Haunting Ground, or Demento in Japan, is a survival horror game that came out in 2005 to mixed reviews. Criticism was leveled at the repetitive gameplay, but many praised the disturbing atmosphere that Capcom created through the unwilling objectification of the game’s protagonist Fiona. It’s a game that would be interesting to look at through a more modern lens, considering the strides that we’ve made in equality and feminism since the game came out. Except… well, it’s pretty hard for modern players to get their hands on this one.
Editor’s Note: There will be spoilers for Haunting Ground below.
Haunting Ground follows Fiona, a college-aged woman who was in the backseat of her parents’ car when they got into an accident and crashed. While Fiona’s parents died, she survived. When she next wakes up, she finds herself in an unlocked cage in the dungeon of a mysterious castle. She manages to get out and befriend a dog named Hewie, but the rest of the castle’s occupants aren’t as cordial. Throughout the game, Fiona is stalked, chased, harassed, and violated by a posse of people who’re after her for unknown reasons. Her only forms of defense are Hewie, her boots (which are made for kickin’), and alchemical land mines.
What instantly stood out to me with Haunting Ground and why I was curious about it in the first place is the fact that your relationship with Hewie is a huge part of the game. I love dogs and have always had a fascination with horror. So I wanted to give Haunting Ground a try. My friend rented the game, and we played it together. Since my scaredy-cat friend was the one in control, we didn’t really get through much of it. But its unique gameplay and atmosphere, as well as the intriguing plot set-up, interested me and I got a copy of my own to play through on my own time.
Back then, my exposure to horror games had been stuff like Resident Evil. Yes, it’s scary, but you had a reliable weapon to protect yourself with and you could permanently kill enemies in the game. In Haunting Ground, you weren’t dealing with random zombies or whatnot that you could eliminate. Instead, you had to deal with the stalkers in each level chasing you around. Since you could only rid yourself of them during their respective boss battles, the rest of the time involved you hiding from them or using designated set pieces to temporarily put them out of commission. They also seemed to wander around off-screen so their appearances weren’t scripted, adding to the tension. If that sounds kind of the Clock Tower games to you, then you’d be correct! Fans generally consider this game a spiritual successor to that series.
Aside from the stronger focus on survival horror and the fact that you had a cute little dog who’d fetch stuff and fight off enemies for you, Haunting Ground was really interesting to me because of its themes and what it used to try and scare the player. If you take one look at Fiona, you’ll probably notice something about her design. She’s almost ridiculously hot and the developers know it. At one point in the game, Fiona walks around in nothing but a bedsheet. I vaguely remember there are jiggle physics for her too. Costumes you can unlock throughout the game only serve to accentuate her various assets.
Female characters have always had a sort of special place in the horror genre. Stories usually unfold from the perspective of one, and there are some aspects of sexualization in their torture or deaths. The final girl is an entire horror trope, in which the most “virtuous” one of the group is the one who survives the terrors that befall the protagonists. Meanwhile, the more promiscuous “bad girl” is the one who usually dies first. Some sort of moral handwringing was at play behind the scene? Most likely. The relationship between the many different subcategories of horror and gender is a really interesting topic with a lot of history to comb through, but that’s a topic for another day and another outlet. Today, let’s just focus very specifically on what themes Haunting Ground has in its story and general atmosphere.
A driving force in the plot is that Fiona contains Azoth—a universal remedy in alchemy and something similar to the Philosopher’s Stone—inside of her body. The people in the castle kidnapped and pursue her specifically to use or obtain that Azoth. For example, if Daniella catches you and you get a game over, Daniella presumably rips into Fiona’s womb to get at it. One of Fiona’s stalkers impregnates her in a bad ending so that he can be reincarnated as her child and achieve immortality through the Azoth. Even at the beginning of the game, before anything really happens, there are a lot of scenes of someone staring at Fiona through peepholes throughout the castle. It brings to mind voyeurism, especially since Fiona is very vulnerable in these sequences.
Now, voyeurism and stalking are both fears that anyone can have. They’re scary and violating in a different way than, say, someone mugging you downtown. Same with rape. But forced impregnation is a fear unique to those who can bear children, and that’s a horror that really takes over the latter half of the game. Disregarding Debilitas, there’s an underlying current of sexual violence and violation in all of the antagonists. Daniella drugs Fiona and then suggestively runs her hand down her unconscious body before she violently presses down on her lower stomach. I will give Daniella grace here; maybe her cooking was just so disgusting that it only seemed like she drugged Fiona.
