Spirit Hunter: Death Mark

Just leaving a review to attest that the game seems to finally be working flawlessly on Steam Deck with Proton Ge 10-25

Spirit Hunter: Death Mark is a deeply unsettling, atmospheric horror visual novel that manages to blend traditional Japanese ghost stories with modern urban legend creepiness. It’s not just a game—it’s a slow descent into an eerie world where every decision could mean life, death, or something even stranger.
The game takes place in Tokyo's H City, where people have been mysteriously afflicted with a curse known as the “Mark”—a strange scar that signals impending death. As the unnamed protagonist, who wakes up with no memory and the Mark etched into your skin, you’re thrown into a race against time to uncover the truth behind the curse, and confront a series of vengeful spirits.
Each chapter introduces a new ghostly mystery, often rooted in folklore or twisted tales of abuse, trauma, and urban decay. The episodic structure works well, creating a sense of mounting dread with each case. What really sets Death Mark apart is how it builds empathy for its ghosts, blurring the line between victim and monster.
Death Mark is mostly a visual novel, but it incorporates elements of point-and-click exploration and light puzzle-solving. You investigate haunted locations, collect clues, and make key decisions in “Spirit Battles” that determine your survival. These moments, while simple, are tense and effective thanks to tight writing and haunting visuals.
The companion system adds a strategic element—choosing who to bring along affects your dialogue choices and outcomes. Some choices lead to permanent character deaths, lending real weight to your actions.
Visually, the game is striking. Its 2D illustrations are gorgeously grotesque—gritty, shadow-drenched, and dripping with atmosphere. Character designs, especially the spirits, are imaginative and deeply disturbing without relying on cheap jump scares.
The audio is minimal but impactful. Every creak, whisper, and ambient hum is expertly placed, making even moments of silence feel oppressive. The sound design does a lot of heavy lifting in creating tension.
The gameplay can sometimes feel overly rigid or trial-and-error based, especially during boss encounters. A few logical leaps in puzzles may frustrate players, and the lack of autosave can lead to punishing repetition if you make a wrong choice.
Also, as a visual novel, it’s text-heavy. If you’re not into reading and mood-building over action, Death Mark might feel slow.
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark isn’t about cheap thrills—it’s about dread that seeps into your skin. With its eerie art, emotionally driven ghost stories, and immersive writing, it’s a must-play for fans of Japanese horror and visual novels. It proves that horror doesn’t need to be loud—it just needs to linger.
Rating: 8/10

one of my all time favorite games, art style pops and mashitha is my bbg

Easy recommendation if you like Visual Novels, Adventure Games and Horror... though the full price is a little high for what it is.

In Spirit Hunter: Death Mark you awaken in a mansion with no memory of who you are and a strange bite shaped scar on your wrist. As more people arrive at the mansion you learn that this is a Death Mark... a spirits curse that causes gradual memory loss and eventual messy death. You spend the game defeating spirits in order to break your curse.

The theming is absolutely fantastic. It's good graphics, good writing, and mechanics that create an overall feeling of mystery and ghost hunting.

During the investigation scenes, you'll play classic adventure style using your flashlight to discover clues and items while getting some cute jump scares. During the story scenes, you'll get slightly branching stories with your choice of multiple partners in each chapter. Sometimes, different partners even lead to different solutions with puzzles.

The unique system to Spirit Hunter is something called "Soul Points". I really like this system here. Think of it as a "Time to make life or death decisions".

In moments of danger, your soul will drop and you'll choose from 3 multiple choice options to save your life. And unlike Spirit Hunter: NG, it's not always instant death... but a reduction in SP per mistake. The decisions are always ALOT more satisfying when you're allowed to make a wrong decision and still recover.

Most of the choices/puzzles are actually very logical and I really didn't find myself blind guessing as I did in NG. Even in areas where I got stuck, I could look back at the solution and see how it makes perfect logical sense.

Between the safety buffer of Soul Points and the logical paths of puzzles... I didn't find myself reloading frequently. It was able to make progress and simply enjoy myself.

