Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D

Genre: Arcade / First-Person Horror

Players: 1

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Review:

Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D (not to be confused with the popular early access PC game Phasmophobia, which I believe has nothing to do with this game) is a cute re-imagining of the classic Arcade game Pac-Man that asks the question, “what if that was a First-Person Horror game?”. As a result, you have a suspiciously similar maze you’re running around grabbing up notes lining the walls, avoiding ghosts, and using batteries to briefly allow you to power your flashlight and scare the ghosts away.

It’s a clever concept, but the execution here leaves something to be desired. The game shows the full maze, ghost, and player locations on the bottom screen, and the first-person perspective on the top, but you really need to keep an eye on both. However, the maze doesn’t show the location of the dozen or so notes you need to collect (i.e., the “dots” Pac-Man would have to eat), the ghost AI isn’t very smart, and the First-Person perspective serves no purpose other than arguably atmosphere. In addition, despite the difficulty in finding notes, completing the one level is fairly simple, and… that’s it. There’s nothing after this, that’s the end of the game. You can be done with this game in just a minute or two.

I suppose I can go into how the game’s 3D visuals work, but aren’t particularly scary, and the repetitive walls are boring to look at, or I could talk about the game’s droning, repetitive soundtrack… but the time it would take me to go into any more detail than I already have would take longer than this game does to complete.

It’s a shame, really. Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D has an excellent concept, and reimagining Pac-Man as a Horror game seems like it has loads of potential. But whatever potential that concept may have had is not realized here – this is a dull disappointment of a game that isn’t worth the $3 it costs to buy it.

tl;dr – Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D (no relation to the PC game Phasmophobia) is a game that re-imagines Pac-Man as a First-Person Horror game, but as fun as this concept is, this game fails at every step – it doesn’t make it clear where the pickups are in the maze, it doesn’t do anything to justify the First-Person perspective, it’s not scary, and the game can be easily completed in just a few minutes. Even for $3, this game is a waste, don’t buy it.

Grade: D-

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