Female-centric horror is not new, much like how female sexualization isn’t new either. It could be that female protagonists relying on their wits and resourcefulness to escape is more interesting than watching a male protagonist attempt brute force. Or perhaps it’s easier and more believable to write vulnerable female characters, which makes antagonist more threatening and the stakes higher. In any case, Capcom did not invent the concept of placing women in scary situations and forcing the audience to experience the horrors through their eyes. From my experience though, Haunting Ground is the game that plays the most into very female-specific fears and anxieties while still remaining a game for a general audience.
I can’t say for sure since I’m not someone who’s attracted to women, but at no point did Haunting Ground feel like it was playing any of the above scenes—the groping, the voyeurism, the impregnation—for a titillating reason. It plays the horror very straight, even if Fiona looks like the dictionary definition of Little Miss Fanservice the entire time. So it’s pretty interesting to me how the game takes these very sex-specific anxieties and turns them into something that’d even scare players who may not have to worry about them in real life.
While I don’t believe the game is feminist in any definition of the word, I like how Fiona’s kindness is her greatest asset. There’s something to be said about how she relies so heavily on a dog in a game that insists on objectifying her. But the fact that she even has a dog is because she took the time to help Hewie despite her own horrendous conditions. You get the best ending by choosing to extend mercy to Debilitas, who’s the only “innocent” stalker in that he’s not trying to kill Fiona out of malice. Heck, even the title of his chase theme (“Innocent Freak”) alludes to this. Kindness, a “feminine” trait, is not a weakness for Fiona. If she wasn’t kind to those around her, then she wouldn’t have survived, and it was satisfying to see the subtle character development she undergoes after all of her ordeals.
It certainly would be interesting if Capcom chooses to remake Haunting Ground and “update” the plot for modern sensibilities, but considering how very few people these days can experience the original story, that probably won’t go over well. In the year 2024, there is actually no way to officially play this game unless you have a PS2. The game itself is also notoriously difficult to find. Because of its rarity, I’ve seen secondhand copies sell for anywhere between $178 and $899.95 Canadian. That’s frankly insane, especially when you consider the fact that we’re talking about a used copy. No one in their right mind would pay that price for a new game, let alone a game from 2005.
Alright then, so physical copies are out of the picture unless someone can invent a time machine. Let’s look at the digital storefront. PS3? Nada. However it is available if you have a Japanese account. PS4? Nope, though I did see that Tokyo Jungle is apparently an option for people with PS Plus. Darn, September 2024 Stephanie should’ve looked into that. But the actual Holy Grail that I’m seeking—Haunting Ground—is nowhere to be found. My princess is in another castle and I don’t believe that I’ll be able to find her anytime in stores anytime soon.
Game preservation is an issue that has been ongoing for a while now, especially as copies of retro titles become scarcer and scarcer. Another PS2 game that may share a fandom with Haunting Ground what with the psychological horror and dog companion is Rule of Rose. That game, like Haunting Ground, never got a remake or a remaster. There’s no port either. So you have to get a physical PS2 copy to play it officially. In September 2024, unsealed and unsold Italian copies of the game were discovered, which severely lowered the price of the game online. But prior to this, some sellers were listing it for exorbitant prices. A Redditor in 2023 showed that you could get Rule of Rose for the sane and rational price of $1,001.
Was Rule of Rose good? It was unique and had a great story, but was quite tedious to play. Was Haunting Ground good? I mean, yeah, I think so, but some people didn’t. But the subjective quality of art shouldn’t have bearing on whether it’s preserved or not. Considering games and movies can get lost despite existing in cyberspace, I understand that even digital media isn’t infallible. But companies can preserve really old games if they want to, and I fully believe that the files for Haunting Ground exist somewhere in Capcom’s vaults. Even if it doesn’t, come on. They re-released it for Japan’s PSN. Is it really too much to ask that regions outside of Japan get it too?
In the years since Haunting Ground came out, there hasn’t really been any horror games in which you have to rely almost entirely on an AI-controlled animal for progress. Stuff like The Last Guardian exists, but they’re not horror games. Perhaps it’s because of how finicky and frustrating the mechanic can be. I do remember how losing Hewie on the grounds prevented me from continuing with the game at one point. Nonetheless, between its unique gameplay mechanics and memorably disturbing story, I do hope that one day, Haunting Ground will be readily available for the masses once again.
Haunting Ground is on the PS2, as well as on the PSN if you’re in Japan.
Published: Oct 31, 2024 12:00 pm