Connor
Anime fans will see something missing on the end of this title; sorry to disappoint, but there’s been no mistake. You didn’t miss a ‘Hunter x Hunter’ game release, this one is its own thing.
Hunter X – Code Name T is an anime style metroidvania hack and slash with all the usual chests in hard to reach spots and corridors blocked off by obstacles you can’t breach until you unlock some new ability.
The main menu brings me to a dark fantasy style screen with purple light in and amongst the darkness. The design work is acceptable, but the graphics textures look like something that might have come out a couple of decades ago.
The most surprising treasure was the music, which immediately hits me with some tense violin and electric guitar, the epic kind which makes me think I’m about to get up to some shit that’s not just exciting but also important in some way. I’m about to save the world.
That dark fantasy medieval menu background with stonework and magic proves immediately to be a half lie when the first thing we see in our main character’s world is neon signs and dirty back alleys.
Looks like we are in for a bit of dimension hopping shenanigans, not a bad thing. Did I mention how much I love the original Spyro the Dragon games yet?
Hunter X – Code Name T recommends a controller to play. It’s been a hot minute since I last sat myself in the other room and booted up an actual console, but fortunately I did have one on hand.
We see for the first time our player character and protagonist, Taiyo, talking to a floating demon boy.
If you didn’t immediately know he was the main character, he has brightly coloured hair, wields a katana, looks about high school age and runs at the most ridiculous angle to the ground I have ever seen. This is the most shōnen looking dude to teleport behind you since Vergil from ‘Devil May Cry’ did that thing with his sword…
You know what I’m talking about, don’t even pretend.
Promotional trailers for the game show a female protagonist so I’m assuming there will either be a switch at some point, or the final version will have the option.
The second character we get a good look at is an anime girl with a magic staff. Literally the first thing we see of her is a panty shot.
If you were still somehow wondering where this game was made, that should do it for you.
Our floating demon familiar informs us there is a crack in the world which likely has something to do with all these wandering monsters bringing the local property values down and off we go.
The first ‘press X to jump’ tutorial section comes at us with zero music and stark sound design, leading me to believe I’m in for a bit of a dreary soundscape.
Fortunately it kicks in the moment we enter the next section and have actual combat to look forward to. So the sound or lack thereof is an artistic choice, not a sign of budget cuts. That’s good.
It helps that the music is the part of this game I am enjoying the most so far. It’s decently head banging tracks that don’t override the in-scene action.
We have a fairly straightforward set of abilities which mostly consist of ‘slash the bad guy’ as well as some magic spells you can equip two at a time, a dash and a block.
We cut down a bunch of unfortunately cute looking orc boys wielding axes… I might have thought they were goblins, since they are shorter than shōnen protagonist-kun but the in game menus list them as orcs.
Combat here is… OK.
It’s functional, nothing seems broken. I thought at first that responsiveness was going to be an issue when I couldn’t flow from slash to block, but there was an early ability in the skill tree to pick up that allows us to go directly from one to the other. So now I’m honestly not sure which elements of the combat are going to be upgraded into general better-ness and which are going to languish as ‘basically works’.
I’ll be generous as a guy who hasn’t finished the thing yet and assume this is one of those games that brings us by degrees into a fluid combat system with plenty of options.
Localisation is readable, but does show its face as an afterthought many times.
“Number of hunter potion carry increased.”
“Information cannot be known yet.”
“YOU HUNTED.”
I’ll just assume those all read far more natural in Japanese.
When messing around with the inventory, I see that our main sword is listed as a ‘hunter katana’, used by ‘hunter mercenaries. The plot starts to come together.
Apparently we are one of those ‘scion of a clan of demon hunters’ types.
There was immediate confusion when I was given a 2D map for a side scrolling hack and slash game. But once you figure out what it’s depicting it becomes very usable.
It is, however, graphically on the level of a Microsoft excel document and seems to have been drawn on graph paper using basic coloured shapes.
In web design, my tutor told me to use garish colours that will stand out in the CSS before I have settled on a colour scheme so that I will not miss any elements before it’s time to publish.
This map looks like they sort of just left those blocks in. So there are cubes of unicolour markers on the map that drift in the realm between ‘barebones map marker’ and ‘is this a graphics glitch?’
All up, Hunter X – Code Name T is an ugly ducking that might just be the swan you’re looking for.
It largely resembles a game that came out twenty years ago, but hey, there were definitely good games to be found back then.
Released: December 2023
Rating: M
Platforms reviewed: PC
Genre: Action
Developer: Orange Popcorn
Publisher: Orange Popcorn