Haunting Ground

Hauting Ground (known as Demento in Japan)  is a game by Capcom for the PS2 back in 2005. You play a woman, Fiona Belli, after she wakes up, caged, in a basement. After escaping from the cage, she is finds that her parents and she were in a car accident and that she is the loner survivor and heir of the Belli Castle. But, it's not just that simple. While there she is chased throughout the castle as she tries to find her way out of the castle, her only friend a white German Shepherd named Hewie. You don't actually attack anyone in the game, but your actual goal when faced with your enemies is to hide from them until they finally leave you alone for a while. Which, even though certain places give you the option to hide, it's not the best idea. For example, an iron maiden. Also, after a while of running, Fiona will get tired and unable to run. And, if she gets too scared, she'll go in to 'panic mode', where the screen turns black and white, the screen shakes and blurs, and Fiona will repeatedly fall as you run. The only time you REALLY fight them is their boss battles, and even then it's just Fiona telling Hewie to attack them while you solve puzzles in order to defeat them.

Fiona Belli is eighteen years old and finds herself at Belli Castle after a car accident with her parents. She carries a life force (I have no idea how else to describe it) called Azoth, which is the reason for her imprisonment. Throughout the game she rarely speaks, preferring to sit in fear and scream for Hewie to help her. In fact, most of the dialouge is one sided, the enemies talking to her and explaining what they want from her and how they plan to get it.

Your first enemy is Debilitas. Though it is never said in the game, most people believe that he is a failed experiment by Riccardo. Though he is very muscular, he has the mind of a child, which is shown by his love for dolls. In fact, he thinks that Fiona is a giant doll and chases after her for a portion of the game until the boss battle, where you have the choice of either killing him or befriending him.

(Yes, that is a giant shard of glass she's licking.)

After defeating Debilitas, you are allowed a moment of peace to run around the castle as you please. Well, until you are a door away to freedom and some woman comes up behind you, grabs your hand and preventing you from leaving, to inform you that dinner is ready. This is your next enemy, Daniella. Though, this isn't really your first time meeting her (you see her in the beginning of the game when she shows you your new room and talks to the painting, reassuring it that she'll make sure that Fiona will be comfortable), this is when you start to see how creepy she REALLY is. In the first sit down chat you have with her, she informs you that she can't feel pain, experience pleasure, or taste food. Getting a bit creeped out, Fiona decides that she's done eating and wants to get as far away from Daniella as possible. But, Daniella doesn't seem to like that idea, and decides to wake Fiona up in the middle of the night and tells you that she isn't complete and decides to break a mirror. With her face. From that point on, she chases you around, with either a giant shard of glass or a hot poker, and attempts to take your Azoth, which she believes will 'complete' her. With her, there are a lot less hiding places and she sometimes like to pop out of large cabinets that you were about to hide in. Lucky for you, she hates mirrors and you can temporarily stop her from chasing you by uncovering a mirror and let her take a good look at herself. But, seeing as Daniella is the maid of the castle, there are times where you will find her cleaning and, if you go up to talk to her, she will tell you that she's busy at the moment and can talk to you later. She has a life outside of chasing you around, too. I hope that you can tell by how much detail I put in to this how scary she it (and how she's my favorite out of all the people you meet).

After defeating Daniella, you get to meet the most annoying enemy in the game, at least in my opinion, Riccardo. His intention is to get your Azoth in order to be reborn, having lacked an Azoth when he was created. Therefore, he has no intention of killing you like the other two (though, Debilitas never really wanted to kill you. He just didn't know his own strength.). Instead, Riccardo prefers kicking Fiona, slapping Fiona, and scary her by firing his gun in the air. He also likes to shoot Hewie, which can actually kill the dog, in which case you are alone, and will sometimes accidentally shoot you if he gets to wound up in the game of chase. The most annoying part of this enemy? Later on he injects you with something that messes with your vision and makes it so you can't see him. The only way to know he's coming is the change in music or Hewie growling, and even then you can't really find out if he's in the room yet or not.

(There would be a picture here, but it wouldn't work for me. :/ )

The last enemy you meet is Lorenzo, which he's pretty much two enemies with the same name. He's actually your grandfather, but he's not very loving as a family member. His goal is to gain immortality and, in order to achieve that, he needs your Azoth. Luckily, the first time you meet him, he's old and in a wheelchair. He's so excited to finally meet you (and that he's that much closer to immortality) he falls out of the wheelchair and chases you around by crawling, which means you can just kick him in the face to make him let go of you. But, somehow, after you think you killed him, he comes back and is now like, fifty years younger. And he has some super powers.

For me, this game took about eight hours if you know what you're doing. Also, this game incorporates Alchemy and you can make some pretty nice things, like earrings that turn you invisible if you stand still for long enough. Even though you can't really fight (unless you have the cowgirl outfit with the gun), it's still a pretty awesome game, even if it is short.

(All images are copyrighted by Capcom.)