Spirit Hunter: Death Mark

The story in this kept me invested for the entirety of the riveting pressing A gameplay.
A solid recommendation from a person who's not a fan of Visual Novels.

This ended up getting really long, so here's a TL;DR:
Pros:
- REALLY awesome story and art, great soundtrack, was fully engaged almost start to finish
- Great foreshadowing and twists
- Unique gameplay that sets it apart from other visual novels
- Great cast of unique and memorable characters
Cons:
- A lot of really common triggers and hard lines even for horror fans, including a LOT of body horror, bugs n shit, sexual abuse, and animal death. Not a game for everyone
- Really weirdly sexual art at weird places, which clashes with the otherwise pretty well-done themes of sexual abuse
- Runs like hot trash on steam deck, the green checkmark is lying to you
Now for my full review:
Before I say anything about the game itself, I have to say, if you're playing on steam deck: THAT GREEN CHECKMARK IS AN ABSOLUTE LIE. While the default controls work and the game looks good, it runs like absolute GARBAGE.
On it's base settings, it crashes roughly every fifteen to twenty minutes, which is insane. I'm lucky there's a fast-forward for the dialogue, because you can't save during actual dialogue, and as a mostly visual novel-style game, there are often sections that last WELL over 15 minutes. In these default settings, I was barely able to get into the game because just when I started, it would crash, and then i'd have to speed through a load of stuff to get back to where I was. There's a kind-of workaround if you install a very specific version of Proton Experimental (8.3, specifically 8.3. older AND newer versions didn't work for me), but you have to manually install that AND I still had crashes, they were just actually spaced out enough to actually let me enjoy the game, and gave me a good chance to save. The compatibility indicator should be yellow, because it was INFURIATING. It also often started to have visual, audio, and even gameplay glitches as it approached crash time--character portraits not appearing when they spoke, audio cues not playing. Once I even got fully stuck because the flashlight that acts as your cursor during exploration parts wouldn't trigger.
Basically, it's playable on steam deck, but it sure shouldn't be verified.
Now, with all that out of the way...
I still give this game a positive rating, because i did absolutely LOVE it, and if you, like me, love good horror and have a very high tolerance for it, I would love to say play it. I'll admit I balked a little when I saw the price tag, especially considering this is a visual novel, but I got it on sale and after playing it, I can confidently say it's not actually a ridiculous price. The art is gorgeous, the story is amazing, and overall I had a great time (Steam Deck performance issues not withstanding).
That said, I also can't blindly recommend this game to everyone I come across either, because the amount of common triggers in it is...excessive, honestly.
MINOR SPOILERS and TRIGGER WARNINGS ahead:
If you don't like body horror, this is NOT the game for you, because it has several different flavors: basic gore and mutilation, plants growing out of bodies, insects overtaking bodies (major trypophobia warning), medical experimentation, animal fusion...there are other common triggers as well, including HEAVY themes of sexual abuse, animal torture and death, and spiders.
Also, the one and only reason this game isn't one of my all time favorite horror games is because, to be frank, there's a very uncomfortable amount of sexualization of woman's abuse and trauma. Both men and women are victims to this game's monsters, but when the splash art focuses on a corpse or struggling victim that's female, the poses they're drawn in are weirdly sexual and provocative. It reads as especially tone-deaf after chapter 3, where a woman's sexual abuse and the voyeurism of her attackers are the main focus of the story segment. I've learned to deal with the fact that sometimes the horror genre is weird about women. But after Ch3, I was just bewildered. How can a game so decently cover the way women's abuse often doesn't end with the physical act, depict the events that happened as horrific, and then have splash art of a woman with her ass pointed at the camera with a thorn vine arranged between her cheeks and gooch like a thong? The level of dissonance is so insane it makes me wonder if the artists/art director even read the game's script, and overall ended up knocking the game down from where it was kind of super glowing before then.
Still though, all in all, I really REALLY loved Spirit Hunter: Death Mark. The incredible art and story kept me hooked for the entire time I played it, the twists were great, and the gameplay was unique and engaging. The characters all felt like real people, and what you learned about them felt realistic to the amount of time you spent with them and their role in the story. I'll definitely be playing the second one as well.

I love this series very very much. I love the writing, characters, character art, monster designs, music, spirits, and their stories. I wish that this series could go on forever.

