The Haunted Hoard: Extreme Exorcism (PS4)

In Extreme Exorcism, every action you take can come back to bite you, and oddly enough, that’s the central appeal of the title.

 

A level in Extreme Exorcism begins with you dropped into a platforming arena where you jump around to grab weapons and use them to kill a possessed chair. Once it’s down, a second round begins, where now you must grab a new weapon and are meant to kill a crowned ghost, but while the chair just wandered about snapping at the air, the ghost repeats every action you took the previous round. Every jump and every time you used a weapon is duplicated on loop by this ghost until you manage to take it down, and then the next round, a new crowned ghost shows up to repeat your actions from the previous round. The former crowned ghost also sticks around executing the same actions but now as a generic ghost you don’t need to kill, and as you get through more and more rounds, more ghosts begin to fill the area and things become much more dangerous as you’re haunted by all of your attacks from the past. Rounds quickly become frantic as you not only need to watch yourself, but also have to figure out where the crowned ghost is amidst the chaos of the other spirits, although you can just as easily kill them that round if you want to make things easier. Of course, that puts a new attack into the next ghost’s routine, so strategy becomes important if you want to deal with things effectively. While defeated ghosts will return for the next round, there is a special exorcism weapon that will permanently wipe out any ghosts caught in its black hole of a radius, so the chaos can be trimmed down a tad to keep things manageable.

Most levels have no definite end, only ending when you have died three times. In the single player mode, most levels have a score goal to try and reach before that happens, crowned ghosts giving plenty of points but the weaker holdover ghosts barely rewarding you for killing them. Gradually the requirements get higher and higher as you go through the house, but if you hit the goal, you can still keep going to see how high you can get your ghost killing score. At first, killing ghosts will gradually unlock new weapons that will randomly spawn in during a level, and there’s a good mix between the typical and the unusual on display. A pistol or shotgun is an easy enough weapon to use and understand, but you can also get things like insane martial arts attacks, cursed skulls, and lightning bolts all with unique properties for catching the ghosts as they run about. Every weapon kills the moment it lands a single hit, but depending on how much you move about, the ghosts might be hard to catch. A weapon like the fat gun that fires a ridiculously huge bullet is great for catching flighty spirits, but it will mean next round a ghost will fire its own version of that giant shot that you must now avoid. The weapon unlocks dry up before the levels do if you’re playing well, but you’re left with a decent set by the end, one that’s further improved by your character’s odd ability to carry up to three weapons at once. This can benefit you by putting more chances to land a shot in your hands with the extra benefit being that ghosts will only be able to copy one of the weapons you were wielding when it’s time for them to mimic your movement.

 

Unfortunately, there’s an inherent problem with Extreme Exorcism’s copycat ghosts that you might have already thought up. It is not too hard to rig the rounds in your favor, since every move you take will need to be replicated by your future opponent.  It gets pretty easy to set up the ghosts for kills, and acting with even a bit of forethought will make the ghosts less of a threat. The chaos dissolves as you learn not to be too crazy, and since the round ends the moment you land the kill shot on the crowned ghost, you can even set up little conga lines of death that aren’t too hard to kill your target through since you only have to fire faster than any other ghost can get the chance to. The weapon spawns for each round being random helps to prevent this from being guaranteed at least, although exorcism powers are dropped in after a set amount of ghosts have been generated to help clear the screen. Even once you start preplanning things though, the weapon types at least make sure there’s a bit of a challenge to executing your plan whether it be through range limitations of what you hold or the speed and power of what you might have given a ghost to wield. The level designs also shift around to try and weaken the player’s attempts to tip things in their favor, adding killer hazards to avoid and odd gimmicks like bouncy beds you can’t stand still on and the wind in the balcony levels that will push you back and forth to try and upset your effectiveness. Your opponents will always be as limited as you were the previous round though, so while things can get risky or you might be thrown off course, the ghosts are still locked into behaviors that prevent them from capitalizing on it. If you start doing too well in a certain level, it can get to the point it’s hard to lose, dragging the thin gameplay out much longer than it should be played. Rounds are often short and snappy, but too many rounds can be too much despite that.

