Four years ago, we talked about Spirit Hunter: Death Mark.

Two years ago, we discussed its sequel, Spirit Hunter: NG.

So it’s fitting that one of this year’s games is the third entry in the series (despite any confusion that might come from its English title), Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II.

Death Mark II follows the protagonist of the first game, who has been called in to a high school because of his experience dealing with supernatural occurrences. The school has seen several disappearances at the hands of malevolent spirits, all announced in advance by a spirit called The Departed.

Other returning characters from the first game show up as well to assist with the investigation, which was a nice touch, even though new characters take central stage for the story.

Gameplay has a few major changes compared to the previous games, the biggest of which is that exploration is handled in a side-scrolling format. Certain areas still shift into the first-person adventure game view, but for the most part you’ll be walking across each area. As you move through an area, key points to investigate will be highlighted for you to find the clues you need, as well as a type of collectible that you can trade for items that make spirit encounters easier.

Encounters with spirits are more RPG-like than ever. You and your partner each have a stat that decreases as you take damage – and as you choose actions. On each turn, you’ll need to select an item and an action you want to use it for, with a percentage chance of success.

To be honest, the percentage system feels like a waste of time. Choosing the wrong item/action causes you to take damage from the spirit’s attack, but the few times I actually had my action fail, that didn’t happen, so a failure only costs you the health you expended to attempt it. Between that and how rare failures actually are, it just feels like a completely pointless system.

It was probably added to balance out how these encounters have been simplified. Picking the wrong item won’t put you on track for a bad ending like in Death Mark or lead to a game over like in NG, although the threat posed by the spirits still makes encounters tense. It definitely gives it more of an RPG-like feel.

The biggest focus here is on the story, and I’d say that’s where Death Mark II shines. I think I enjoyed the story of the first Death Mark the best still, but this one comes in second. It’s a dark story with some interesting twists, the individual spirits’ stories are also good, and it highlights everything with some truly unsettling deaths. They went all out on the body horror for the victims.

Unfortunately, it’s not very scary. I know I said that about NG, but Death Mark II is even less scary than that. Despite the game having a warning about jumpscares and the option to turn them off, the jumpscares pretty much always happen when you load a new area and become sadly predictable. I miss the scares of Death Mark and NG, and I can’t help but think the switch to side-scrolling contributed to their loss the most.

One more gripe before I move on – the title. From the moment it was announced as Death Mark II, I criticized the name for being confusing since it’s the third game in the series. Now I think I understand why they went with that title, first because it stars the same protagonist as Death Mark, and second because it’s set before NG. Chronologically, it’s the second game. But it bugs me that the term Death Mark referred to something in the first game’s plot but doesn’t really have anything to do with this game’s plot at all. I wish they had gone with a different title. (During one of the voice acted parts, I’m pretty sure I heard a character say “shibito” at one point, which got me thinking about its Japanese title Shibito Magire and how different its English title is.)

Anyway, it is what it is. Death Mark II. I devolved into complaining near the end here, so I want to repeat that I enjoyed this game. Investigating and finding the hidden collectibles was fun, I enjoyed the story and seeing the old cast again, and I appreciated how getting the good ending was a lot more straightforward this time. I even went through the final couple of chapters a second time to get the true ending as well.

If you liked the first two Spirit Hunter games, it’s worth playing Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II. It’s probably the weakest of the three, but it’s still an enjoyable, spooky adventure – and a perfect one for Halloween.

Now, the real question is if we’ll have a fourth Spirit Hunter game to to review two years from now. One can only hope.