Death Mark has plenty of problems, but having finished the main story and bonus route I can't help but feel anything other than excitement to play more of the series and any games like it. The vibes are just immaculate, and imaging how good it could be with some improvements is very enticing. I quite enjoy the gameplay and the artwork and the music while not amazing, it is very fitting. The spirit designs are a bit of a mixed bag, personally none of them were that great for me but they all had at least something interesting going for them. The artwork is great, even tho I would've liked to see some more art for the death scenes or the items you are picking up, The characters are all at least interesting or likeable, even tho they don't get too much development. The standout is definitely Mashita (even the bonus case knows it) and seeing him on the cover for II is dope. I do feel like chapter 3 and chapter 4 are a bit of a lull, the spirit in 3 is one of the most interesting and while I do appreciate breaking up the gameplay loop a bit, i wish it had a longer, more "proper" chapter. I do hope the other games try to be a bit more scary as I feel like I was only ever truly on the edge in the first chapter. Also the text speed is like, just slow enough to be a bit of a bother. Lastly, while the live or die system is cool, some of it feels very arbitrary and one or two times you might need to straight up look up something (or just resort to tedious trial and error) which I feel is pretty cheap.
TLDR: Game has plenty of flaws but the atmosphere and story more than make up for it

A horror detective game with style , it have many quality puzzle is not too easy to solve , but isnt hard if you really think about it , spirit design is very unique and creepy , perfectly hit the right spot for folklore horror , make me love this game so much , fyi I also 100% achievement so you can tell how much this game bring to me . cant recommend enough , welp... time to move on , continue to finish this trilogy ...

BUY ON SALE IF YOU CAN I want to give this a neutral option but it was a fun enough game and I can still replay to get the good ending if I feel up to it.

TLDR: I really enjoyed the first couple chapters of the game. I liked that there is a mystery to be solved, but the ending felt like it was dragging on and I had issues with a bit of the game play mechanics. Also as a woman I hate when stories put women in sexual fetish poses while they are dying when it is supposed to be scary while the men never have the same happen to them (and it would be weird either way in my opinion but this shows how ridiculous and out of place they are)

PROS: Art (except whoever approved certain pictures), sound, characters were likeable although discarded rather quickly, backgrounds for each ghost and their designs were unique and everything the character investigates in relation connect back to the main story. Game had a good amount of playtime and there is two endings that can be found as well as the DLC included when you buy the steam version. I would give this game a 6/10 because it didn't wow me but it started off really promising.

CONS: There are certain moments where you have to answer from 3 multiple choices and survive by choosing the right answer but the problem was that the answer was either shown to you directly before plain as day or not shown at all and seemed like a guessing game. A lot I got from luck or logic rather than them having anything to do with the clues we found. You also can find many items that do nothing to what you need to do and I can only assume they want to throw you off but it again gets a little confusing. After chapter 3 it gets repetitive and not as fun or interesting as the first half. Ending sure it made sense, but also not the easiest explanation and I did not even get the good ending because I messed up on the very first ghost which meant even though I played another 20 hours it meant nothing as it would automatically become the normal ending. Maybe I will replay to get good ending as I do want to play the DLC that only unlocks after the good ending, but that means a lot of slow moments to backtrack through and even with the skip and speed buttons the live or die games are just as slow as ever. I would recommend this game for $20 maybe $25 but the price it has now is a little crazy considering finishing the game felt a little like a chore after such a good buildup to fall back down.

Rant about rape and assault in this game if you want to read: As I mentioned earlier, in almost every chapter of the game there is an unneeded artwork of a woman or women in degrading positions while they are either dying or straight up already a corpse. I would get it if this game was advertised as that but it is not. These images appear out of nowhere, and one of them includes an underage girl with her clothes ripped off while the man also getting killed is FULLY CLOTHED RIGHT NEXT TO HER. Seriously threw me out of the game when they happened because I am no longer scared it was uncomfortable and disappointing. And how can you then have a story line where a ghost's background is that she went through an intense rape/assault that made her suicidal but not understand how these images are not okay for a game like this? Will only be buying the second game if the reviews do not say anything about this happening in that one also.

