Hauntii

TLDR: Hauntii is an indie title very worth playing with a high level of artistry.
The gameplay uses twin stick mechanics but it is a more slow paced, methodical game so don't go into it expecting bullet-hell high speed madness. Instead, think Mario Odyssey: you haunt objects to unlock abilities to defeat enemies or solve puzzles that reward you with stars. The stars are used to progress the story through showing your memories of your past life - as well as giving you options to upgrade health, "stamina" (dashes), or "ammo" (essence).
The visuals - hand line-drawings and animation - are incredible.
The soundtrack is the absolute standout here. Get the OST - it really stands well on its own, but it also brings you through all the emotional changes of pace within the game.
The story is told in a cryptic or impressionistic way. There is little direct exposition. The game does tell you what your current objective is but it is up to you to absorb everything the game shows you and piece together what it is trying to tell about the ghost's past life and the important lessons. There are occasional NPCs who establish the themes of the game through your interactions, and the rest is out there for you to experience. Take your time, explore everything, interact with every npc... just really drink it up.
Really impressive that this game came from such a small team. Every single one of them clearly sets a high standard for themselves with the art they create. The game can be beaten in under 10 hours - so you have the time necessary to enjoy it. No performance issues, runs great on the steam deck.

Beautiful adventure game where you gotta haunt various objects in the environment to solve puzzles.
Almost worth it for the visuals alone.

I am loving this game already. I've been playing on the Steam Deck and it has been running great so far. The music and visuals are wonderful and pair really nicely with having areas to explore with lots of discoverables. The twin stick shooting feels satisfying and oddly relaxing at times.

This is a wonderful little gem of a game, i was expecting a short 4 hour experience and got a fantastic 11 hour game.
Please give it a try its a small studio and they made a good game :) .
Edit : fixed issues with hearts and hotboxes, thanks for the update.
PS. I would love to see an expansion being able to use all the collectibles, and see the back story of the other characters but that's me just being greedy, Thanks for the adventure Moonloop and crew.

The visuals by far are my most favourite thing about this game as they strike out with such beauty. The visuals seem so effortlessly simple with minimalistic use of colour but overall creates this world with so much personality and charm. The game is a beautifully crafted work of art where it sets a monochromatic tone with quite sketched, point-like art style. Even though there is so much simplicity to the game it brings so much life through its pleasing and charming animations. The animations carry out great bodily expression and actions that bring everything together.
What truly sets this game apart from other games is the exploration and puzzle mechanics which drive the player into really focusing on using Hauntii’s ability to haunt objects to interact with the environment in a clever way. This gameplay style I found to be so much fun because you could also haunt everything in the world and use it to your advantage. The progression of the game followed you exploring one area which led to the next and unlocking gates by completing constellations, each area having a select number of stars for Hauntii to collect in order to complete constellations.
Another thing I quite enjoyed was the combat in this game, it felt somewhat like a bullet-hell at times, where there was constant shooting but I felt the difficulty of the enemies increased more and more as time went on. Personally, I found the combat to be pretty balanced and being able to haunt enemies that can momentarily upgrade your damage allowed players to play smart.
9/10

It's not easy to give Hauntii a proper description. The game is something in-between of a puzzle, twin-stick shooter, and collectathon. It's a refreshing experience with relaxing gameplay and stylish minimalistic b/w visuals. Highly recommended.

While this game certainly isn't without its flaws, it nonetheless manages to be a fun, magical, and deeply emotional experience, with a very strong identity to it that sets it apart from any other game.
The gorgeous artstyle and heart-tugging story are definitely the most striking aspects here. Everything in this game is super pretty to look at, and I simply cannot believe how much detail, and especially how much raw emotion this game is able to portray using its extremely limited colours and simplistic shape language. And I do mean RAW EMOTION. The story had me in absolute shambles at several points, making me question what I believed about the world and characters, and in the end delivering a truly unique and powerful message through a combination of heavy symbolism and interaction with gameplay elements. In that regard, this game is something special.
The gameplay is great as well, though it does have its issues at times. For the vast majority of the game, it plays really well. The haunting mechanic is very fun to interact with, and the methods of obtaining stars (the major collectible) are somewhat repetitive in concept but each usually has some fun twist that makes it enjoyable to collect nonetheless. It's nothing special, but it carries itself along well with its heavily Super Mario Odyssey-inspired format, merged with a twin-stick shooter gameplay style, and is more than enough to keep you engaged through the story and wanting to explore each area to the fullest.
Like I said though, it is not without its problems, especially in its last quarter. While most stars are fun to collect, there are definitely a few frustrating ones, or ones that DO feel repetitive, but that's bound to happen in a game with this many of its major collectible, so I can forgive this. There are other smaller issues too, like the camera making gameplay harder than it needs to be at times, the map not being very helpful for navigating areas, a bit of an annoying difficulty spike in the Eternal City, and generally a number of bugs and oversights (immediately taking damage when un-haunting some enemies, the camera panning up to the sky for seemingly no reason, the fast-moving shuttle enemies in the final area being a bit too fast to react to them coming on-screen, etc.). These issues did not do much to bog down my experience personally, but they are worth mentioning.
Hauntii is not a perfect game, but it touched my heart in a way few others have managed to do. I truly think Hauntii is special, and I hope that others can look past its flaws to see the beauty that I see in it.