Extreme Exorcism does find a bit of hope in staying fresh in that you can play the entire game in co-op other human players. While it’s quite easy to arrange yourself and remember your old moves to optimally dispense with the shadows of your previous actions, adding another player adds an unpredictability factor. Whoever kills the ghost has next round’s crowned ghost mimic their actions, meaning that while one player may be able to keep track of what they did, they could get suddenly thrown in with the echo of a friend’s movements they didn’t account for. The chaotic experience that comes from this is harder to game and exploit, making for a more enjoyable experience, and even if one player does die, the other player only needs to kill a certain amount of ghosts to bring them back into the battle. With up to four players, it can certainly regain some of its insanity, but even when you can’t predict a ghost’s movements so reliably anymore, the gameplay hasn’t really changed much. There is also a deathmatch mode where you can just fight each other, so you can face a friend in a more intelligent battle that still includes the ghost mechanics as backup attackers rather than as the core focus.

 

For single player options though, outside of the main progression through the many rooms of the haunted house, there is a challenge mode, and this really could have been where Extreme Exorcism got experimental.  It starts promising, with ideas like only giving you a single weapon type or adding odd conditions like “don’t kill any ghost who isn’t the crowned ghost”, but as you get into the later challenges, the game starts rehashing them with only minor alterations. An early challenge might want you to kill a certain amount of ghosts in a special way, and then a later challenge is the same thing but the amount of ghosts you need to kill has been slightly increased. Something like “all the ghosts use a certain weapon” comes in most every possible flavor as well, so rather then being a bunch of fun twists on the core mechanics, it becomes the same few ideas gradually made harder and given slight edits. Much like regular play, things can start exciting here, but as time wears on, the appeal wears down. Some gimmickry will reignite interest as the planning becomes complicated by some challenge limitation or a level design that really pushes things in a new direction, but Extreme Exorcism’s engagement is a bit like the flame of a faulty lighter. It can take a few tries to light it up, but even once you’ve got things going, it will sadly fade away too soon.

THE VERDICT: In Extreme Exorcism, you’re your own worst enemy. Setting up the ghost’s attacks for the next round with how you behave in the current one fits well with the quick platforming action of the title, but if you start putting thought into how you move, a lot of the danger dissolves away. Extreme Exorcism just doesn’t seem like a game with a lot of longevity, as figuring it out leaves the game with little new to throw at you besides small level shifts and new weapons. Multiplayer and some of the challenges can renew the initial thrill from when you were learning the game with their small twists on the gameplay, but there aren’t enough fresh ideas in the mix to help the initial concept grow into a constantly engaging title. It’s a decent mental challenge because of how much you have to keep track of and a reflex challenge in avoiding your echoed attacks, but any play session that lasts a decent length will begin to drag due to the limited design.

 

And so, I give Extreme Exorcism for the PlayStation 4…

An OKAY rating. There’s probably no better place to put it considering that it’s almost the baseline experience you’d expect from the concept. Extreme Exorcism has the intriguing central gimmick of all your actions being repeated by your enemies, but it stops there. The game we’re given feels almost like the prototype of this idea, showing how it could be lightly changed by new weapons and locations but not adding the mechanics that would truly keep things thrilling outside the initial experimentation phase. When every action the game takes is by design one that’s already happened, things get repetitive and predictable, and Extreme Exorcism should have tried to break the mold more to add complications or even threatening foes that break away from the core rules. Already, other human players are basically the biggest threat even when you’re working together, as they add a layer of potential unpredictability that rejuvenates the design some.

 

Extreme Exorcism is a fine proof of concept for the central design element and shows the potential of the idea, it just stops before it develops on it too much. In small bites or with friends Extreme Exorcism can be a bit of fun, but its simplicity almost puts it on the same level as some of the earliest video game designs despite its attempts to have more content than an Atari title. Extreme Exorcism does the one thing to amuse you and does it well enough, but that one thing just doesn’t have the staying power needed to sustain it outside of casual and brief visits.