Welcome to our review of Haunted Halloween ’86, another Halloween themed game for Nintendo Switch and this time it is a brawler!
The Curse of Possum Hollow. The mind-melting sequel to our first game. The side-scrolling, platforming, beat-em-up adventure takes players back to the town of Possum Hollow on Halloween night when Harry & his haunts wreak havoc again. This time Donny has his tag team partner Tami to help kick the crap out of those mindless wastoids that stand in their way of saving the town.
Haunted Halloween ’86 is a action/arcade/platformer combo game and it is very halloween themed and there is nothing wrong with that. The story sketches us a story about halloween and how you are on your way to destroy all evil in town. The execution is a simplistic 8 bit approach but it just works.
In this game, you got two characters at your disposal and you can switch em out at will. The colour of their skin will tell you how healthy they are as they turn greener when they get hit more. You can use the health items at your disposal throughout the levels for the character with the worst health at the time.
Each character has their own attack patterns and though I preferred the female protagonist, I did enjoy playing as the “dude” as well. The game presents itself somewhere between double dragon and ghouls and goblins in matters of fairness. This obviously means it will not be a walk in the park, but a rather challenging arcade game.
Haunted Halloween ’86 is a game that I could see be played in an arcade style setting during the halloween time of year, but outside is another matter. These holiday themed games all have high appeal that time of the year but outside is always so tacky to play a game like this.
Haunted Halloween ’86 is sadly no exception here. I see little desire for myself to play this game in like the spring period or the summer. Time themed games are fun while they last and I started asking myself this simple question… Will I still remember this game a year from now?
The short answer, maybe on purpose, yes. But in all fairness, I doubt I will. Despite having fun with this game. It has some interesting attacks and mechanics and the enemies don’t go down without a punch.
I wish I had more feeling with games like Haunted Halloween ’86, I really do. I just never click with them to the extent that I will lose any sleep over them. I played them and at my normal sleeping hour, I turned off the switch and went to bed. I have several games over the past few months alone that made me lose sleep. Haunted Halloween ’86 never did.
In conclusion, Haunted Halloween ’86 never really impressed me despite its smart approach to a tried and time tested genre.
