidvania would enjoy. Its not the hardest or most polished game, but HunterX provides fast-paced and responsive combat that will players asking for more. It’s good that there’s so much replayability in this game. This seems to be Orange Popcorn’s first game and I look forward to them building on the foundations set in HunterX for their next title. HunterX can currently be bought on Windows PC ( Steam) and Nintendo Switch.