Watched someone (ManlyBadassHero I think) play this when I was younger and now I have all three games (yay!!!) so please ignore the fact that I've only played 2.5 hours so far haha
My review will literally just be about the spirit designs (which in my opinion this game does the best job at out of all of the spirit hunter games, not to say the rest are bad, these are just the cream of the crop oo boy)
SPOILERS AHEAD:
SPOILERS AHEAD:
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SPOILERS AHEAD:
Main Spirits:
Hanahiko: The perfect level of weirding me tf out to the point of scaring me and also making me go "awwww just a lil guy" I love their malformed head with the bulging singular eye and all the placements being in the right place vertically but not in the right place horizontally, and not like they just used the circle clip and move tool, like they molded their face like clay- oooghg it's so good. The broken-in head (I'm gonna keep up the clay-like attributes) looks like a pot cracked and shattered in firing which makes the mishapen face look even more like the entire thing was a mistake by a potter. The plants coming out of their head is a nice detail too, obviously alluding to the plants Hanahiko is known for but the way their arms look like vines floating in place- the entire design does ghostly body horror perfectly.
Shimi-O: I LOVE INSECTS BURROWING HOLES IN FLESH FOR HORROR DESIGNS!!!!! Insects gross me the fuck out and if I see one I freeze up and stare at it so I don't lose where it is, and having the idea of one of those things I fear literally ripping into me to make a home is so viscerally terrifying so the concept is great for horror imo. This design is perfect. The holes in the chest where the bees come out of look organic and natural (obviously) without looking like it's normal and doesn't hurt. The belly fat folds turning into rows like how wasp nests have a paper lining(? I think that's what it's called) is amazing and a great way to incorporate more vesperian (I don't think bees count in vespers but uhhhhhh I can't think of another word for it) imagery. And the teeth being the only part of the head showing is just a great inhumanly human part of what makes the horror truly scary- he can still breathe (if he were alive) he's having to exist roaming around with a colony of bees living inside his flesh- ohhhh it's so good. THE BEES COMING OUT OF KIMURA'S FACE BY DIGGING INTO HIS EYE OGGGHHHHH so gross I hated it it's such good horror. The holes and larvae in his flesh, the tumorous looking hive growth by the bees, the sagging skin, HE'S SALIVATING- It's all great dead body visuals. AND THE BODIES WITH THE TRIANGULAR CONE HEAD HIVES AAAHSDJIHSDJKFHKSDHFKD it's great and I hate it.
Hanayome: The weakest design of the main spirits imo, she was terrifying to me until she took off her veil and then I thought "she goofy as hell" cause she looks like the distorted face of a stretch armstrong when you flatten or elongate their head too much. Now, I understand her neck is supposed to be long (she hung herself) but my issue isn't with the shape- it's with the eyes. I think her design would have been peak if they didn't give her those goofy ahh eyes. In her story there's bloody pictures with nails and curled wire going through the paper, they could have had nails driven into her eyes or smth instead of them misshapen looney toons eyes. The veil over her long neck and head is a great silhotte (I'm not even gonna try to respell it) though- It's just the eyes. The eyes ruin the design. Everything else terrified me.
Miss Zoo: Honest to god I don't even know what to say about her. Her head is creepy, and smacked utop a conventionally attractive female body is a good juxtaposition but the rest just kind of makes me go "yeah...no...." The ENTIRE snake being there AND moving around just makes me cringe a little, and not in a horror way, in a "this is cringe" way. If it was lifeless and flopping about that would make it more terrifying (for me anyway, this is all just my opinion and again, I love this game and this series) since she just has a dead, rotting animal stapled to her and she's talking about transcending beauty or whatever. It's the snake that takes me out, she is genuinely creepy otherwise.
Kannon Soldier: Literally no design notes this is so unsettling to me. The name being Kannon, the goddess(? in western terms I think) of mercy is such a tragic irony it's amazing. Oooogggghhhh the writing on the side of the torso, the hands pulling at the hair and covering the eyes, the slits that look so surgical and deliberate, the bloody flesh peeking out underneath the armor replacing skin, the blood from the neck it's all sooooooo good oh my godddddddddd 10/10- and the way its animated is so creepy it's so good I cannot even ohhhhh
Red Riding Hood: For me, the details are amazing- but the overall design is kinda lacking to me? I dunno. Like the hair looking like the spider legs, being suspended in the air upside-down by your hair sounds painful, and the way her head/neck is placed really shows how uncomfortable that would be but like... the face looks too perfect, even with the four eyes. Her skin is too smooth on her face, she has human teeth and a shiny nose- it just makes her look less scary. And the hair/silk covering her boobs? That's just goofy to me. I like how they added the hair on a spider's legs onto her arms, but honestly? Put more body hair on her. Games with these aesthetics so rarely give women body hair- give her some armpit hair, some chest hair (NOT THE FREAKING HAIR BRA IT'S SO BAD), something natural and not smoothed over. Have spiders crawling out from her mouth (which could have mandibles!) or worse, where her eyes used to be (gouged out eyes is a simple horror design trope which honestly? I understand the somewhat overusage of.)
Mary: Fnaf four nightmare freddy looking ahh
Oh and the CGs of other people dying in this game are gruesome and just the right amount of fleshy weirdness god I love the art direction for this game.
a non spirit but
Edit: MASHITA IS SOOOOOO HE IS SOOOOO
Man, I love Mashita.