Equally helpful, unlike NG, you are not able to advance the story until you have ALL of the required items. This means that I could always be sure that I had the items I needed to solve a life or death puzzle, or defeat a ghost in combat. I just needed to figure out the right combination. (This was a complaint I had from NG)

That said, the game isn't perfect.

It's definitely too slow with extremely slow text speeds, awkward movement mechanics and long cutscenes during Life/Death scenes. I absolutely wanted to speed things up a bit.

The navigation is downright painful. It uses a dungeon crawl style "Turn or walk forward" mapping system, but the tiles don't have 4 facings. So I'll move onto a tile and have to use the map to determine which direction I'm actually facing and what that means for my next step. Combined with "You moved forward" messages with each step... makes movement a slow and confusing process.

Finally, the games CG often leads into a more lewd style than I feel benefits it. It often feels like the developers didn't trust their own gameplay and writing so they decided to throw in some fan service poses or a random lack of clothing just to be safe.

I'm not opposed to that content, but it made me uncomfortable here because it just didn't fit the rest of the game. There we're a couple places where it made sense and I'm good with it, but most cases it just cheapened the experience.

Overall, I've loved my time with Spirit Hunter: Death Mark. I'd be comfortable recommending this at 40 dollars to the right audience.

Gorgeous art, fantastic story, I need Mashita carnally

Death, Dollies and Tattoos!
I heard this was award winning and tbh it was really interesting playing it. You have a handful of characters who keep you interested, the main character is mysterious. The story is pretty good too.
Story: Good
As a previous horror gamer I enjoy a good horror story, and this story is a curious and a plot twisting one. You follow the protagonist to a mansion where you have a mark on your arm and temporary memory loss leading to those marks, with instructions from a very lovely looking doll and guidance from a handful of vibrant characters, Death mark really leaves a nice imprint on to the soul. There are total of 5 main chapters, with the sixth one being the DLC one. You have a lot of choices to explore which would alter your fate and the fate of others. You follow a certain spirit in each chapter, and along with a partner that you can choose for help, you either can get good or bad ending depending on how you fight the spirit in the end. The story can be scary, a bit of gore here and there but not super spooky of course. As a theravada buddhist I really enjoyed the sanskrit words and buddhist references used in this Japanese game. I wonder if the Kannon soldier is named after the Pali Canon? It's a must to get the good ending to continue the game to the chapter 6 btw.
Characters: Epic!
The characters are a handful, with their own silly, quirky and sometimes mysterious personalities. The mark do not spare the kids either, my favorites is the Detective, Suzu and Tsukasa. You in the bones feel the helplessness of the choices that you take and on your partners. The spirits themselves are crafted based on interesting fictional? urban legends, twisted with their own trauma and pain. From the antagonists the "Hanayome" is something that I have witnessed in a Thai drama, in a collection of horror stories.
Gameplay: Buggy?
Yes sometimes the game would freeze at the point where you need to fight the final spirit so make a nice save there, also PLEASE make a save as soon as you get the opportunity so when you start the 6th chapter, there is no selection from the menu. The game cannot be saved all the time, so you need to time manage. There is collecting items and using them, sometimes you need to examine the object twice so the main protagonist will start getting what to actually do. I found it annoying that the game would restart itself without my permission and keep on going until i get to the save point. The final fight with spirits are interesting, you can do combo attacks using the items you find. There is also the live or die segments which are timed and you must find the right answer quickly as possible until your soul power goes out. You can die with careless decisions in this game so beware.
Achievements: straightforward
Achievements are not that hard to get, you just get good and normal endings for each spirit and then you are done.
Art: Interesting
This VN is semi voiced, the art is good. The spirit character sprites seem very unique. The kannon soldier specially caught my eye along with the buddhist chanting that followed it.
Overall
A very interesting Japanese ghost hunting VN with elements of Buddhism, gore, trauma and suspense. What will you choose to do? completely annihilate the spirits or save them?

My friend and I played through this Japanese horror game together, and we were genuinely Having lots of fun. The story is engaging and atmospheric, and the puzzles — along with the choices you have to make — offer a good level of challenge without feeling unfair. We managed to get through everything, and it was a fun experience from start to finish.
If you enjoy puzzle-solving, meaningful choices, and a strong story, I definitely recommend giving this game a try. :)